Sirao Post Wedding Session

My heart ached when I did this post-wedding shoot. The questions in my head about marriage and relationships came flooding. It was unfamiliar at first! But as I threw cues here and there, one question popped after another. A distant memory of a heartache presented itself. It was unstoppable like the slight drizzle that day. It also felt like the sky cried for me. I wasn’t sure if it was sadness. Was it? Or was it a celebration of sort up in heaven that I have finally made amends to the daemon of loneliness that has enveloped me for many many years.

I used to enjoy documenting weddings. I used to think that it is a love so deep and vast. But as I journeyed through life as a wedding photographer, my fate about marriage and relationships began to wane. I even asked myself so many times, “Why are they so happy and why am I not?”

“Why is he so into her and why isn’t he?”

“Why did I go through all the heartaches?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

I had many questions one after another. Unanswered! I became a pessimist and I grew bitter. It wasn’t a good place to be, but that was how I journeyed all those years. The more I magnified every wedding I photographed, the more I was convinced that it was something that I deserve. That kind of love! That kind of respect! That kind of affection! That kind of happiness!!

Every disappointment. Every heartache made me stronger. Empowered me, I guess, to be better. That I have to build myself up before I could love and be loved deeply. Because, now I know, that I can’t fix people and no one can fix me. And that boundaries are important. It isn’t just about love; it is all about choice too.

I am not sad anymore. I do not cry myself to sleep at night. I don’t ask myself so many questions. I do not pity myself. I have stopped taking all the blame. I do not torture myself why it failed. I don’t have a closet full of maybe and could’ve been.

My heart is finally home where it should be.

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Sharing with you a post-wedding session I did in Sirao a few weeks ago. It was quick but heartfelt.

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Hair and makeup: Suzaine Christi Smith