Photo by Irvin Lin
This weekend has had great story arc, emotionally, but without any content. It's me and D's fifth wedding anniversary.
(Thank you.) Damon and I aren't big on anniversaries in general, but our wedding was a big deal, so we like remembering that. This year, for our five-year, I thought, wouldn't it be great if we finally finished that photo album I started—oh, five years ago—of all the pictures our friends and family took??
Groan . . .
I’m not talking about our professional album. That’s done; it’s awesome. This is a side album I've wanted to make. An album of the people. The only album we would have had, had we had never hired a pro. (Vernacular photography, if you will.)
We're lucky to know a lot of talented photographers—like AJ, who has actually worked, professionally, as a wedding photographer—so this would be a high quality "album of the people." (Mostly.) Still,
I don't think Damon understood how large a project I had set up. Back when our wedding was new, I had printed and ordered literally thousands of photos from everyone's digital files and negatives. Then we'd moved and the whole thing had gone into boxes, never to come out again.Until two nights ago.
As I began to despair, Damon became very determined. So, on the evening of our fifth anniversary, we sorted photos. For hours.
When we stopped for the night, we watched our wedding DVD. We skipped most of the ceremony (save the mush for the 10-year) in favor of laughing at our guests—especially on the dance floor—as captured by Damon's Uncle Willie. People dancing with their thumbs. People messing up words to songs. "Blackmail material," Benji calls it.
That is good stuff. If you were there, I guarantee you you are in this video, and we have been laughing
“It’s nice to see everyone so energetic," Damon said after one particularly hysterical shot of all our out-of-town relatives.
I thought he was going to say happy. His comment spun my mind in new, more sobering directions.
“This video is a gift," Damon declared toward the end. “This video shouldn’t even exist. Uncle Willie forgot his power cord, and the camera battery wasn’t supposed to last that long, but it lasted all night."
“Wow,” I said. “That’s just like Hannukah.”
Which, I guess, is why we watch it every year.
This morning, as we resumed sorting photos, I made a move to play some music. Before I could put in a CD, however, Damon hit PLAY and our wedding DVD came back on. “Oh, look what’s in here,” he said, and we sat down and watched the dancing again.After that, I watched our wedding cartoon six or seven times in a row, followed by a mini slide show of our lives. Not the 11-minute slide show from our wedding. D's uncle made an abridged, under-three-minute version for this DVD, in which we grow up even faster. I watched that six or seven times in a row, too.
Damon and I and our friend Benji originally made this slide show to send out the message Damon and I were the bestest, most lovey dovey couple in the world. Now the one getting suckered was me. It was better than the AT&T commercial that made everyone cry in the 90s—the one where the two 80-year-old best friends call each other right after we've watched a montage of their entire, lifelong friendship. "Reach out and touch someone!"
Now I’m a big ball of mush.
Sitting back down to tackle the wedding photos, I feel completely different.
But, I guess, nothing has changed.
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The photos in this post were taken by Irvin; Uncle Joe (x2); Michael & Hanh; Andre; and wedding guests using disposable cameras. Thanks, everyone!! You're the greatest!Add a Comment
