Essential Stuff

Okay, so the story of how I ended up photographing Kallie and Jordan’s wedding is kind of a long one. Are you ready?

It all started in 2006, when Stefanie and Dustin married in Spokane. Dustin’s best man was a guy named Jordan, who gave a heart-felt speech, the gist of which I still remember: Dustin and Jordan had been about as close to brothers as two guys who aren’t brothers could be, who lived down the street from each other, spent enormous amounts of time at each other’s houses, and played some really physically brutal games together.

Skip forward to 2008, when I was shooting Brooke and Mike’s wedding at a gorgeous setting outside of Chewelah. Dances, toasts, bouquet, garter, all that, but when the guy caught the garter, I thought to myself, “I’ve seen this guy before”. Then I remembered Dustin’s wedding, so I looked up in my archived photos, and sure enough, it was Jordan, Dustin’s best man (maybe I didn’t recognize him right away without his tuxedo).

Now we go to Moses Lake in 2009 for Allyson and Kellen’s wedding, which was extra cool because I had photographed Allyson’s sister Katy’s (and brother-in-law DJ’s) wedding in 2007. And who should catch the garter? Jordan again! I recognized him right away this time, even with his new facial scruff. I remember stopping him and mentioning this odd coincidence, and I met at that time his companion, a certain Kallie who shows up in more than one photo from that day, wearing a black dress. I later learned that Jordan attended a slew of weddings that year and caught more than his fair share of garters (I wondered if he had used those elbows he had used against Dustin in their childhood games).

In 2009, I shot my first wedding at the Chewelah Peak Learning Center, which really is way, way up at the peak of the mountain. It was Christy and Travis’ wedding. It so happens that Kallie had once worked at the Chewelah Peak Learning Center, which meant that she knew Christy, whose mother is on the staff there. Later that summer, I was up at Chewelah Peak Learning Center again, this time for Kaleena and Joel’s wedding.

I had no idea that Kaleena was good friends with Kallie and Jordan until I learned (via facebook) that Kaleena would be attending their wedding. But the archived photos proves Kallie was, in fact, at Kaleena’s wedding, where she even appears in an unlikely portrait.  Like at Allyson’s wedding, Kallie wore black, and, apparently taking lessons from Jordan, she caught Kaleena’s bouquet.

And indeed, Kaleena not only attended Kallie and Jordan’s wedding, but was given the honor of reading a beautiful poem during the ceremony. I was looking forward to seeing Joel there, even though he’s a 49ers fan, but, alas, he had familial obligations (jerk). I had also hoped to see, perhaps irrationally, Allyson and Kellen and Katy and DJ and Christy and Travis and Brooke and Mike and Stefanie and Dustin. And I DID see Stefanie and Dustin again. Dustin was, naturally, a groomsman, and returned the honor Jordan had given him four years earlier with a heart-felt speech. I also met Stefanie and Dustin’s newest family member, Aubrey, who will be getting a little brother later this fall, both of whose weddings I hope to shoot, sometime in the summers of 2031 and 2033, respectively.

Anyway, all that leads back to Kallie and Jordan, at Chewelah Peak Learning Center, in the summer of 2010.  I had crossed paths with them so many times, through all these different people, that had they not selected me to shoot their wedding, I would have at least expected an invitation.  Fortunately for me, the did have me photograph their wedding (and what a great wedding it was).

I didn’t know the woman who caught the bouquet or the man who caught the garter at Kallie and Jordan’s wedding, but given all the times I’ve brushed shoulders with Kallie and Jordan, perhaps I should have given them my card.