Beverly and Patrick Smith were not strangers when they approached me about shooting their wedding. Patrick is actually a co-worker of mine at the Chattanooga Times Free Press and he and his beautiful wife are good friends, so I was thrilled that they asked me to document their wedding day.
The two are Chattanooga locals, but decided to have their special day in Beverly's picturesque hometown of Whitesville, Kentucky where horses, pickup trucks and faded red barns are as abundant as the rolling green hills.
The morning of the big day came and you could feel a little extra nervousness, other than pre-marriage jitters, in the air. The couple's eyes continued to peek out of the windows looking up to the grey clouds that were releasing their wet wedding present to the earth. Moments before the ceremony began, as if the weather was following the same schedule as the rest of us, the rain subsided and skies cleared above St. Mary's of the Wood Catholic Church. The soft light provided by the clouds was perfect for portraits following the ceremony and allowed us to stay dry as we traveled to the The Miller House in Owensboro for the post wedding extravaganza. The entire day turned out to be perfect, exactly what these special people deserved.
The wedding was a blast but the best quote I heard from the groom was actually a few weeks prior during his bachelor party weekend. Since the groom's best man resides in California, he was unable to throw Patrick an official bachelor party. Because of this I decided to take on the role of organizer and managed get a few guys together to have a modest evening of male bonding. At one point while we were out in downtown Chattanooga someone walked up to the groom and said: "You sure have a good best man here (pointing at me) he is taking great care of you." Without hesitation Patrick replied: "That's not my best man, that's my photographer!"
