Apollo Fields 2021: 54 Weddings and 1 Baby

For the most part, our job as wedding photographers is to blend in, not stand out.

To move throughout the day like inconspicuous flies on the wall, floating through rooms and in and out of moments like a steady breeze through an open window. We take great pride in being given the opportunity to navigate the intimate spaces of wedding days, playing off the principle that stepping on a truly genuine moment is a cardinal sin. Year-in-and-year-out we flutter from venue-to-venue, unpacking and repacking our camera bags as quickly and commonly as the shutter clicks on our cameras.  I am writing this blog to give a glimpse of what it is like to document a commencement of love 50 times a year in the span of six or seven months. It is with great love and appreciation that I say—it is our time to stand out.

From Brandon and Lia’s Wedding in September 2021 in Little Compton, Rhode Island.

2021 Still Wasn’t “Normal.”

We try to avoid using the word normal because it’s one of those “non-words” that doesn’t really mean anything. What exactly does it mean for a person or a year to be “normal”? As it pertains to people: the quirkier the better; but as it goes for wedding seasons, we’ll take predictable. Like the idea of a wedding happening on a specified date and location. Of course we have empathized with every couple for the last two years but can you imagine what our Google calendar has looked like? Think Charlie Kelly in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia vibes. Now picture him in a wedding dress.

And yet, it was the best year of my life.

I like to joke that having a kid feels like you’re playing the game of life on hard mode. Every activity of everyday or every trip is just that much harder. Mornings feel earlier and nights feel longer, but in between extended bouts of exhaustion there are pristine moments of overtired bliss. Like the walk Heather and I took at midnight in Montauk after a wedding as we watched the crests of waves hover and crash on the coast over and over again in the bright moonlight. Or when I held Capa just above the surface of the rooftop pool in West Palm Beach, pushing him through the water like the dorsal fin of a dolphin swimming in the Caribbean. For everything that being a parent takes away from you it gives it back in moments of overwhelming joy.

And also the busiest.

Between our 54 weddings in 13 states plus an unspecified amount of family and engagement sessions we changed diapers, spoon-fed, walked, drove, and nursed our baby Capa. The crazy part is that despite all of the time Heather and I spent together we often felt like we never saw each other. We developed a workflow where I would take Capa in the morning and let Heather catch up on sleep after nursing him all night. Then we’d have breakfast together and one of us would take him for the next stretch while the other person works. It was like a game of hot potato if that potato was adorable and could poop and pee. And despite developing the habit popular to babies of rubbing my eyes when I’m tired, I have no regrets about how we handled everything.

Ron and Sunil’s wedding in August 2021 at The Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan.

a reminder to Change over time.

I was just talking to Heather this morning about how I can’t imagine both of us still bartending full-time like we did in our twenties. It’s not that we couldn’t or we shouldn’t but rather that we value the current iteration of Terrence-and-Heather (-and-Capa) over the one at the beginning of our relationship. In a funny way, our 2021 wedding season felt like a full bartending shift spent “in the weeds” where we never got to look up and kept going from one thing to the next. As the years pass I can’t help but notice the trajectory of our lives and how the previous events prepared us for what came next. Who knows what Capa will mean for our future but if this year was any indication of what’s to come, I can’t fucking wait.

NYE 2015 - One of Heather and I’s first photos together. Taken at a diner on the UWS at ~ 5:00am.