Sometimes, when I need to be reminded of why black and white is so beautifully suited for wedding photography, a picture like this pops into the viewfinder and in an instant, I'm transported back in time, Irving Berlin's Cheek to Cheek playing in my head, all is well with the world.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek

Once upon a time, I shot only black and white film at weddings. Now, of course, any image can be either color or black and white, and sometimes it's hard to decide. Maya's post-processing of color images, as you can readily see in these galleries and on these pages, is so beautiful that what once was an easy decision has become much harder.

 Photographers have debated this for years, particularly wedding photographers, many of whom have given up on "artsy" (their term) black and white images. Artsy? That's just plain silly. Having shot a few hundred thousand rolls of black and white film in my life, there's nothing gimmicky about it at all. Black and white images are as honest as they get, stripped of all pretense and forcing the viewer to look more keenly at content. It's true, they are evocative--particularly of the eras of Gershwin and Berlin and Ellington--but content is always still king.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of shooting a lovely wedding at Evermay, the marriage of Gus Coldebella and Heather Ferguson. (Talk about a "gambler's lucky streak." Three of the last four weeeknds. Take that, Irving Berlin!) You might recall this couple, as they "initiated" our new Dark Slide home last month during cherry blossom season. And as with the other weddings this past month, they had an absolutely glorious spring day. As the motor of the 1933 Rolls Royce started to rev--think of a duck on steroids--and the wind started flowing through the windows, we all just smiled and laughed. After all, I've seen so many fake bride-under-veil photos in the last ten years that I always get a thrill when it happens for real.

 You guys--all 23 of you--know by now that I have some definite opinions on all things wedding related. And if Matt's Law #1 is that there only two kinds of wedding, stressful and fun, then Matt's Corollary #1 would be that there are only two kinds of brides and grooms, those that smile all day and those that don't. I don't have to tell you that Heather and Gus are of the smiling kind. Every time I turned around Heather was bright-eyed and laughing. That's a great thing to see. And now, as they lay out on a beach somewhere in Hawaii, I can bet that, in between sips of frozen daiquiri, they're still beaming from ear to ear.

For a sneak peak at Gus and Heather's pictures, click here.

Matt