Last Sunday night I received an email from Melissa about her gay wedding the next day. She and her now-legal-wife, Jamie, are from Tampa, Florida, who came to Boston to get married. I was thrilled to be a part of it. They arrived to Boston several days before and while waiting for their paperwork to be processed in City Hall, they took a trip to P-town, where I’ve been dying to go since high school. When they got back, it was time that they were legally announced wife and wife. Since City Hall wasn’t the prettiest place to be photographed, they decided to do a post wedding photo session. I’m so glad they found me and I had so much fun being an unofficial tour guide for a day. We went to some of the Boston landmarks, including Boston Common, the South End, New England Aquarium waterfront, and Faneuil Hall, all within walking distance. I was so glad to show Melissa and Jamie things in Boston that they would have never seen in Florida, and hopefully convinced them to move to Boston :p
They stay at the Nine Zero Hotel in Downtown Boston. We were feeling extra adventurous and let ourselves in the restaurant that was supposedly closed; turned on some lights and music, and made ourselves at home.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how comfortable they were being intimate in public. Tampa Florida, as you know, isn’t as liberal as is Boston. It made me so happy that they “past the point of caring what unaccepting individuals think or feel.”
Melissa also told me they were “self critical and never seemed to both smile at the same time.” I would have never guessed so. They were the happiest couple with the biggest smiles!
Congratulations Melissa and Jamie! I hope you two enjoy your wonderful married life :)
Update:
Melissa just wrote an awesome testimonial. It was really touching that I was able to make such impact on people’s lives by documenting their happiest memories; this is what makes being a wedding photographer very rewarding.
“Our family have a longstanding tradition of non-traditional weddings. It works for us. They end up being very successful in the long run. That being said, we found ourselves making our wedding plans as we went along. There was not a great deal of planning beyond rings, location, and date. When we arrived in Boston with an eminent date and time in front of us, we suddenly realized that we wanted to document the happiest moments of our lives with photography. We searched for and found a photographer that could accommodate our timeframe, location, and non-traditional wedding plans. Sam was able to exceed our expectations in every way. We were able to work with him with a short lead time. He was warm, charming, and made us feel at ease immediately. Sam was able to offer us access to locations that we would never have thought to use for our photographs, and the backgrounds for our photos were nothing less than spectacular. He has an amazing eye for composition and an uncanny way of capturing the candid emotion of the event. We cannot imagine this experience with another photographer. Sam did a wonderful job.”

Christina Kim - Beautiful story, and great photos!