In the first chapter of Zack and Candice’s story, I wrote about two pre-wedding photo sessions that took us to PNC Recital Hall and the Government Center. Both places were more than backdrops. They gave us a chance to make photographs that reflected pieces of who Zack and Candice are and the lives they share.
I ended that post looking forward to October, when Melanie and I would pick their story back up on their wedding day. I expected music, friends, family, and a full dance floor. I also knew that this would be one of those rare occasions when friendship, music, performance, and photography would all come together in the same place.
Spoiler alert: I wasn’t wrong. October arrived, and with it came all the moments I knew would be there—but, like any good wedding, there were also plenty that couldn’t have been planned.
People they could count on
Zack and Candice wanted their wedding day to be shaped by people they knew and trusted. That included the friends and family celebrating with them, as well as the people helping bring everything together.
Uptown was already booked to play the reception when Zack mentioned that they hadn’t yet found a photographer. I offered to help, but he was hesitant. He knew I would be playing with the band and wanted me to enjoy the day as a guest, too. He didn’t want to ask too much of me.
I assured him we could make it work. Melanie and I could photograph the day together, and when Uptown took the stage, she could continue documenting the reception. Eventually, they agreed.
I wrote before that Melanie and I would get to help create Zack and Candice’s wedding memories. I knew we would be there to photograph the day, but being invited to participate in it as friends was a whole different story. It is always an honor to be trusted to preserve someone’s wedding day. Being welcomed into it as friends—to celebrate alongside the people they love, and, in my case, to help bring the music to life with Uptown—made it all the more meaningful. We weren’t just there to capture the memories Zack and Candice were making. We also had the honor of helping create them.
A place with a story of its own
Zack and Candice held both their ceremony and reception at Spirit in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. Like the locations they chose for their pre-wedding sessions, Spirit was more than a setting for the pictures.
In December of 2018, I photographed Zack’s former band, Heavy Chest, at Spirit. I made posed band photos before a show and then photographed the performance itself. Returning to the venue for his and Candice’s wedding, with music once again at the center of the day, gave the place another layer of meaning for me.
The day began elsewhere, though. I joined Zack and his groomsmen at his house. They spent the early afternoon hanging out, eating, having drinks, and enjoying each other’s company while I photographed their interactions as they happened.
At the same time, Melanie was with Candice and the bridesmaids at a salon near Spirit. We each had a different view of their preparations, and together we could follow both parts of the story as everyone came together.
A photo worth making again
During their Government Center session, Zack and Candice had asked for a particular photograph. I didn’t know the story behind it, but I knew it was important to them. They even used it as the image for their wedding invitations.
On their wedding day, they wanted to make it again. They ended up recreating the image three times, three different ways, in three different places throughout the day.
In the first post, I wrote about photography as a collaboration: clients bring their ideas and the parts of themselves they want reflected, while the photographer brings experience, timing, and the ability to adapt. This was one of those moments. Zack and Candice knew the image they wanted to carry forward; our part was to help them make it.
I had brought a small printer with me, so I printed the original photo from the Government Center alongside one of the new versions and gave them copies that day. I knew I had done something special when the two of them got up from their dinner and immediately began showing the prints to the people around them.
I still don’t know exactly what the photograph means to them. I don’t need to. They showed us it was important, and that’s all that matters. We had the chance to give them something they could hold and share right then, in their moment.
The moments you can’t plan
A wedding has its own unique energy. There are important moments everyone knows to anticipate: the vows, the first kiss, family portraits, and the photographs that will find their way onto walls and into albums.
But there are also moments that happen because of the people in the room and the choices they make. They can’t be recreated in quite the same way, and being ready for them means paying attention to more than a schedule.
Zack had been planning to surprise Candice with a reunion performance by Heavy Chest for months. The idea had gone through a few different versions but eventually seemed unlikely to happen due to an injury. Then a bandmate arrived with a guitar, and the possibility opened up again. Uptown made its instruments and equipment available, and Heavy Chest was able to take the stage.
As the band prepared, people gathered around Candice, taking photos with her and keeping her turned away from the stage. Melanie picked up on what was probably happening and kept her camera on Candice. She caught the exact moment Candice turned around and realized what was about to happen. You can’t script that. Not with all the variables at play.
But we weren’t done yet. Once she knew what was happening, Candice sat down on the floor in front of the stage, looking up at her new husband and his bandmates. I moved behind her and made a photograph from floor level, with Candice in the foreground and the musicians beyond her.
Heavy Chest’s song Spirit Tree is important to the band and held particular meaning for many people in attendance, including Zack. Its theme of sending energy to those no longer with us carried another layer of significance for him after losing his father when he was younger. He even took a moment before playing to speak candidly about grief, coping, and ultimately finding support in those we love.
Those two photographs show different parts of the same experience—the moment Candice discovered the surprise and the moment she sat with it. Being able to preserve something like that for someone is a privilege, whether I’ve known them for years or met them that morning. If a moment matters to them, it matters to me.
One more unexpected connection
While all of this was happening, our son Evan was participating in Shaler’s homecoming football game with the marching band. My parents had taken him so he could still be there while Melanie and I were photographing the wedding.
During the day, messages from my family revealed a connection none of us could have known—Shaler was playing Mars, where Zack and Candice are involved with the marching band. The Mars band wasn’t at that game because (surprise!) two of its directors were getting married. And, as it turned out, Melanie and I were photographing that very wedding.
Near the end of the night, I made a group photo of people from their Mars circle who had come to celebrate with them. It was a small coincidence, but it was also another glimpse of the people and communities that are part of Zack and Candice’s lives.
Beyond October
Zack and Candice have since received their wedding photo gallery. These photos, along with the original Government Center image and its three wedding-day recreations, bring a few more pieces of their story together.
When I wrote the first post, I described the wedding as the final chapter of this particular photo story, while recognizing that it would be just the beginning of Zack and Candice’s story together. Having been there for it, that feels even more true, though my door will always be open to helping them tell their next story.
The road to October brought us to Spirit, to a room full of people they love and trust, and to moments both planned and wonderfully unexpected. I’m extraordinarily grateful that Melanie and I got to be part of their special day, and both of us would like to wish Zack and Candice the best as they begin their next chapter. Maybe we’ll even be able to recreate that special photo for them at various points along their journey.
