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Kristen & Mike

Fall colors, a stiff but gentle breeze, your significant other nestling onto the shoulder of your flannel shirt. Genuine laughter, a pause, and the click of the shutter from Heather’s camera. Heather, Mike, Kristen, and I marched forward, brittle leaves crackling beneath our feet as we circled Stump Pond in Blydenburgh Park in Smithtown in fall 2019. Pre-Covid memories like these seem more like a dream, reminiscent of the pristine moments from Heather and I’s honeymoon in Jamaica. They manifest a clear division of before and after [quarantine] in my mind, where our relationships with our couples represent the light at both ends of a dark tunnel.

Kristen and Mike held their ceremony last year in East Northport, stopping in Heckscher Park in Huntington afterwards for family formals and romantics. They turned it up this year for their reception at the Riviera Waterfront Mansion in Massapequa and it did not disappoint! Although it rained, the beautifully renovated property right on South Oyster Bay allowed Kristen and Mike’s family and friends to mingle and explore, especially when the clouds let up for a short while.

Kristen and Mike took it all in stride, allowing themselves to enjoy the celebration that they waited so long for. When cocktail hour gave way to the reception, the grand entrances of the wedding party officially kick started the day. With a camera on one hip and a stuffed octopus on the other, Heather, Capa (with protective headphones) and I danced and documented these priceless moments. Seeing all of Kristen and Mike’s closest family and friends that we’d met the year before reminded us how grateful we are for being, albeit briefly, allowed into these intimate circles of our couple’s lives. Occasionally we’re even lucky enough to be invited to photograph one of their siblings or relative’s weddings!

Such is the case with Kristen’s brother, Mike, and his fiance, Caity. We’ll be photographing their wedding at Sunken Meadow State Park in August 2022 and we’re already pumped. Caity and Mike, like Kristen and Mike, are fun loving, salt-of-the-earth type people. They’re the kind of people you want to sit around a bonfire with, sharing stories, ‘smores, and a drink or two. They’re the kind of people you can count on.

And in this last year I think we’ve all needed and found the people in our lives that we can count on. I was surprised that my five siblings and I kept a weekly Zoom chat going all year. It culminated into our first family vacation together with all of our partners and children. For all of the turmoil that each one of us have been through, having a friend or family member you can count on is one of the most valuable assets you can have in life. Lucky for Mike and Kristen, Caity and Mike, and Heather and I, we all have our partners, and now we all have each other to follow the light outside the tunnel.