One good picture

Weddings have gotten terribly out of hand.  Even our wedding was too much, and we tried to keep it as simple as possible.  We had originally hoped to keep it really, really small and simple, but thanks to some backhanded comments from the peanut gallery it grew to be a bit more than that.  But that's another story, I digress.

So where were we?  Oh, yes, weddings have gotten too out of hand.  I think that people try to turn it into such a production and they forget that the entire point is not to build up such elaborate pomp and circumstance but to revel in the fact that two people are making a commitment to God and not just to each other.  I don't believe there should be a year (or more) of planning and feeding someone's inner narcissistic monster.  I don't believe that on your wedding day you should feel like you are be followed by paparazzi. 

Really, all you need to remember your wedding day is one good picture. 

Think about looking back on your parents' and grandparents' wedding pictures.  One picture is worth way more than 1,000 words.  No doubt that in their pictures they look fresh faced, perhaps a bit flushed, excited, nervous, overjoyed, anxious, scared, happy - all of those things.  No doubt that when the majority of those pictures were taken there was not a professional photographer prompting them to elicit all these emotions and "tilt your head to the left - chin down." 

Am I slamming all photographers?  Well, I'm not trying to, believe it or not.  I love photographing things.  Am I drawing some sort of parallel between the amount of pictures one must have of themselves and their level of narcissism and the declining length of the average marriage?  Perhaps, but that's more of one parallel and one inverse correlation, but now we're just splitting hairs.  Believe it or not, in some sort of twisted way I'm trying to get back to my original point - 40 years from now you need to be able to look back on your wedding day, holding the hand of the person you married and look at just one good picture. 

On that note, happy belated 40th to my aunt and uncle, and happy 30th to my folks.  Congrats on your marriages and getting one good picture.