Chapter 1

Well, here it was, the weekend after Labor Day, and I was heading to a wedding. I wasn’t in it, nor was I a guest. I was The Photographer.

Now, a lot of my colleagues would try to have you believe that you really needed to have pose-craft down cold; that each pose had to be perfect and so they would make more stress for themselves and everyone else involved out of what was a pretty stressful situation to begin with. Yeah, lighting and posing are important, but not at the expense of getting everyone upset with the photographer.

I figured that nothing is perfect, so why stress over the unattainable? In my mind as long as the photographer gets the important pictures, things like the bride, the groom, the families, everything else would take care of itself, and usually did. I was often booked because I had a reputation for solid photography, good rapport with the bridal couple and, probably most important, crowd control. It never failed, but by the end of a wedding reception, the father of the bride (who usually was the one paying my fees) and/or the father of the groom would come up to me, shake my hand and say something like, “I don’t know how you did it, but you kept this thing moving. Thanks.”

Anyway, I was on my way, and since it was a fair distance from where I lived, I had booked a local hotel (actually, the same one where the bride and groom were staying) for Friday and Saturday night. I like going to the rehearsal; it gives me any number of advantages the next day. One, if there were children involved, I could be introduced to them. I would be a stranger to them on Friday, but usually by Saturday, they knew who I was and were more relaxed around me. That meant better pictures and far less stress. There’s nothing more stressful than a screaming child; just ask any parent!

It also allowed me a chance to get acquainted with both sides of the wedding party and both sides of the families involved. Sometimes, I’d have been warned about certain family members (usually mothers) being difficult, and my presence and my ability to project a strong, positive, professional image would often head off trouble.

Being at the rehearsal also allowed me some time with the minister and I often helped get people into the right position, cueing their entrances, etc. It was usually work, but I didn’t charge extra for my expertise, and it helped me the next day because everyone knew I knew what was going on. It stopped a lot of problems in their tracks.

All-in-all, my quirks were all calculated to project an air of confident competence. It’s truly amazing what you can accomplish if people think you know what you’re doing.

At the beginning of this little narrative, I probably should have used the pronoun “we”, as in “we were on our way to a wedding”. Naomi, my regular wedding assistant could not be with me this time. She had young children, and when she heard that it was going to be an overnight trip, she balked. She had been my assistant for a number of years, starting back when she was in high school. I knew her well, and her opinion of her husband’s ability to cope with the children for a couple of days was shared by me. As a result, I had to book someone else as my assistant.

My first choice, of course, was my girlfriend, Lou. She had a good eye and people liked her. Moreover, I could give her a camera and I knew her pictures would be first rate. When she was not taking candid pictures, she would be assisting me in getting people together for the group pictures and keeping me on track and sane. I tend to be a little manic at weddings, so someone telling me to take a deep breath once in a while is important.

When I first broached the idea with Lou back in July, she was pretty reluctant. Gradually, over a couple of dates and during pillow talk, I found out why. It seems that Lou was once engaged, something I didn’t know. Her fiancé, despite professing undying love for her, couldn’t keep his pants zipped up. When Lou found out that the night before the rehearsal he had fucked her maid of honor, it was the last straw. She had called off the wedding at the rehearsal dinner, causing quite a scene. She and her parents had to eat the costs of the wedding, as they couldn’t get any kind of refunds at such a late date, and it had caused a rift between her and her mother. Her mother was crazy, of course, and this drove them further apart, but the real tragedy was the strain it put on her relationship with her father.

So, while not putting marriage and weddings down for other people, Lou was rather averse to it for herself. She had not been to a wedding, either since her disaster, so she was reluctant, to say the least, to attend one where she didn’t know anyone (except me, of course).

However, I asked her very nicely, and promised that after the wedding we could stay in town a couple of days and do some sight-seeing. Believe me, that wasn’t a top priority of mine, but if it made Lou happy, then I was happy. Everyone that I knew, once they had met Lou, urged me to do whatever I could to keep her happy, as they all thought she was a one-in-a-million woman. I had to agree with their assessment.

As we were driving, I was telling Lou what I knew of the happy couple. Cole Harper, the groom was a tall, athletic blonde guy with a very easy smile. He seemed like a very nice guy, if a bit quiet around his fiancé. She, on the other hand, was the quintessential cheerleader type: bright, bubbly, somewhat shorter than Cole, but just as blonde. Her name was Gina, and she would have been a flyer on a cheerleading squad, the girl at the top of the pyramids, the one that flew through the air. Bubbly and blonde, a cheerleader all the way, she might have been, she was by no means stupid. In fact, she was the brains of the outfit. She was also one in charge, and Cole seemed to be very happy being led around by Gina.

I also explained to Lou that her primary job was to help keep track of the pictures we took, to make sure that I didn’t forget any important groups. I had a list for that, and she could check off the types of pictures as we did them. I also had some schedules made up so everyone would know what was expected of them and when and what groups they’d be in. I kept that pretty general, but there’d be no question of who, what and when once we started taking pictures.

Lou told me that she’d never even been in a wedding, since she didn’t go to church, she didn’t know what to expect. I think she was a bit apprehensive about being in a church, period.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” I said. “It’s a Methodist church and ceremony, so there’s no getting up and down once the ceremony gets going. Everybody stands when the bride walks in, sits down when the minister says to, and then gets up when the bride and groom leave. Very simple.”

“What do I do?” she asked timidly. Maybe I didn’t really understand her anxiety.

“That’s simple too,” I replied. “You may need to be in the very back helping to cue the bridesmaids when to start walking down the aisle, then hightail it up the stairs to man the camera in the balcony. I’ll have it on a tripod and set on automatic, so all you do is snap the important pictures, things like the father kissing the bride, the readers, the preacher and, of course, ‘the kiss’.”

“Is that all?” she asked, sarcastically. “That sounds like a lot!”

“Don’t worry too much. I’ll be up there, too. Could you take some pictures of the bride getting ready before we start the main pictures?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, something like her getting the garter on, or maybe the dress being laced up, the veil being put on and adjusted, maybe last-minute make-up, etc. Any problems with that?”

“No,” she answered. “Basically, just shots of the brides and bridesmaids, moms and flower girls, right?” I nodded. “Do you want anything naughty?” she asked, batting her eyes.

I hesitated. “You dog, you!” she shouted gleefully as she punched me in the shoulder. “I should have known.” She laughed and I did, too. I glanced at her when she finished laughing. A look of concern crossed her face. She turned toward me, leaning against the door.

“Why do you do it, Jonny?” she asked. “Why do you do weddings? It can’t be for the money. I do your taxes and accounting, remember, so I know what you’re worth, and you don’t need the wedding money. So, why?”

I sat there silently for a few miles, Lou sitting there, watching me. I don’t think I’d ever really examined why I continued to photograph weddings. In its heyday, I was photographing thirty to forty weddings each year and it was the major part of my income. However, getting a reputation as a portrait and corporate photographer had increased my income so I increased the fees on weddings to the point where I was only doing ten to fifteen weddings per year, and those were very exclusive clients. No, I didn’t need the money.

So, why? I searched my mind for a glib answer. I had to search very hard; only the answer wasn’t very glib or funny.

“I think I like the challenge, Lou,” I said, finally. “Each wedding is different and unique, each one with its own charm and opportunities. I think I also like the pats on the back I get before I leave, the people telling me what a good job I’ve done. That’s a hell of an ego booster, believe me!”

She thought about that for a couple of minutes. “Naomi tells me that you’ve cut way back on the weddings, that you only take on those with young and beautiful people. Why?”

I was again silent for a few minutes. I glanced over at Lou and she was just sitting there patiently. I reviewed the past couple of years and I could see that I had stopped doing weddings where the mother had seemed to run things, where the couple argued or if they balked at my prices. Those I referred to other photographers I could endorse. I was, I guess, cherry-picking. So, why did I still do weddings at all? I could see the answer, but it was coming from a dark place in my psyche.

“Now that you mention it, I guess I have been more selective,” I said. “I’m not sure why I do it, then. Maybe I like happy people, and weddings are generally very happy times. The brides always look so...” I stopped before I said too much.

However, Lou wasn’t going to let it go. “The brides always look so, what?”

“Innocent, I guess,” I said, reluctantly. “The brides in their white dresses always look so innocent. They may dress like whores every other day, but in the church, dressed in white, they look so innocent. The grooms usually look so ... hopeful, I guess is the word I’m looking for, and usually everybody is pretty happy.”

“Innocent, huh?” said Lou and with a snort. I could only nod. “White dresses? Come on, Jonny. I think I know you better than that. I think there’s something more.” She shut up at that point and waited me out. Who did she think she was, my girlfriend or my shrink?

Well, she was, I guess. And I guess she was both. It was apparent that she wanted to know my motivations, but why I couldn’t tell. The differences in our ages seemed to preclude any kind of long term, permanent relationship. However, she had made a statement, and she deserved an answer.

I knew why I thought the women, girls, really, looked so innocent. “They all remind me of Cindy, I guess, and our wedding night. You know she was only 16 when we were married, right?” Lou nodded. “I wasn’t much older, only 17, but I was going off to war, so we got married. We had such big plans!” I looked over at Lou and waggled my eyebrows at her. “Of course, I am also reminded of the wedding night!” I declared.

“You would remember that,” said Lou, laughing.

“Well, the dresses sure are sexier than when I got married, that’s for sure!” I said, joining her in her laughter. “So much flesh on display! I can’t count the number of times a bride has had a wardrobe malfunction!”

“Well, what do you think of my dress, Jonny?” she asked in a little girl voice. She has used that voice on me with great success. It always means something kinky is coming!

The dress in question looked great on her, and I had said so when I picked her up. It was white and made of a very slippery-feeling material, like rayon, satin or maybe silk. It had an Empire waistline, gathered just below the swell of her breasts. The bodice showed a fair amount of cleavage, and the hemline was very short in the front, a little longer in the back, allowing her to sit on the dress if she chose to. She chose not to, and the dress billowed when she sat, settling around her above her knees. The hemline was so short that I could almost see her panties.

When I picked her up at her door, she had handed me two suitcases and a garment bag, then pirouetted for me in the doorway. Her dress flared up, exposing her bum. “You like?” she asked.

“Oh, I like,” I said. “I like very much!” The dress, as I said was gathered under her breasts, with a bit of piping in dark blue. The piping continued around the back where it formed a little sash-like affair that was tied off in a neat bow. The neckline was scooped and was elasticized all around. From the waistline, high beneath her breasts, the dress fell in a straight line to the hemline, well above her knees. She looked absolutely adorable in it, a regular baby doll. She had even pulled her hair back with a couple of barrettes.

“I like it a lot,” I repeated. “But aren’t you afraid that someone might think you’re pregnant? If you don’t stand up very straight, someone could think that, very easily.”

She had just giggled at the time, locked her door and then took my arm. We went out to the van and I put her bags next to mine and her garment bag on the hook over the rear door. I thought of that pirouette now, as I was driving.

I looked over at her, leaning against the door. She had taken the neckline and stretched it out over her shoulders so that the bodice took on a peasant blouse look. She leaned toward me, and the neckline gaped a little with the weight of her unfettered breasts, giving me a down-blouse view of her breast. She gave her shoulders a little shake and everything shimmied delightfully!