Photos of me taken by Erica Lyn

I moved to New York CIty in 2010 with one goal: make a living doing what I love.

That said, entering the wedding industry was not what I imagined for myself. I had just moved to New York after living in South Africa where I had planned to launch a social initiative with friends. As with many things in life, it didn’t go as planned, and before I knew it, I found myself in New York City, swimming (or drowning) in a sea of aspiring artists and entrepreneurs. I knew that I wanted to be a photographer, but I wasn’t sure I could make a living doing it. If I was going to go for it, I knew I had to find a self-sustaining bread and butter niche. I thought of myself as a documentary and travel photographer, and I was known among friends as a party photographer. Then one day, out of the blue, a friend said to me, “if I ever get married, I want you to be my wedding photographer.” Wedding photographer, eh? It got me thinking…

But wedding photography was cliché, boring, and painfully irrelevant to my life and photography career. Or so I thought. At the time, I didn’t even have the right to get married, neither in my home state of Wisconsin nor in New York, my state of residence. Thus admittedly, I wasn’t jumping up and down at the idea of giving up my weekends during the most beautiful seasons of the year to “photograph straight weddings.” Furthermore, I feared that if I pursued my own wedding photography business, I would be forced to comprise or “tone down” myself and or my values to get bookings. After all, politics, religion, and sex(uality) are not only dinner party no-nos, we have been taught they have no place in business. At best, entering the wedding industry felt like a financial risk and personal contradiction. At worst, I was entering a 90 Billion dollar industry from which I was and am historically and legally excluded. But as the momentum of the New York Marriage Amendment grew, I became excited. Not only would it mean marriage equality in New York, it would also bring forth a wedding boom and new market to whom I’d strongly appeal. And if it didn’t pass? Well, I was preparing to taste the irony of my career choice, face my LGBT friends with mutual disappointment, and trudge on hoping that one day I would get to photograph their weddings, too. Either way, there was no going back. I was officially a wedding photographer.

So what changed that transformed my ambivalence about wedding photography into a passion for it? Allow me to backtrack. It actually wasn’t the passage of the NY Marriage Amendment. To my surprise, it was the discovery, very early on, that I am completely in love with wedding photography. What began as quest to not be broke and unemployed in New York City, metamorphosed into a career I can now see myself doing as long as I am physically able. My experience in the industry began after researching and cold calling over 40 wedding photographers in NYC. As a result, I started working with one of the best wedding photographers in the city, Ryan Brenizer. Ryan became not only a mentor, but a friend whose love for wedding photography was contagious. Our work approach together was upbeat, positive, in the moment, and completely focused on what was happening at each wedding. As, I got deeper into it, new ways of seeing weddings, tradition, and ceremony started to unfold for me. What I once thought was cliché and boring quickly became some of the most challenging and meaningful work of my life. What I thought was in opposition to my roots as documentary, travel, and cultural photographer emerged as intimately linked to it. Wedding photography, to my surprise, pushed me as an artist. I felt a sense of urgency to create photos that stood out. In doing so, I felt like everything in my life was falling into place.

Yet my internal conflict about being a “gay wedding photographer” remained; there was still something about it that felt bitterly ironic. But as the year unfolded and my business began to grow, I found that, of course I wouldn’t compromise myself or give up my values; in fact, I’ve found, my clients, both gay AND straight value me because of them. There ARE people out there who will book me because they love my work and respect me and my business. And to my surprise, it is my LGBT friends who have supported me the most in my decision to enter the wedding industry. And then, the NY marriage amendment passed. The irony and conflict began to dissipate, as I realized just how cool it is to be working in the industry during this historic time.

I was shooting a wedding with Ryan when the NY Marriage Amendment passed. It also happened to be Pride weekend, which I spent shooting three weddings. While Ryan and I sloshed around on a barn floor in two inches of wine (long story, full wedding coming soon), my friend, Jaime Michelle, was sending me minute-hy-minute updates on the vote. We were having so much fun shooting this wedding that I had stopped checking my phone until Ryan asked, “Did it pass?!” I rushed to check my phone, and saw that I had one unread message: “It passed!!!!!!” I shouted the news to Ryan, and after we high-fived and hugged, he took this picture of me, in tears.

There was a lesbian couple at the wedding, and I went up to them and said, “It passed! New York just legalized gay marriage!!” They looked me and said, “What, just now? Are you serious!?” I showed them the text and they hugged and kissed in celebration. As Ryan described on his blog, “the news spread like wildfire, fueling the flame of an already wildly raucous reception.”

This is a moment I will never forget. There is something amazing about witnessing a couple arrive at their friend’s wedding unable to get married and leaving knowing they now could. Ryan hit right on the nose in his blog post saying, “there’s an extra emotional intensity when shooting a gay wedding… you are photographing people who grew up thinking that this whole wedding thing could never happen for them. That all the connection, the public displays, the meaningful vows, the celebrations, everything I adore about weddings — these things could only happen to other people. And then, finally, the doors opened to them.”

Though many of my friends were out enjoying pride weekend at historic spots like Stonewall Inn and Christopher St. when the news broke, I was photographing an exceptionally beautiful wedding, bonding with two strangers over one shared fact: the three of us now had the right marry just like everyone else in the room with us. My ambivalence and conflict towards wedding photography truly came full circle in this moment, as I stood there thinking, “there’s no place I’d rather be.”

I am not one of those wedding photographers who entered the industry because I’ve spent my whole life planning my dream wedding. Growing up, marriage was not an option for me, and that’s part of why I never saw wedding photography as career option. But I love it. There is nothing more satisfying than opening an email from a client that says, “Please say you are available on October 15th. Your photography is exactly how I’ve always wanted my wedding to be seen and remembered.”

My work focuses on candid connections and interactions between people. It is a commentary and documentation of human expression and the human experience in all its beauty, struggle, bravery, and mystery. All my work aims to reflect the way in which friendship, love, and monumental (as well as the seemingly insignificant) events shape our lives as individuals, families, and communities. But above all, it is about the moment. The then and there, the here and now. I was called to this industry to capture moments like this. A mother watching her daughter put on her wedding dress, feeling blessed and proud that her little girl has found someone with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life.

This is why I do what I do and it has nothing to do with being gay or the institution of marriage. And yet, I’ve discovered in it, a place for me, and an opportunity (like writing this blog post) to use my involvement in the industry as point of discussion, debate, and a reminder of the ongoing struggle that exists in our country and around the world for equality and justice. In doing so, I get to “be true myself,” be a photographer, and be an advocate…a combination I never imagined I’d be attributing to wedding photography.

This amendment is profoundly historic and powerful for LGBT couples who have long awaited their wedding day. It brings tears to my eyes to know that the next generation will be living in a more just world. Yet I want to also take this chance to gently remind my readers that because same sex-marriage is not legal at a federal level, same-sex couples in NY still cannot file a joint federal tax return, share retirement benefits, and shield each others’ assets from estate taxes, among many other federal benefits. As I continue forward with my career in the wedding industry, I also look forward the evolution of the both the institution and the industry, as the concept and traditions of marriage become more inclusive.

As a general rule, I try to avoid excessively long blog posts, but sometimes there needs to be an exception. I will likely lose potential clients because of this post, but it is my hope that I will gain some also. Thank you all for reading, thank you for your support, and I hope to talk to you soon about your upcoming wedding… no matter who you are and whom you love! Finally, I am a word-of-mouth business. I count on people like you to make my living. Please comment, tweet, share, and recommend this post and my work if you like what you see and think your friends might, too. Become a facebook fan to keep up with me.

-Erica Camille
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