The Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan are not accustomed to being upstaged. But Caitlin and Jodi spent their wedding day wrapped around each other, their parents, their families, and eventually most of the population of The Dumbo Loft.
The city provided brick, steel, cobblestones, a vintage yellow taxi, and some of the most-aggressively-New-York scenery available. They supplied the love.
That was true even when I was making the more composed portraits. Caitlin and Jodi could certainly hold a pose, but they seemed incapable of remaining that way. Within seconds there would be a laugh, a hand on a face, a forehead pressed against another forehead, or some new attempt to occupy the same physical space.
Then the reception began, and personal space was formally abolished.
Parents were hugged and spun across the floor. Friends sang directly into one another’s faces. The brides danced with the enthusiasm of people who had apparently agreed that dignity had served them well enough through dinner.
The photographs move between grand New York architecture and something much harder to construct: two families who could not stop reaching for one another.
And, eventually…cake!
