SJ Wedding Photographer | Auletto Caterers, Almonesson, NJ | In Your Eyes
Gather round, my friends. It's love story time.
But this time, I am going to tell two love stories that involve three people. Intriguing, right?
There is, of course, the love story of our bride and groom. These two people who so graciously invited me into their first home for their engagement portraits and took me in as though I were family. These two people who shared their love for their adorable furchildren with me and who so clearly demonstrated their passion for each other, their devotion to each other, their support of each other, and honestly, and most of all...their commitment to each other. Their palpable bond that this couple shares. They are in it to win it. Their bond is one that will only be broken by death. Nothing life has or will throw at them will break them. They know life will give them challenges that they will have to battle but their track record shows...they can do handle it. Because they have done it time and again. And their love has only strengthened.
But you know all that. Most couples I meet have a similar story; that's the point of marriage, right? You and me vs. the world, right?
So what I want to talk about, in addition to their love story, is the OTHER love story I witnessed on this blessed day at Auletto Caterers in Almonesson. I witnessed another love story in which the two people involved shared a love and a devotion and a different sort of passion but a very similar commitment. A lifelong commitment to be by each other's sides through thick and thin.
This was not the love of a husband for a wife...but a Maid of Honor for her Best Friend.
A love that started so very long ago and a love that runs so deep, it was clear this relationship transcended friendship and has crossed over into sisterhood. And as someone who has also fallen in love with this bride (it's kind of hard not to, you'll see why down below), this gave me immense joy to witness. To see this woman, who is so resplendent and whose personality is as captivating as her goddesslike beauty, be so loved upon by her bestest of besties on this day, just made me smile. And not just her Maid of Honor, but all her attendants. Every woman chosen to be by this bride's side was so demonstrative in her love for her. The fact that she was surrounded by love brought me joy. Because this day could have been spent wishing and yearning for the one person who could not be in attendance. The one person who only mere months before this day left her daughter behind as she made her journey to heaven. The woman who, upon death, veritably left her daughter alone, as any girl feels when her mother leaves this world.
But she didn't.
She was never alone.
Because when her mother did pass on that heartbreaking day, she passed knowing that she was leaving her daughter in FOUR loving and supporting arms. She would never be without those four loving arms of her husband nor her best friend/sister. The same arms that supported her in her grief are the same arms that supported her on her most special day. From the moment she woke up until the moment she laid her head down on her pillow that night, as someone's wife, they were there. And in a few short months, the circle of life will continue and this beautiful mesmerizingly sweet caring adorable funny amazing woman will use her arms to cradle someone else. Someone very special.
Their baby daughter.
Thank you as always to the always stupendous Laura Napoli, my partner in crime. Also thank you to Jessica Ashman for making the day all the more excellent with your awesome assistance (and not outing to anyone how I dropped the bride's ring and momentarily lost it in the aforementioned Maid of Honor's bag!)!
Click here to see the conclusion to their day.