Natasha And Zach: Married April 8th, 2022

If you know Natasha and Zach, you know how in love and excited to tie the knot they have been since getting engaged in 2019.  Like so many couples in recent memory, their wedding plans became an exercise in hurry-up-and-wait for the World to regain some normalcy, but their patience was rewarded this April, joined by a gathering of friends and family able to converge upon the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to join in celebrating their love surrounded by art from every continent.

The day began at one of Richmond’s historic rowhouses where the wedding party got ready and toasted with a special bottle of rum Natasha and Zach picked up in Cancún and were saving for a special occasion.  Next were first looks; the emotion on Natasha’s father’s face as she came down the stairs in her dress, and later on Zach’s face as he saw her walking down the aisle.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a couple so pumped to be married - immediately following their ceremony, Zach and Natasha led the wedding party outside for pictures, across the VMFA’s public gardens packed with hundreds of people picnicking in the beautiful Spring weather; Zach yelled at the top of his lungs pointing to Natasha, “THAT’S MY WIFE!!!” to the cheers of the entire lawn, some people coming up to congratulate and take pictures with the newlyweds.

After dinner, while everyone else was dancing and partying, the three of us stole away to go explore the museum - Natasha and Zach danced and joked among exhibits, with just their infectious laughter echoing the secluded halls.  As longtime Richmond residents, and lovers of the city’s thriving art scene, it was a fitting location to mark the occasion they’ve been looking forward to for years.

Natasha and Zach: Engaged

Natasha and Zach, in all our planning over Zoom (the new norm), presented me with a new idea that I was immediately all in on: Natasha had found a farm with rolling fields of sunflowers!  I’ve shot in botanical gardens in Spring, and lavender fields in Summer, but a sunflower field was the perfect spot for an early Fall engagement session!

With weather that made the day look like a vibrant painting, Zach and Natasha explored the paths cut through the countless sunflowers, before stopping by the barn which was just beginning to prep for a pumpkin patch opening later in the week.  As the sun set on the Fredericksburg farm, I even caught a few Polaroids of the newly engaged and very upbeat couple!

While marching through the endless sunflowers, I was surprised to find that none of the sunflowers were facing the sunset; this threw me off, because I remember being fascinated as a child by how the sunflowers in my parent’s garden would rotate through the day to follow the sun (and by how tall they were above me).  Not only was I taller than all the sunflowers today, but these sunflowers weren’t rotating - I’ve learned since this shoot that only young sunflowers follow the sun due to a circadian rhythm that helps young flowers develop, but isn’t needed once reaching maturity.  This tracks with my experience, because my childhood garden’s sunflowers were grown from seeds, and the stationary flowers at this farm are either many years or generations old, depending on the variety.

Mahsa and Peyman: Married January 17th, 2021

Foreward

As I’ve mentioned in all of my posts lately, I am currently working my way though a backlog of photoshoots I have already completed and delivered, but have been behind in sharing my most recent work online.  Mahsa and Peyman’s Bridal Portrait Session is one such photoshoot; it was completed and delivered on time, this past Spring, but I was onto photographing and editing more photoshoots before getting the chance to share Mahsa and Peyman’s session.

Mahsa and Peyman: Married

Mahsa and Peyman, like so many of the couples I’ve met in the last year and a half, had their wedding plans shifted by COVID-19.  We first spoke in the Fall of 2020, with hopes of phogoraphing their engagement and later wedding, but the pandemic made having the wedding they wanted impossible, so rather than put love on hold, Mahsa and Peyman tied the knot on January 17th, 2021, with plans to hold celebrate their wedding in style with their family and loved ones at a later date once the pandemic has settled down.  Unfortunately their small ceremony didn’t allow a photographer to be present due to safety protocols, so in lieu of this, to celebrate their new marriage, we captured Bridal Portraits this Spring with Mahsa in her wedding gown and Peyman in his Tuxedo.

Mahsa’s bouquet and Peyman’s boutonnière matched the Spring colors of the botanical gardens’ cherry blossoms and lilac trees.  At an overlook in the garden, we made sure to capture their Kaleh Ghand, sugar cones rubbed together during the Sofreh Aghd to shower the newlyweds with sweetness, imparting blessings from one generation to the next.  Mahsa and Peyman were naturals in front of the camera; every moment you could see the love in their eyes as Mahsa’s playfulness and Peyman’s affectionate veneration perfectly matched and balanced one another.

Behind the Scenes

As a photographer, my goal is to do “anything to get the shot.” Oftentimes this means getting into the right spot for the moment, but sometimes that means getting into an awkward or difficult spot for a few moments. Today’s spot was down low, to include the beautiful Spring flowers in the foreground for a few portraits.

Kevin and Rhoda: The Proposal

Last week, on a snowy Sunday at Stone Tower Winery, Kevin and Rhoda spent an afternoon wine tasting and picnicking by the fire pit.  Later in their day the couple went for a tour of the winery, and at a secluded spot outside the cellars, Kevin dropped to one knee and popped the question.  After celebrating with some sparking wine, the newly engaged couple toured the winery with me for some portraits with the barrels and snow-covered vineyard hills in the background.

Rubin and Madonna: The Proposal

If you’ve ever met Rubin, you know he always has something funny to share. One of my earliest memories with Rubin is from while I was covering Ethiopian’s 787 Dreamliner being introduced into service at Washington Dulles International Airport; Rubin said, “I honestly don't know what David looks like. I think his face might look like a camera.” Some say he may not be wrong.

When Rubin told me he was planning to propose to Madonna at the Dulles airport gate where they first met, I of course was excited to help capture the moment. Rubin spent several weeks planning the proposal, coordinating with the airport and IT to make his idea of the gate display boards play clips of all the travels and memories they’ve compiled over the years of their relationship, culminating with a special flight information display for the next chapter of their relationship to take off.

To-date I’ve photographed three prior proposals, two of which were also airport proposals, but like everything in 2020, this proposal presented new challenges to solve - namely, for me, how do I blend in with a crowd that isn’t there? 2020’s coronavirus pandemic has heavily impacted the aviation industry, and during a planning walkthrough a week prior to the proposal, it became apparent my usual tactic of hiding in plain sight may prove more difficult given that gate A25 was completely abandoned. Fortunately, given the video Rubin assembled to play on the FIDS, I wouldn’t need to hide much for very long, as the jig would pretty much be up as soon as Madonna saw the video - a marked difference from other proposals I’ve captured, and I’m happy to say it worked out exactly as Rubin planned.

Funnily enough, the day-of, gate A25 wasn’t abandoned! It was populated with passengers social-distancing in groups before their flight departing from an adjacent gate, so my gambit to “look like a passenger” paid off, and happened to come in handy much earlier than I’d planned - as it would happen, Rubin and Madonna were on the same AeroTrain as me when heading over to the gate to set up, while Rubin took Madonna to his office to pretend file some paperwork in order to throw Madonna off his plans and give everyone at A25 time to get in position. When I got off the AeroTrain, I spotted the couple getting off two cars ahead of me and hopping on the escalator - I decided to stick to my plan, and follow suit with everyone else moving through the station, and I walked my rolling camera luggage and backpack onto the escalator adjacent and a few steps behind them - don’t mind me; I’m just a passenger! Later on, Rubin told me he’d spotted me, but played it cool-as-a-cucumber the same as me. I was even able to grab a few photos of them before I paid them no mind speed-walking past with my rolling bag on the way to my “flight.”

Once the time came, Rubin walked Madonna to gate A25, the gate they first met each other as airport employees, and Rubin’s video played on the FIDS with music filling the gate area. And Rubin’s plan worked, because Madonna was taken with emotion immediately. The pictures tell the rest of the story - when the “Will you marry me?” flight card showed at the end of the video, Rubin dropped to one knee to pop the question, and the rest is history!

Just being around Rubin and Madonna you can feel their energy, and seeing how happy they make each other it’s impossible not to feel happy yourself. After passengers and fellow employees and friends alike had congratulated the newly engaged couple, we took some photos to formally commemorate the occasion. As Rubin and Madonna are both longtime airport employees, and to further celebrate the place where they met, we captured portraits on the ramp with Dulles’ historic ATCT in the background as onlookers watched from passing mobile lounges and taxiing aircraft, before heading back to the Main Terminal to meet with friends and family who had gathered to congratulate the pair.

It’s 2020; you have to social-distance and wear your mask:

Also because it’s 2020, it must be said: masks were only off for photos, socially distanced from non-family members.

With the help of a mutual friend of Rubin and I, video of Rubin and Madonna’s engagement was captured from several angles, which I’ve combined to show exactly how it went down.

Dulles’ tagline is “Your Journey Begins with Us,” and for Rubin and Madonna it truly did at Gate A25.