Elopement wedding in Central Park, NYC  – Alvin & Lucia

There’s quite a story here. Alvin is an avid follower of the Tangents blog, and decided he’d like to have me photograph their elopement wedding ceremony at Wagners Cove in Central Park. He and his bride-to-be, Lucia, who are both from the UK, wanted to get married in Central Park.

Since it would be a very intimate little ceremony with just the two of them, they asked me if I’d like to sign the wedding documents as the witness. Of course! I was hugely flattered already that they’d chosen me to be their photographer, and being the witness would be an honor indeed.

More about the back-story from Lucia’s email to me :

The course of true love never runs smoothly (at least that’s been our experience!). We’ve been together for 7.5 years but 5 years ago we split up. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to emigrate to America. (What else do you do when things don’t work out with the love of your life?!). It took a long time to get a work visa so almost a year after we separated I flew out to my new life in Massachusetts. Only I didn’t need an ocean between  us any more, in fact we were back in touch and contemplating some options for coming together again some time in the future.

It turned out that distance truly does make the heart grow fonder and within weeks of my move to Massachusetts, we both knew we wanted to be back together.  Alvin flew out to NYC so we could spend my birthday together there and a few days later I flew home for good. I came back to the UK with nothing;  I had given up my job, sold my car and my luggage even got lost in transit but I knew I had everything I needed in being with Alvin again.  NYC held such special memories of our romantic reunion that we knew it would also hold the perfect backdrop to the start of our married life together.

And it really did. We’ve had the perfect time together and nothing would have paid a more fitting homage to our story than the simple and intimate way in which we got married.

So this is how they ended up getting married in New York, even though they are from the UK.

I knew that for the portrait session in the Park afterwards, my life would be much easier (and the photographs look better), if I had off-camera lighting with me. But I didn’t want to invite an assistant along that would be a stranger in such a small group. So I asked my daughter, Janine, to assist me. Good idea, because Alvin already knew who she was from my posts on Tangents. His first words to her when we met at the hotel before-hand, was, “How was your trip to Amsterdam?”

Here’s a link for those of you who might be interested in the techie details about the photography.

Here is a selection of photos which are my favorite images of the day. There is even a photo of when Janine was asked to sign as second witness, and Alvin offered to hold the softbox up!

Alvin and Lucia, it was an absolute delight to have met the two of you. Best of luck forward on your journey together.

to see more, view the album of photos on Facebook