I've lived in Modesto basically my entire life and I've been in the wedding industry for QUITE a while now, so it seems strange that Kathlene and Ryan's wedding at Vintage Gardens was the first chance I've ever had to work at the local venue, but I'm so glad this couple's hilarious and love-filled nuptials were my intro to the place. I have trouble imagining the lovely venue without the beautiful pink accents with which Kathlene filled it or the grinning, ecstatic crowds that came to celebrate the union of this amazing couple. 

Before I point a camera at couples, I often extol my grand unifying theory of cuddling:  every couple has their own unique ways that they fit together, and those comfortable poses are not something I can direct them into, it's something that happens after months and years of slinging their arms over their partner's shoulders, intertwining their fingers in just the right way, resting the space between cheek and chin at just the right tuft of hair or enveloping each other in the comfort of deep hugs. Kathlene & Ryan are one of those couples who joined lives in reality long before they joined them on paper, and I have to admit that at weddings like this, my job gets much easier. There is an ease to couples who know each other so deeply and whose lives already run parallel. The wedding day becomes not a moment of change, but a celebration of what has passed and an embracing of what is to come. 

And let me tell you, Kathlene and Ryan--and their families, friends and guests--embraced the celebration completely.

The things I remember best of their wedding day are glimpses of beaming, laughing faces at the incredibly joyful reception; Ryan's booming laugh as he cracked jokes with his buddies; Kathlene alternating between tears, laughter and mortification during her brother's speech; the golden fall light slanting through the stained glass windows of St. Stanislaus during the ceremony and the looks of adoration written on the faces of both the bride and groom at their first look. These are the things I will carry with me from this wedding day.

Kathlene and Ryan, I know you have a lifetime of love, laughter and luck ahead of you. And you deserve every day of goodness ahead. I wish you all the glad tidings and perfect love in all the world.