I met Ann Sydney briefly about 13 years ago. We didn’t go to the same university or live anywhere close to each other, but we do have a mutual friend. I liked her immediately, and even though it took 13 years for our paths to cross again, we kept in touch through the magic of social media.
When Ann Sydney got in touch about me shooting her wedding in the States, I was really honoured. Ann Sydney is a professional photographer herself focusing on street and music photography. It’s always an honour to be asked by a fellow photographer to shoot their wedding, but even more so to be flown out to another country to do so.
So I flew out of London on Thursday, shot on both the Friday and Saturday in Lexington, Kentucky and then headed back to London on Monday to be back in the UK again for the next weekends wedding. It was an incredibly brief trip, and I probably spent more hours on the plane than I did shooting the wedding, but it was really worth every minute of jet-lag.
Ann Sydney’s family run a horse farm just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. This was the farm she was raised on, and the very land that she spent her days as a child running around barefoot with her cousins. And even the porch she walked out on, to walk down the aisle was the porch of her childhood home.
As if this wedding didn’t already sound incredible already, I have yet to mention Blake. Blakes a musician, and travels around the United States and the world performing. They met at a show when Blake was playing with a mutual friend. They talked briefly and then happened to meet again at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. They went on their first date, and since then, the distance and the travelling couldn’t keep them apart.
I have to say, Ann Sydney and Blakes family really welcomed me with open arms and I did really fill like not only a guest of the wedding but a family member as well. Being able to spend the weekend with such a fantastic group of people was really a reminder of why I love this job so much.