A Summer Wedding

I can't adequately express how thrilled I am to be writing this post. One of our dearest friends, Carl, who is the jolliest fellow in the world (not exaggerating. he's the jolliest fellow in the world.) just married his glorious bride Natalie, who is kind, beautiful, and oh the time we had together sobbing during 'Les Miserables'. She's the wonderfullest!

Their story is a modern fairytale. They began dating a couple of years after I met Andrew. Carl and Andrew were roommates at the time, along with our friend Aadip, and Andrew's twin brother, and his twin brother's girlfriend (now wife). Got all that?

But for bewildering reasons I chalk up to a strange misalignment of the stars and planets, Carl and Natalie parted ways for a time. About 7 years worth of time, during which Natalie moved to Europe, and Carl moved around the country a bit, and eventually found his way back to our area. He became The Person Julia Adores Most in this World. My kiddo completely idolizes Carl. It seriously caused me extreme gastric distress at the thought that this amazing person might not end up with the right girl and have a family someday.

Then one day, the right girl appeared again. And now they're married.  And all is right with the world.

I set myself a wee challenge of sorts. Although they had a wedding photographer, I decided to shoot as much of their wedding as possible, because 1) Julia was a flower girl and 2) I wanted to see what kind of photo quality I could achieve.

My reward for crawling all over the floor in my dress and lugging a camera around on a hot hot day was that the bride said she cried when she saw my photos, and Carl told me the nicest thing ever: "Melissa, you are an amazing photographer! You have a real gift."

I'm so happy they were happy!! And I think I'm going to take a few photography classes in the fall and actually learn what all my camera does, so that I can really chase my love for capturing beautiful moments on film. Or a digital memory card.

Let me show you some of their fabulous day.....

All of these fabulous hairstyles on the bridesmaids and flower girls? The bride did it all, on the day of the wedding. Before she started getting ready herself. She didn't even look stressed!

The bride's brother performed the wedding ceremony and it was one of the most beautiful wedding speeches I've ever heard. He described Carl and Natalie's time apart from each other as "the story just didn't seem to be written right.....  

Can you believe her face? I've always thought of Natalie as a kind of living sculpture, with those cheekbones (!), and overall bone structure. She reminds me of a fairy queen.

There were junior bridesmaids! Flower girls! Baby cousin flower girls! All resembling little peach blossoms.

Can you imagine what I thought of all of those Japanese parasols, me the avid Japan fan? I looooooved them, that's what. Hey, who's that handsome fellow up there? OH I MARRIED HIM. Andrew and I had a very different kind of wedding. It was a Christmas, winter wedding! (you can see more of our wedding here as well. i love weddings.)

Julia turned to me at one point and whispered, "Mama, I think this is the best day of my life." She was so in love with her peach flower girl dress, with her fancy hair, with the fun and beauty of it all. She was also pretty thrilled with the s'mores station action that was going on.

It was a beautiful day, a happy and fun wedding, and the bride looked like she stepped out of a vintage Vogue magazine. And our beloved friend Carl never looked so happy in his life. I can't believe these two found each other again. Life is SO WEIRD and full of amazing surprises, and sometimes really good things happen to really good people. I love it when that happens.