Not only do backyard weddings have a huge appeal to us for their personal touches, typically everything for the rest of the day can happen on the same property, which is exactly what happened during this getting ready moment between mother and daughter. Reaching up to string her own mother's pearls around her daughter's neck, we are put in the position of imagining what this bride's mother is feeling, hidden as she is by the bride's arm. This moment with spectacular diffused window light was in the bride’s parents’ bedroom, overlooking the rest of the celebrations held on the lawn below. Despite being relatively close to the good-sized town of Jupiter, Florida, this wedding felt like it was deep in the country, with thick trees on all sides of the property, large fields for the horses to roam, and an idyllic setting of trees to serve as the altar for their deeply meaningful and intimate ceremony.
Compositionally this image pulls diagonal lines across from the bride’s raised arm up through the right side of the octagonal window, segmenting the image and drawing the viewer’s eye upward with the curves of her cheek, her gentle smile, the soft lines of her dress, and the delicately intertwined arms. The pastel color palette is partially happenstance and partially the choice to show only the smooth sea foam green wall color to complement the bride’s warmly tanned skin.
Location: Jupiter Farms, Florida.
1/200; f/2.0; ISO 400; 35.0 mm.