As promised, the second installment of my Memorial Day weekend extravaganza, in which I had not a single hamburger, hot dog or beer. But I did witness two great weddings, and here's the second of the two.

Karli Coury and Kevin Edwards were married at Halcyon House in Georgetown, a 1783 Georgian home with one heck of a modern art studio tacked on. The home, according to a story in the New York Times, was originally built by Benjamin Stoddert, one of George Washington's pallbearers, long before Washington had a capitol dome and even longer before flocks of tourists would come to its perch above the Key Bridge to photograph the  infamous and adjacent "Excorcist" stairs.

Halcyon House has a lot in common with the location of my other weekend wedding, Evermay, and when one stops to think of all the Georgetown history (and change) these two homes  have witnessed--from Washington's era through the days when John F. Kennedy lived up the block--it's really quite staggering. (My Georgetown memories date back only as far as 1988, when I first moved here and Dixie Liquor, another Key Bridge fixture, was still the most notable store on M Street. Then the chain stores moved in. But that's a story for a rainy day.)

As I said earlier, this past weekend had picture perfect weather and it wasn't very difficult finding beautiful light to use. I usually opt for gorgeous backlight (like this portrait of Karli) but my trusty assistant Matt shot this striking portrait of Kevin with nothing but good old direct sun, filtered by some big puffy clouds. (Maya noted how much the clouds look like the opening of "The Simpsons" and she's right.)

And good light doesn't always mean outside, anyhow. I remember walking into one of the rooms and finding Karli's sister playfully teasing some of the little boys with tall tales. The light, sans flash, was beautiful.

After cocktails, all the guests descended down into the art studio of renowned sculptor John Dreyfuss. I've been to events at Halcyon House where the studio looked like someone had been working away on a two ton piece of steel only a few hours earlier, but on  this day the space had been completely and utterly transformed into an artist's fantasy. Fabric softened the walls, odd shaped tables (at various heights, a cool idea) filled the cavernous room, and flowers suspended in giant vases graced each table. Karli and Kevin even had a photo booth brought in to amuse their guests and provide funky remembrances as well.

It was  a pleasure photographing both of these weddings this past weekend. There's something to be said for backyard barbecues on Memorial Day, but I've always liked the opportunity to give people memories they won't soon forget.

To see a mini gallery of photos from Kevin and Karli's wedding, click here.

See you guys,

Matt 

It wasn't that long ago that I seem to remember what regular folks did on Memorial Day weekend. Putting the flag out, getting the coals ready (no one does that anymore, I know), burning the hot dogs. But all of that seems like forever ago. I haven't had a free Memorial Day in at least ten years and this weekend wasn't any different. It's all good, 'cause I need more hot dogs like a hole in the head.

This Memorial Day weekend I  had two great weddings, both in Georgetown, and both under the most gorgeous summer skies you can imagine. Since two weddings equals a heck of a lot of images to go through, I'll go easy on the prose tonight so I can get you to the photos quicker.

I'll start with the second of the two weddings first, the marriage of Darren Wechsler and Katie Stevens, simply because those cards got downloaded first! And tomorrow (I hope), I'll follow up with a second gallery of pictures from the wedding of Karli Coury and Kevin Edwards. And if any of you guys want to come by and help me edit (or just take pity), I'll be right here at MMP World Headquarters, where we don't go to bed until the wee hours.

Katie and Darren were married on Sunday at Evermay. Needless to say, I spend a lot of my weekends at Evermay and have grown to love the place. Like Halcyon House, the mansion where my other couple were married, Evermay wears its history on its sleeve. I feel like I've said so much about Evermay in the last year that I must sound like a broken record. It's fantastic. Alexandra Kovach works so hard to make sure every wedding runs flawlessly, and Kirsten Michels of Capitol Catering still makes the best tenderloin around. (Thanks, Kirsten!) After that, all you need are some fun folks ready to have a ball and dance, and lord knows they were in abundance at Katie and Darren's wedding, complete with personalized flip-flops.

Come to think of it, there was an abundance of a lot of things at this wedding, from golden sunshine streaming down on the ceremony to great music coming from the band. There were great jokes, as Darren's best man moonlights as a stand-up comedian. And let's not forget the popcorn--lot's of popcorn. For health reasons, Katie can't eat cake. So these guys did what anyone would do--they swapped a cake for a huge bowl of popcorn. And though they couldn't catch a kernel in their mouths until the 18th try (who's counting?), the whole effort was hysterical and warm.

As I said at the outset, I'm going to cut the verbiage a little short tonight, as I still have an entire other wedding to comb through. So let's cut to the chase: to see a quick mini-gallery of photos from Katie and Darren's Evermay wedding, click here.

And stayed tuned to The Dark Slide for part two of No Barbecues for Old Men, with great photos from Karli and Kevin!

See ya,

Matt 

A quick break from talking about other people's joy for a moment so I can talk about some joy of my own.

Alexandra had her last day of preschool yesterday. Three years of intensive playing at Turtle Park and she's ready for the big show in the fall. Big kids' school, as she calls it. Whether she ends up as an honor student at Jamestown Elementary School (one of these days I'm going to rip one of those bumper stickers off of someone's car), I couldn't care less. All I know is that she has fun doing just about anything and that's far more important at this age.

Those of you who know me know that it doesn't take much for me to break out my ever-growing folder of photos of the little munchkin. Jumping at the Acropolis, jumping at the Eiffel Tower, jumping in our front yard. She's a Mexican jumping bean.

And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the clothes. As she gets ready to turn five next week, all I can say is that if you ever told me, a guy who never strays far from a pair of ripped Levis, that my daughter would be a fashion plate one day, I would have laughed  in your face. Alexandra has a mind of her own when it comes to her clothing choices. In fact, just the other day I came into the family room to find her in a bathing suit and a floatie, an ensemble perfectly complemented by the arm sleeves of her pink winter parka. She looked like a deranged Eskimo.

So here's to happy kids. Happy to sit of the sofa and munch on raw spaghetti ("bamboo," as she calls it). Happy to play on the front lawn with nothing more than a tiny piece of moss. Happy to watch the same episode of Little Bear 956 times in a row, even when there's eighty-seven channels of crapola for kids on at the same time. And, most of all for this particular daddy, happy to sing the refrain of Bruce Spingsteen's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" at the top of her lungs each morning as we drive across the Chain Bridge to school.

To all the graduates out there and their proud families, congratulations! And to see a mini gallery of Alexandra from the last two months, click here.

 Matt

I once had a boss at USA Today who had a great outlook on just about everything. The first person to introduce me to Maryland blue crabs at a welcome barbecue at his home in the summer of 1988, Paul Whyte had an expression that I'll always fondly remember. Whether he was peeved at some broken photo transmitter or angry at some news editor who had just eliminated a photo spread from the next morning's paper, Paul would always shrug his shoulders and say, "It's a smile."

Nothing ever fazed Paul's cheery outlook on things. And if you ever asked him how many days until his retirement--when he could finally fish on Lake Anna morning, noon and and night--he would tell you, "224 and three hours." He knows how to enjoy life and he's probably sitting in a rowboat right now as I type this, waiting for some bass to bite. This Bud's for you, Paul. (He'll laugh at that because he always made fun of my non-beer drinking ways.)

And for some reason, when I sat down just now to write about the remarkably relaxed and joy-filled wedding of Natasha and Wade this past Saturday at the Fairmont, all I could hear in my head was Paul Whyte saying, "It's a smile."

Everything about their wedding, including our fun engagement session on Natasha's parent farm in Madison, Virginia, was punctuated with smiles and laughter. There was not a moment of stress to be found for a six block radius of 24th and M Saturday.

(I know I'm supposed to very impartial in these musings, lest I offend another couple down the road with less enthusiastic prose. But let's cut the baloney right now: I adore Natahsa and Wade, their warm and funny families, their crazy siblings (yes, Wesley, this Bud's for you), and their dog, Blue. There. I said it.)

Seriously, folks, these guys all get it. Weddings were never meant to be drama-filled festivals of stress. That's a product of too many television networks featuring shows called "Bridezilla." Weddings should be filled with laughter, not tension, and Natasha and Wade were clearly raised by great parents who imbued this sense into them. In fact, I've never seen a groom's mother ham it up so much at a wedding.

Natasha started the day by walking into her suite at the Fairmont, laughing with her sister as they laughed at the box of flowers awaiting them on the table. She didn't stop smiling for eight hours. She laughed with Wade, as she wiped lipstick off his cheek, when the two saw each other for the first time. They laughed in the gorgeous antique Bentley that took them to St. Matthews. They laughed as they saw friends from their perch on the altar. In fact, they may be the first couple to keep winking at me during a Mass. And we all laughed as the caretaker of St. Matthews rather rudely slammed the door on us as he was locking up the church. (This has happened to me before but never right in front of the bride and groom. Finally, third party confirmation of the indecencies to which I am subjected!) Luckily, just as we were about to let our good mood be tarnished by a dope, a couple of strange women came to the rescue, asking Natasha and Wade to pose with a Flat Stanley cutout. We all started laughing again.

And so it went. Wesley, Wade's brother, delivered an hysterical toast and I thought Natasha was going to pass out she was laughing so hard. (One of our favorite regular readers of The Dark Slide, Bruce Snell of Kansas likes to peek at  the metadata that is stored in these images, to see what lens speed I'm shooting at. This next image was shot at a 1/20th at f1.4 at 1600. Now that's a smile!) Wesley pretty much made me laugh every time he opened his mouth, always telling me how crooked my tie was or something.

As usual, my very best to Wade and Natasha, sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico today, sipping pina coladas. If anyone deserves a break from D.C. right now, it's them. And to see more photos from their wedding, click on photo galleries in the right hand column or just follow this link.

Take care,

Matt

EXT. A GATE OUTSIDE A LUSH CITY GARDEN—SUNDOWN

Birds sing, butterflies flit past WISTERIA in full bloom; An old couple
laughs as they walk past with BINOCULARS and CAMERAS. CHILDREN skip and scream.

A GUARD jokes with some passerby. He stands outside a TICKET KIOSK. Inside the kiosk, a TICKET TAKER takes money.

THE CAMERA MOVES FORWARD—

A MAN, 40ish, waits outside the gate. His name is MATT. He is dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and a baseball hat. A lone CAMERA dangles from his shoulder. He has no camera bag.

MATT glances at his watch. He is obviously waiting for someone. A couple, sharply dressed, approaches. LEIGH is wearing a red dress. CHRIS wears a blazer. The three greet each other and approach the ticket kiosk.

            MATT
Have you guys been waiting inside? That’s so funny. I’ve been
sitting here without knowing you’d already gotten tickets.

            CHRIS
No problem. Let’s go in. It looks beautiful!

            MATT
Yeah, it is. I’ve shot so many portraits here over the years.
It’s one of my favorite places to do shoot pictures.

EXT. INSIDE THE GATE.

The three take their tickets and begin to walk up to the mansion and gardens. As they walk up
the path they hear a voice from the kiosk they just left.

            TICKET TAKER
No commercial photography!

The three look around until they realize the woman in the booth is talking to them.

            MATT
Excuse me? Oh, no ma’am, we’re not
doing any commercial pictures.

Matt points to his shorts and t-shirt, as if to appease the ticket taker. She appears to be mollified. He carries no bag, after all, and has only one camera. He has purposefully dressed down. The pair continue up the lush garden path, past the mansion and into the back garden. Purple wisteria beckons.

              MATT
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the wisteria so beautiful.
This is going to be a  beautiful picture!
           

           LEIGH
Wow! We’ve never been here before. It’s really gorgeous.

Matt takes the camera from around his shoulder and prepares to take his first frame. The shutter never trips.

From behind a shrub a GROUNDSKEEPER approaches. He is a stern man with no sense of humor. The "whistling" theme from Clint Eastwood’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly can be heard. The ticket taker has obviously walkie-talkie’d ahead for backup. He appears like a silhouette in the bright sun.

            GROUNDSKEEPER  (twirling his trowel like a gunslinger)
Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.

            MATT
Excuse me? What’s wrong?

Matt fingers the shutter of his camera, his trigger finger itching. If he could just get one frame off.

         GROUNDSKEEPER
We don’t allow commercial photography here.

            MATT
Oh, there’s nothing commercial here. We’re just taking some pictures like everyone else.

           GROUNDSKEEPER
We don’t allow commercial photography. You’re going to have to leave.

               MATT
But I said we weren’t doing anything commercial, sir. Just taking the same  pictures as everyone else. Why are you singling us out? Are you saying that having a nice camera disqualifies someone from entering here??
    
More Clint Eastwood whistling is heard. Tumbleweed blows into the frame. The Saloon doors bang together as townsfolk run for cover.
    
         GROUNDSKEEPER
I don’t need to explain myself. You’re going to have to leave.

         

          MATT
We’re being evicted from an English Garden? You can’t be serious.
We paid the same seven dollars as everyone else!

The groundskeeper is unmoved. He says little as he escorts the photographer and the soon-to-be-married couple unceremoniously to the street. As he leads the trio on their walk of shame, other photographers, young and old, continue to take pictures and laugh.

EXIT. FADE TO BLACK.

Well, it finally happened. After years and years of secretly shooting pictures, yours truly finally got himself kicked out of Dumbarton Oaks, one of Washington’s most beautiful estates open to the public. Located in Georgetown, just a two blocks from my old apartment, Dumbarton Oaks is a welcoming place to everyone but photographers. Professional photographers, that is. Don’t ask why, but the folks there are convinced that there is some huge photographic conspiracy to take commercial pictures on their grounds.

It’s the same dopey school of thought that the National Park Service uses to shoo professional photographers away from the monuments and Tidal Basin. The rule is basically this: anybody from Iowa wearing Bermuda shorts and carrying a camera can take all the pictures in the world, but a professional photographer shooting pictures for the non-commercial, private use of a couple who actually hail from D.C--and pay taxes--is considered persona non grata.

And why, you ask, is that dopey? Well, it’s dopey because the folks who are making these calls are simply blindly following some directive without really thinking things through. When a groundskeeper says “no commercial photography,” has he really thought about the difference between commercial usage (as in, I’m going to sell an image of Dumbarton Oaks to a postcard company or an ad) and private, non-commercial usage (as in, this photo will sit in a frame on someone's mantle)?

Treating an engagement portrait of two people (and no equipment other than a single small camera) as if it were the filming of an episode of The Sopranos is just plain silly. The end product of an engagement session is a photograph that has no commercial value whatsoever. In fact, it’s about as personal a keepsake as one could imagine. It’s like saying a school trip to visit the Supreme Court is a commercial venture because the bus driver or tour guide is a paid professional.

Like all photographers, I’m pretty good about getting in and getting out. The photographer’s credo has always been this: It’s easier to say I’m sorry than to ask permission. But this groundskeeper was good. Real good. I had finally met my match. Even though I’d followed all my rules—wear shorts, no camera bag, baseball hat—I made one huge tactical error: I allowed the ticket taker to see my 70-200mm lens. D'oh!

Usually I hide the lens inside my sweatshirt but on this day I was feeling bold. I figured the shorts and Chuck Taylors would do the trick. It was like that scene at the end of The Great Escape where the Nazi says something like “Have a good day” and the British escapee says “thank you” in English. The oldest trick in the book!

The funny part, of course, is that I’ve shot at least 150 jobs inside Dumbarton Oaks in the last decade. Kid portraits, engagement portraits, you name it. There was even that time we snuck in a wedding dress through the back gate and did a bridal portrait. Nah, I’m just kidding about that last one. Or am I? (Relax, Dumbarton folks! I’m just kidding. I think.)

After our perp walk, I took Chris and Leigh a few steps away, to neighboring Montrose Park, where the foliage is free, and got some beautiful pictures. We laughed the whole time, thinking of how we had been reduced to criminals by our constant gardener friend.

To his credit, the unsmiling groundskeeper at Dumbarton Oaks was just doing his job and we were desperately trying to fib. He wasn’t rude at all, unlike certain church ladies at nearby Christ Church, the unhappiest place in Washington to get married, visually speaking.

Anyway, I’m sure our photographs now hang on the wall of the ticket kiosk at Dumbarton Oaks, like some “Wanted!!” poster from the Old West. Maybe someday they’ll reconsider their silly policy. I mean, 150 times seven dollars (the number of times I’ve paid the entrance fee over the years) equals $1,050, which is probably $1,043 more than most people have ever spent at Dumbarton Oaks. And as Alexandra, the hospitality director at nearby Evermay will tell you, I can be a pretty darn good ambassador for all things Georgetown. Don’t treat the very people who can make your venue look absolutely beautiful like the enemy.

If the powers that be actually thought things through, instead of sticking with their silly rule, they could actually make even more money. Charge professional photographers a seasonal fee and let people enjoy the gardens. And if they're afraid of too much commotion, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be able to limit any kind of shoot to no more than two people, as well as no additional lights or equipment. I love Dumbarton Oaks and would never want to see it desecrated in any way. Just one camera, like everyone else. (I'm not even suggesting they should even open things up to a bride in a dress. I can see how that could be distracting to other nature lovers. But an engagement portrait? Come on!)

Well, I have to go the costume shop right now to get fitted for my glasses and nose disguise. After that I have to meet my parole officer. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy some of the photos I’ve taken at Dumbarton Oaks over the years. Just don't tell anyone.

Matt