A Leap Day wedding? Yes please! Between that and my love for winter weddings, and all the familiar faces I’d see there, I had been looking forward to Emma and Jared’s wedding for some time. I loved coming down to Cincinnati for their spring engagement last year, and it was a delight returning to capture their big day!
We started their day in at the Renaissance hotel, where each side got ready before I staged their first look outside the art-deco gold doors on the street. It was a cold day but they toughed it out! We then joined their wedding party for indoor portraits at the hotel, before we all hopped onto a bus for portraits around downtown. Again, cold and windy, but this group went for it (with only minimal complaints). Despite the February temps, it was a sunny day, which photographed beautifully at Roebling Bridge, the nearby carousel, and the “It’s Your Thing” mural in Over-the-Rhine.
From there, it was onto Plum Street Temple for additional portraits, a ketubah signing, and their wedding ceremony of course. The last time I was here, I was a guest at Jared’s sister’s wedding in 2007. It is still as magnificent as I remember it, truly one of the most beautiful synagogues I’ve ever seen. And a thrill to photograph, of course! My assistant Johnny joined me for the next few hours of the day to help shoot as well, he got some great angles from the balcony.
After the ceremony, it was back to the Renaissance to celebrate! Dinner, toasts, first dances and cake cutting, followed by an energy-filled hora and a packed dance floor for the rest of the night. This was such a blast to be a part of it, and little did I know that our worlds would be turned upside down just a couple of weeks later. Reliving this wedding as I work through the images has been a happy distraction, and I hope seeing them does the same for Emma and Jared and everyone who sees them.
