All because 6 people fell in love.

A few weeks ago, a picture circulated around our family's email that my uncle sent out taken of my grandparents.

"Kind of reminds you of a high school prom picture," my uncle Chip wrote with a "tee hee" following.

The picture was taken for my grandparent's church directory, and yes, it was your typical posed studio shot with Grandma's hands resting on Grandpa's shoulder. Seeing the picture, I wrote back "I see I need to get my camera on Grandma and Grandpa for some non-high-school prom pics of them."

And today I did.

I'm in Orlando to shoot a wedding for Chrissy and Chris (This weekend I will be publishing Chrissy's awesome Bridal Glamour video, but having to wait until she debuts it at the wedding. Check back soon!). My grandparents also live in Orlando and tonight were dressed up on their way to a double date with their best friends, Mr. and Mrs. Seminara, who they have known for over 55 years. As they headed out, I grabbed my camera to capture how dashing the love birds looked.

It's one thing to shoot other people, but when shooting my own grandparents and watching them share kisses, I couldn't help but think "I'm here today because those crazy kids fell in love 56 years ago." (Well, April 21st it will be officially 56 years!)

After they left, I went back to the bedroom to put my camera up and looked at the pictures Grandma has framed in the room of both sets of my great-grandparents. I was never able to meet either set of them, but I really took a moment to look at their pictures and study the features in their faces that I could see were passed down through the generations. And as I stood there looking at the pictures, I thought again, "I'm here today because these 4 people fell in love."

That's one thing I love about being a wedding photographer. With each wedding, it's such an honor to me to be able to witness the beginning of a generation between the union of the bride and the groom. And it humbles me to know that God is using me to capture the photographs for them that will be passed on through their children, and their children's children and beyond. And maybe one day they too will look at a picture I took 50 years from now and think 'I'm here all because these two people fell in love.'

(By the way, that's a great to song download, "Two People Fell in Love" by Brad Paisley)

Here's the pictures from today:


My Grandma's parents, the Bunton's, from Beufort, South Carolina. This picture was taken on their 50th wedding anniversary.



My Grandpa's parents, the Bowdren's, from upstate New York. Cool fact about them, they were both deaf, and raised 5 boys!



My grandparents, Larry and Mary Bowdren.



Grandma smitten by Grandpa!



Ok, so believe it or not, my grandma is a huge fan of America's Next Top Modelalso. You should hear her go on about who's dissing who and who deserves to be the winner and who deserves to go home. It's so funny! It rocks to have a hip grandma. So for fun while we were waiting for Grandpa, I told her to do a sassy supermodel pose. And let me tell you, she didn't hesitate to whip that hand on the hip and do her serious model face. Go Grandma, you darling diva you!