Eight years later

I got married almost eight years ago (I know, can you believe it's been that long?!). It rained all day, I was an hour late to my wedding (most of you lived through that with me...you poor people), blah blah we had a great time. The day after the wedding we went on our honeymoon, and the day after returning from our honeymoon we moved from Florida to South Carolina. Meanwhile, our wedding photographer gave my parents a VHS tape (I know, I was married in the Dark Ages before digital) of our numbered wedding proofs to give to us. We were supposed to pick our prints and she'd make our album.

But we were busy starting new jobs, exploring a new town, making some new friends, writing thank-you notes (you just choked on your drink reading that, didn't ya Mom...) .... we basically got busy, and lazy. Months went by and finally we got off our asses and decided which of the proofs we wanted printed. Except when we tried to contact her, our wedding photographer had vanished into thin air. Phone disconnected. No forwarding address could be found. (This was the age before email addresses and cell phone numbers were given out like candy on Halloween). I was PISSED.

Over the years, every once in awhile I'd get fired up and spend an afternoon scouring the Internet for her. I remembered her saying that her parents lived somewhere in the Midwest and her mother was ill. I assumed she'd moved there, but could never find her. I contacted a national association of professional photographers and they couldn't find her on their member roster. I called the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce (where we were married) to see if she had maybe changed her name or the name of her business. Nada.

I should clarify that we do have photos of our wedding. They're all 4x6 prints, mostly taken on disposable cameras we had on all the tables at the reception. Nothing against our family members, but let's just say that there ain't a pro photographer in the bunch. We have dozens and dozens of prints and they all are either blurry, or too dark, or there's a big lock of hair in the corner of the frame, or the people in the photo appear to be standing roughly three football field lengths away from the photographer. In summary, they suck. (Sorry guys.) (The pics shown here are an exception. Kielynn sent these to us, but I'm not sure who took them, since she is in some of them.)

By now, you know where I'm going with this .... The other day I got ambitious and "googled" the photographer. Lo and behold, the very first link that popped up was to her Web site! Her business name has changed but she's still shooting weddings -- in Minnesota. I emailed her asking (pleading) if she by chance still had negatives from a wedding she shot eight years ago. Chris looked at me like I was nuts when I told him. "No way," he said. "I bet she doesn't even write you back."

Well, she not only wrote me back, but she called me today to tell me that indeed, she still has our negatives!! I was so excited I got tears in my eyes. FINALLY, I can create a real wedding photo album, like every other bride in the world. Neither one of us still has a contract (although I don't really buy that from her since she still has my negs...you'd think they would be in a folder with my paperwork) so I couldn't tell her how much we had paid and whether we owed money or she owed us anything. Anyway, she's sending us all the negatives, along with a form that releases the copyrights to us, and we're calling it even at that.

I am so excited!! Now we just have to dig up a friggin' VCR and find that ol' dusty VHS tape so we can peruse our choices once again.