This is a longer post. Try to keep yourself from allowing your newly programmed-by- the-internet-era brain patterns from clicking away before you get to the end. 2 minutes, if you please.
So- funny story
The year before this wedding, my husband and I went to a concert in Spokane. We were late (because m.) and were already resigned to not getting seats as this particular venue because it blows and you aren’t sitting or even seeing the show if you don’t get in line four months prior. Disgusting bathrooms, perpetual over serving, smoke choking the air, wall to wall bodies, shoes sticking to the floor, people abandoning common decency and deodorant- you know the drill.
So we walked into the bar across the street first and my darling farmer immediately motions me to look at a guy tucked in the back corner with some other dudes. He told me he listened to his music and had heard he was touring with this particular artist. He called him The Curly Wolf. Braids draping past his waist, leather vest, guarded eyes, tattoos stretched across the bones of his hands. Of course someone my husband would be drawn to.
The farmer didn’t want to disturb him but as his lifelong antagonist, I have a responsibility to get him to do things I wouldn’t do myself, so convince him to ask for a picture. He gives a “fuck it” shrug and off he goes like the beautiful chump he is. Grant slid off of his stool and kindly obliged my dude, maybe out of some sort of pity for his bald head.
Side note- Grant is incredible to watch live. He inadvertently dominates the attention with how absorbed he is with his guitars. They seem to be extending from his own bones and sinew as he inhumanly moves the strings in a symphony of rock god sounds that leave chill bumps peppering the skin. What a gift to share with the world.
So I take the photo of them, post it to my IG story and we all move on with our lives.
As our phones track all the words we utter and every toilet seat we visit, it should come as no surprise that a couple days later, a bunch of beautiful tattoos suddenly show up on my Instagram explorer page. I, being utterly naked as the June evening I was born, am attracted to tattoos I never intend on getting and find myself clicking through the page of this badass artist who turns out to be- you may already be there- Andy.
Thanks Big Brother.
The newest photo on her feed is an engagement announcement and who is tagged in it? Of course The Curly Wolf. So I do the rational thing.
< Hi. Yes. It’s me. In your Instagram inbox. Shamelessly promoting my photographic obsession. Isn’t that how we conduct ourselves in the modern age or something? I’m doing the best I can out here. Care to let me take photos of you in your most intimate spaces? Allllrigghhttty then.>
We met up in LA a few months later when I was there for work and took some photos, after which they booked me for their wedding- an invitation that comes as a surprise to me every time.
I was intrigued by Andy immediately because she was different from anyone I had ever photographed. She is a secret she keeps all to herself. I have never met anyone I felt like I couldn’t get a read on, but her pages were sealed together and I spent a lot of the time trying to catch something inferred behind her eyes though in the end she didn’t let a single letter of her thoughts slip. She’s an enigma.
Over the months leading up to the wedding, I came to love her for her stillness and the way she would unexpectedly deliver a compliment or softly rebuff a suggestion without making me feel like I’d lost anything. She listens with every fiber and considers deeply. She asked me if I was doing okay three times on her own wedding day. She is effortless peace and it pours out on everyone around her. Beautiful Andy.
The rest as they say, is history.
Shoutout to Grant’s mom, who cared for me like her own when my front tooth broke out of my head on a bagel made from wheat and cement an hour into the wedding day.
Angels, all of them.
VENDORS:
Dress: Custom Galia Lahav
Planner: A Savvy Event
Florist: Poppystone Floral Designs
Catering: Park Ave Catering
DJ: Jason Warner
