Friday, December 28, 2007

Who needs pictures anyways?

When I first started planning this wedding, Dad was the picture of health. Ok, maybe an overweight, non-active picture, but a healthy picture nonetheless. When I interviewed the first photographer, he recommended that I make a list of all of the pictures that I definitely want. My list looked pretty typical:

  • Us
  • Me & my siblings
  • Us & my family
  • Us & my extended family
  • Us & his family
  • Etc., etc., etc.
My thought was that for the first time in a long time, the entire family will be together and all dressed up so we should take advantage and get lots of pictures of all of us. BOY has that changed! Shortly after Dad died, one of my first thoughts was that I definitely do NOT want wedding pictures because Dad will be obviously absent from them. Almost one month later, I still feel the same way.

Would I regret this decision later in life? Possibly. But I don't think so. I'm not a huge picture person in the first place, and I think it would be immeasurably harder for me to have to stand around for family photos without Dad there & then later look through those pictures knowing that he had to miss such a fun occasion.

I think what I'd rather do is have just candid pictures on the wedding day & then get dressed back up later in the summer and go get pictures of just us, with no additional family. Then I still get nice pictures of us without having to have the whole wedding photo experience.