A Socially Distant Wedding
This is such a strange time. It is important to find joy.
These are people I’ve known since college (and one of them since high school). Plans changed, and everyone in attendance had more than one thing to do. The maid of honor organized the zoom meeting. The brother of the bride handled the live broadcasts. I was the best man and photographer.
The ceremony was live-streamed to a general audience, but people who would have been there in person could attend through zoom.
Social distance means long lenses. I only brought out a lens shorter than 70mm to get that wide shot. Of course, the church was mostly empty. We all had masks with their wedding crest on it. Normally, I would be in the back or in the wings. But in this case, the “back” was row four, so I could be much closer than normal.
After the ceremony, the zoom attendees were assigned to breakout rooms like they would have been assigned tables at the reception. The bride and groom could move from table to table to talk with everyone. Anyone at the ceremony in person got their own table so they could eat and drink and talk to the people they would have otherwise been sitting with.
After the reception, the bride and groom went outside for a drive-through receiving line. They had a borrowed couch up on a platform (with fans going, it was nearly 100 out) so they could talk to people from their cars.
