Amanda
& Gabi

A two-part wedding in Dublin — small in the morning, loud at night

Amanda and Gabi did what a lot of queer couples in Ireland are doing now: they split the day in two. The legal part — the registry office, two witnesses, the paperwork — happened in private, just the two of them, the way they wanted it. They didn't want the room full. They wanted the room small, the rings already on, the law respected and out of the way.

Then, when the official part was done, they did the part that mattered to them. They gathered everyone who matters. Friends from different chapters of their lives, all in one room. Tables full of food and wine. Music that meant something. Long hugs. Toasts that turned into stories.

"We already have the rings. We need the people."

They asked me in for the celebration. The brief, when it came, was the kind of brief I love: "Photograph what happens. We already have the rings. We need the people." That's exactly what I do. Documentary wedding photography works at its best when the couple has already let go of the day — when they're not performing the wedding anymore, just being married in front of the people who love them.

What I love about photographing a celebration like this — there's no nervousness left in the room. The legal part is done. Amanda and Gabi already know they're married. The rings are warm from hours of being worn. The celebration is the rest of the world catching up with the fact.

"I knew it was you before there was even a proposal."

One of the things that touched me most about photographing Amanda and Gabi was something Amanda told me herself: even before the proposal had happened, she already knew that whenever the day came, she wanted it to be me behind the camera. She had decided on the photographer before there was officially anything to photograph.

Gabi didn't know my work as deeply — she was much more reserved about the whole thing, the quietly shy one of the two. She trusted Amanda on it and went along. Then I delivered the photos, and Gabi made a point of writing to me to say: "You've got a new fan. Now I understand why Amanda talked about you so much." That sentence belongs to her. I keep it.

Amanda cried at every hug · Gabi caught up on the gossip

On the day, the two of them were exactly what their love looks like up close. Amanda cried at every single hug — and there were a lot of them. Tears at the door, tears mid-conversation, tears every time a friend walked up. She also had the time of her life. The crying and the laughing were happening on the same face, simultaneously, all night.

Gabi, meanwhile, was catching up with everyone — fofoca em dia, all the gossip with friends she hadn't seen in a while, the soft conspiratorial laughter that happens in side rooms — and laughing tenderly at Amanda getting emotional over literally anything. The two of them were extremely happy, extremely in love, moved by the day, moved by the wedding, and visibly delighted by every single person who'd made it there.

That's what I photographed all night. The shy one being not-so-shy-anymore. The emotional one being emotional, again, on cue, every time someone hugged her. Two people landing into being married, in front of the chosen-family they'd built around them. The room held them. I got to keep the frames.

Coverage · Wedding celebration, Dublin (evening) · photo
Brief · Capture the two of them being seen as married, by their people
Booked · Before the proposal even happened
Result · Amanda cried at every hug · Gabi gained a new appreciation for the work — and gave me the line I'll keep