Ireland

As a wedding photographer, i’m so passionate and excited about documenting and sharing your stories. And yet, I so often forget to capture my own. I gave myself permission to do that on this trip to Ireland. At first, I wasn’t sure which medium I would choose to most accurately relay our shared experience. I had brought multiple digital and film cameras, but as soon as we arrived I knew it had to be Super 8. Nothing else could capture the feeling so perfectly.

We were there to document Katherine and Brian’s beautiful day in Waterford, but we took a week to explore and digest as much of the country as we possibly could. The sun greeted us every single day of our trip, a rare and welcome occurrence. I spent the first day of my twenty ninth year roaming the Cliffs of Moher, and the ground gifted us with wildflowers that Riley lovingly crafted into a birthday bouquet. That night in Galway, we were surrounded by laughter, music, and the smell of cigarettes and as we danced our way from pub to pub. Noreen, our host, welcomed us each morning with fresh breakfast. I truly don’t know which was better, the scones or our morning conversations. Our bellies were full of soup and bread and sore from our non-stop laughter. We toasted with pints of Guinness in Dublin. We marveled at all the sheep dotting the green hills as we drove from coast to coast. We watched the kids gossip and play stickball in their uniforms at the local park at the end of the school day. We ran up and down sand dunes overlooking the ocean as we breathed in the salty coastal air.

I could recount each detail of our experience, but what made this trip so special was doing it all with these friends. I think the love we all share for each other is evident in this video, and I couldn’t have imagined it any other way. It sounds cheesy but the intentional time spent together was the best part of it all. And I am just so grateful.