Pasadena Church Point Wedding

Celine & Matt

The first image above, to me, represents everything I loved about this day. Community. Tradition. The mixture of love and overwhelm and romance and friendship and familiarity and strangeness and connection and kindness and energy and quietness and chaos that often plays out. The fact that, even on a wedding day - you are signifying you are joining your life to someone but you are still your own. The way she’s looking at him. The way everyone else is looking at him. The fact you don’t have to see his face to know exactly what expression it’s probably bearing whilst he’s being passed a few tissues. Celine and Matt sat (…Celine sat, Mat stood / knelt to get a closer view), while 15 or so of their closest sang and chanted in Hebrew as they greeted each other before the ceremony. It was electric. Being in the middle of it all my entire body broke out in goosebumps.

This is why some traditions endure and are worth holding on to. Experiences like this can’t not lift everyone present. Can’t not impact you in some subtle but important way.
Why marriage is (…I believe, for some people) still relevant in this modern world. These rituals have power because we choose to give them so. Traditions like this one aren’t obviously available to everyone, but I strongly believe that the act of choosing to get married, even of simply critically thinking about how you want to spend the rest of your life and why you want to spend it with this person in particular can cement and deepen your relationship, can make you realise all of the things about this person and this life you are grateful for.

What a bloody joy to bare witness to such extremities of experience every week.

In less high minded chat, keep an eye out for some of my favourite moments of all and sundry literally towling down and watering Celine and Mat as the revelries kicked into another gear.

Enjoy

Dane

 

INSTAGRAM @THESALTYSHUTTER

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