Weddings | Alex Farris Photo Blog

This is the post I originally promised two years ago.

In the lead-up to medical school, and in between shifts as an emergency room scribe, I did a few more photo assignments for The Indianapolis Star. One of those assignments, the Carmel mayoral election, made the front page of the paper the next day, and although I was changing careers, I was still excited about it.

During medical school, I managed to cover three weddings. Two of those were booked before I started school and occurred during the first semester, so I had to find a way to fit them in between anatomy exams. (Definitely worth it; both weddings were special and intimate ceremonies joining two good people together.) The third wedding just could not be passed up, even though by then (third semester) I was well aware of how much of a time commitment medical school is. My friend Steph, featured twice on this blog, had a beautiful wedding in Florida in the fall of 2016 before moving to England with her husband the following winter. If her wedding (which begins here with photo 17) is the last one I cover as a photographer, I'll be quite happy to end that career with such a great couple.

Scecina pitcher Julia Blastic (center) and other teammates celebrate as Lea Thompson (right) runs home after Justice Carmichael's grand-slam home run during Scecina's 7-4 victory over Cathedral in the high school city softball title game at Brookside Park, Saturday, May 9, 2015.

The second missed wedding entry (for my third wedding of 2014) began as a shameless plug.

During the first week of my summer organic chemistry lab at IUPUI, I overheard a comment from a TA named Callie. She wasn't my TA, but the two lab sections were combined in the computer lab that day, so I heard her say she was about to buy her wedding dress. I rolled my chair over and, slightly brazenly, asked when she was getting married and if she had a photographer. She said no, she didn't have a photographer. I pulled a business card out of my pocket and handed it to her, admitting to the shameless plug but offering to help.

Wouldn't you know it, the self-promotion worked. Her fiance sent me an email, and we scheduled an engagement photo session for downtown on a summer Sunday (the same Sunday as the Fray concert I was covering). After a productive session came the lakeside wedding in October, and holy hell was that fun.

"I'll have two more entries up later this week."
-Alex Farris, July 21, 2014

I'm rather silly, thinking I would post two more wedding-related blog entries as my organic chemistry class was finishing and my MCAT studying was about to start. Just before the end of this year, let's correct that myopia.

The first missed entry was the Kaiser/Rhoderick wedding. Kayleigh Kaiser is the oldest sister of a good friend from middle school and high school, and as he is stationed in Puerto Rico, seeing him was a great bonus on top of the good times, money, and photos. The ceremony was held at the gorgeous Holy Rosary Catholic Church just south of downtown Indy, and the reception was... decidedly not downtown, at a reception hall in Plainfield. I eventually drove from my home to the groom's Plainfield home, to Holy Rosary, to a downtown Arby's to wait out the rain, to a park in Plainfield, to the reception hall, to my home. Lots of driving, but no matter: I enjoyed the day. And finally, the photos get their time in the blog spotlight (they were already posted to the shop.

Next up: the wedding of a TA from this summer's organic chemistry class.