Four weddings, told start to finish

A small family ceremony on the beach at Kiawah Island, a sand ceremony with both sets of parents, and portraits in the surf as the sun went down.

Emma and James wanted their families close and their feet in the sand. They kept the guest list to 24, set a wooden table at the edge of the dunes and timed the ceremony for the last hour of sun.

Their parents joined hands over the unity candles, then the two of them poured a sand ceremony to keep on a shelf at home. After the toasts we walked down to the water for twenty minutes of portraits while the light went from gold to pink.

Just the two of them for a full day in Venice: letters written in the morning, a gondola past St. Mark’s, and vows at sunset across from the Salute.

Sarah and Daniel skipped the big wedding and flew to Venice with the two of us. We planned the day around the light: quiet rooms in the morning, the canals at midday and the lagoon at sunset.

Sarah wrote her vows at a table by an open window while Daniel got ready down the hall. They read them to each other on the waterfront as the sun set behind Santa Maria della Salute, and we photographed it from a respectful distance.

A summer wedding at a timber venue among the pines, with a lawn ceremony, a few happy tears and a herd of deer at the edge of the meadow.

Hannah and Michael chose a mountain venue built from timber, surrounded by pine forest and an open meadow. The forecast said rain. It held off long enough for the ceremony on the lawn.

Michael saw Hannah walk down the aisle and didn’t try to hide it. Afterward we took a short walk into the forest for portraits, and on the way back a herd of deer came out to graze at the tree line. We had about four minutes. We used all of them.

A sunrise hike to the Old Man of Storr, vows in the clouds and a drive over the Quiraing. No guests, no schedule, and a lot of weather.

Olivia and Ben wanted a wedding that felt like an adventure. We helped them pick the island, the trails and a backup plan for every kind of weather, then met them at the trailhead before sunrise.

The fog never lifted at the Storr, and it turned out to be the best thing about the day. They said their vows with the pinnacles fading in and out of the cloud, and by the afternoon the sky had cleared enough over the Quiraing to see the whole valley.