My family tells this story about a wedding at a trapeze artist’s house. The bride, the artist herself, had a trapeze installed in her house- an old farmhouse that they connected to the barn after moving it across their property. It was so hot at the wedding that eyeglasses were slipping off of people’s faces- the groom– somebody in investment banking sweat through his clothes and spent the rest of the wedding visibly damp. The pond near their house was alive with snakes trying to both sun themselves and get cool.
It took time for me to actually understand what “wedding season” was- especially as it coincided with tourist season. The political economy of event planning was so foreign. Who doesn’t love weddings? Or even just photos of weddings, including the notalgia and trends in them, group pictures, flowers, wedding cakes. What makes a good wedding? What makes a good wedding photo beyond the traditional framing or poses that seemingly every married couple gets arranged in on their wedding day? Below are some of my picks of wedding photos from our contributors at Sterling Public Library, Cherry Valley Public Library District, Mclean County Museum of History, Bess Bower Dunn Museum of Lake County, and Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park in cooperation with the Oak Park Public Library.
