marshall wedding

i have had many, many jobs. i’ve worked at a gym, a pizza place, a ski resort, a day-care and a white-water rafting company. i have waitressed in a restaurant where the cooks would suddenly fly into rageaholic outbursts and trash the kitchen under a rain of german expletives. i cleaned the disgusting rooms of spoiled contiki tourists in a hostel in spain. i learned to love africa through my work with a health ngo in the heart of uganda. i briefly taught aerobics. and every summer for 5 years i laboured under the hot canadian sun on a blueberry farm.

my varied career in dabbling has provided me with a multitude of valuable lessons, such as: ‘as soon as they switch to german, get out of the kitchen’. but one thing i know to be true is that i can work anywhere happily as long as the people are good.

now that i work for myself, by myself, the only people i have are my brides. so they need to be good. i am ‘not available’ for every email inquiry that is cc’d to 56 other photographers and contains chat acronyms. just saying.

i could tell right away that belinda was going to be a good one. she was friendly, considerate, funny and self-depricating: my kind of bride! when i arrived at the stunning cathedral peak hotel, she was slowly getting ready after first making sure everyone else was taken care of. she even ordered me room service while i was supposed to be shooting her wedding and forced me to sit down to eat with her.

she had dreamt of getting married on top of that mountain since her childhood holidays there. so when it started pouring during our portrait shoot and she felt ill during the reception she was still all smiles. she had her mountains, she had her graham. she just smiled. as the night progressed through the most hilarious speeches and dance moves too incriminating to post here, everyone had reason to smile.

and i smiled too. because i love my job. because my people are good.