Arkansas Bride + Charleston Groom + NYC Couple = Bentonville Wedding.
I’m not honestly even sure if Macy and Cory are in Africa yet. They’re absolutely on their honeymoon for the next few weeks but there was absolutely no way I was going to wait that long to share what Saturday looked like. Like a dream editorial torn right out of Vogue Weddings,
Macy and Cory’s wedding at the Crystal Bridges Museum was every bit as much a work of art as the pieces hanging on the walls in the gallery.
If you’ve read this blog often you know we’ve pretty much written the book at this point on Crystal Bridges wedding photos. In fact we literally wrote the “How to plan a Crystal Bridges wedding” guide that has helped shape so many of these events. But the secret truth here is that we’ve danced in these halls with couples from all over the world who all have their own stories and each one is a little different. Macy is an Arkansas girl with enormous dreams, a Princeton education and a killer job in Manhattan. She’s generous, beautiful, gracious, and though one hilarious toast at the rehearsal dinner at Blake St on Friday night called her out for a nickname “Money Manning” and even suggested she run for president (which had all of the groomsmen chanting USA, USA) the Macy I’ve gotten to know during all of this wedding planning has been much more down to earth than all of that. Nonetheless this wedding was designed to be the ultimate dream event for the ultimate dream bride and no stone was left unturned.
Cory is a perfect other half. He’s quiet, confident, athletic, successful, and absolutely able to roll with the punches. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes the best way to get to know a couple quickly is to lean into the energy that their friends bring to a room and try to understand how they fit in with it all. Macy is the leader of her pack. Her girls adore her, protect her, laugh and love every opportunity to celebrate her. Cory’s dudes are wild, loud, bold. A room of type A’s on both sides and two genuinely wonderful people connecting the two sides.
It’s so easy at weddings like this to get lost in the details and assume that luxury is just for luxury’s sake…
but that would totally miss all of the intentionality behind the decisions that were made just to get here. The florals were unbelievable, the lighting was perfect. The cake had to have been 8 feet tall. The band kept the dance floor absolutely packed all night with wild people only taking breaks to grab perfectly crafted cocktails and eat late night truffle fries. The details are so important but I’ve seen a number of weddings in my career where all of the details were there and for some reason it just didn’t work.
This one worked. And worked. And worked.
I walked into the door about 30 minutes early just in time to see Macy rewriting the vows a little more intentionally in the books her and Cory would take with them to the first look. Her smile and huge hug made me feel more like a lifelong friend than the guy with the cameras. I didn’t get the chance to see Cory until right before the first look but his anxious smile and excitement to see her was absolutely obvious. She spent a few hours getting all dolled up. She sipped champagne with her girlfriends in their robes, got into her dress with just her mom in the room and wandered the museum laughing and soaking up memories but this moment where he waited for her at the end of a long beautiful glass hallway was the time where everything stood still. He absolutely couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The compliments rolled off of his lips about her hair, her makeup, her dress. She snuggled into his chest and the quiet secret of all of these moments is the way they’re all captured. Two film makers, two photographers worked quietly, tactfully making sure we caught it all but these two teams are focused perhaps on something a little unique to the industry as a whole.
I love working with Dave and a Camera so much. (don’t miss the official sneak peek wedding film above) Dave Abbot has been a friend for a long long time. I photographed his wedding about 10 years ago now and watching his company grow has been such a cool experience for me. Of course next to me was Jared, the photographer that joins me for most of our two photographer gigs. He and I all but read each other’s minds these days but for as much fun as all of us having creating these images and films the thing that drives us isn’t the work - it’s the people. We love these people and if I’m totally honest maybe even a little more than most, we love THESE people. So though we’d direct a bit, help with some posing ideas, prompt movement from time to time the goal here wasn’t to create images, it was to capture moments. To be so plugged in and so present that was is real, authentic, honest is about 90% of what is captured and the other 10% is simply cleaning up the details. Macy + Cory got it right off the bat, though they had a chance to practice it a bit with me at the New York Public Library a few months ago for their engagement session.
If you haven’t seen those photos you’re missing out. (Keep scrolling though because I’ll share a few favorites below) It was a special day where we just happened to be I think the last people inside the library after they closed. What had been corridors filled with tourists became our own little playground for a few special moments and before we headed downtown to their apartment and then for a little walk to battery park we had the chance to just see NYC through their eyes. The way those moments spilled into this wedding day was profound.
Two people, two families, two sets of friends who were so present and so content with the authentic that they didn’t want to change it, and so confident in our ability to capture it that they almost forgot we were there altogether, or maybe even more special were fully aware that we were there but not distracted by the cameras in our hands.
So the foundation was laid. The most beautiful, kind bride. The most confident, caring groom. A multi billion dollar art museum. A wedding planner who could execute at this place better than anybody else surrounded by a staff of vendors and friends who all totally understood the vision. 300 friends and family members eager to simply celebrate love in it’s most beautiful expression and there in the middle of a perfect storm this artsy guy with a big stupid grin on his face and a camera in his hands. An absolutely enormous thank you to Macy + Cory, to their families, to their wild wedding party and guests and friends, and to the list of friends below who made a wedding like this a reality. I have shot weddings on volcanos and beaches, fjords and California wineries, in the middle of a city of 9,000,000 people and in the middle of nowhere with just the 3 of us. Seen weddings with 1,000 guests and 0 guests, $250,000 floral budgets and wildflowers picked by the side of the road and each has been perfect in its own way. This one was as close to perfect in every way as I can imagine. XOXO - Miles.
