Fifty years after their wedding, Susan and Norman came back and did the whole thing again.
Susan booked it herself. That sounds like a small detail and it is not. Almost every fiftieth anniversary call I get comes from an adult child trying to put something together for their parents, which is a good instinct and I have photographed plenty of those. This one came from the two people it was about.
They found me through the venue. Grounds for Sculpture keeps a short list of photographers it recommends, and I have been on it long enough to have shot there in every season. She called off that list.
Rat’s, and Then the Gardens
If you have never been, Grounds for Sculpture is a sculpture park and garden in Hamilton, and Rat’s Restaurant sits in the middle of it looking like somebody dropped a corner of a French village onto a pond in Mercer County. That is where we started.
We took our time. There was no cocktail hour waiting on us and nobody was tapping a watch, so we spent about two and a half hours walking most of the park. The pace is the thing I remember about the day. Two people who have been walking together for fifty years already have a pace, and my job was to keep up with it and stay out of the way.
The park is full of Seward Johnson figures, life sized bronze people frozen mid errand, and the two of them had a good time with those. At some point Norman started laughing at one and I stopped directing and just kept shooting. Those are the frames I would pull out of the whole afternoon.
I Brought Film
Part of that day I shot on a Contax 645. Nobody asked for it and nobody paid extra for it. Digital would have been faster and I would have known what I had before I got back to the car. But a wedding fifty years ago did not come with a screen on the back of the camera, so I loaded a few rolls and shot some of the portraits the old way. A small throwback, for them.
Film makes me slow down, which on a day like this one was the whole idea.
The Family, First
We did the family portraits before the ceremony. That is not the usual order, but it was right here. Everybody was fresh, nobody had cried yet, and once the ceremony started I never had to pull a single person out of it to go stand in a picture. Kids and grandkids, all of them. It read more like a family reunion that happened to have a wedding in the middle of it.
Most of the group shots were made outside the Rat’s Pavilion, on the right hand side if you are facing the lake. If you are planning anything at Grounds for Sculpture, remember that spot. Open shade, water behind you, and it is steps from the door, which matters when you are moving a whole family that would rather be eating. Then we walked the couple and part of the family out to the Monet bridge.
One of the little ones lasted about four minutes and then went to feed the ducks, which is the correct response to being told to stand still in a garden.
Under the Tallit
The ceremony was indoors, in the Rat’s Pavilion just outside the restaurant. It was a Jewish ceremony. There was a ketubah, and there was a chuppah, except the chuppah was a tallit held up on four poles by people standing close enough to touch them.
Fifty years in, under a canopy their own family was holding over their heads, they said it again.
Why I Keep Bringing This One Up
I have photographed a lot of weddings at Grounds for Sculpture. This is the one I go to when somebody asks me what a vow renewal is even for.
A wedding is a promise about somebody you are still figuring out. Fifty years later you already have the answer. You could see it on the two of them all afternoon, and that is not something I can direct.
Planning a Vow Renewal at Grounds for Sculpture
If you are working out the logistics, I wrote a full Grounds for Sculpture wedding guide for exactly that. There is more on how I shoot anniversaries on the vow renewal and 50th anniversary page, and if you want to see the same venue on a regular wedding day, Trina and Dennis got married at Rat’s.
Ready to Start Planning?
Tell me about the day you are planning and where you want to be photographed, and I will take it from there. Start here.