it's 1978. I'm the English Department Chairman at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, California. I'm making less than $14,000 dollars a year. I have two very small children, a third on the way, and I own a house. My wife is a credentialed elementary school teacher, but has been a full-time mother for the past four years, is pregnant again, and has little or no prospects for making money before the $1000 a month or so that I'm making evaporates. What to do?
I live in California where real estate is a hot commodity. I enroll in a real estate class for maybe $250 or so and head out in the evenings to a cramped room upstairs in the Coddingtown Mall where I pour over the most boring books and papers I've ever had in front of me, more boring even than 9th graders' essays. After a few weeks I stop going. I can't do this. I can't be a real estate agent. Now what?
Someone tells me about Bridal Bells. It's a wedding mill. Brides who don't have a preference for a wedding photographer go to Bridal Bells, sign a contract, and Bridal Bells dishes out the film, directions, and information to a camera-for-hire gunslinger who is willing to spend six hours or so of his Saturday, receiving a bounty of $50 for his services. No matter that many of the for-rent photographers have never photographed a wedding before. If they are willing to fork out enough money to buy a medium format camera they look the part. My mother advanced me $2500 of my future inheritance, so armed with my new Mamiya 645, three lenses and a flash, I soon became a member of Bridal Bells' staff. I pick up my assignment early in the week, call the bride, ask directions, then head out on Saturday for my first gig as a "professional photographer."
I remember several moments from these first weddings. One reception was held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, and I stood with the mother of the bride as the happy couple cut the cake. The bride sliced the cake, then gently fed her new husband a small piece. He then cut a much larger slice, wrapped one of his big arms around the bride's neck, then ground the cake into her face. The mother turned to me, "He's quite a spirited young buck!" she said. "This marriage hasn't got a chance," I thought, "what an asshole.".
A few weeks later I picked up my new assignment and drove to the bride's house, opened the door, and was met by Pearl. Not just Pearl, but by her two sisters, her four daughters, and her three granddaughters. You see, Pearl had been married in 1928, and to celebrate her fiftieth anniversary, she and her husband chose to recreate that moment in 1978. One sister, dressed in pink, was her maid of honor in 1928; another, in blue, was a bridesmaid. The others weren't around in 1928, but they were happy to be a part of Pearl's Wedding 2.0.
When you worked at Bridal Bells you surrendered your film after the wedding. I knew that this image was both unusual and special, so I asked for the negative just long enough to make this print. I entered it in a juried art show, and Gaye LeBaron, the Santa Rosa equivalent of San Francisco's Herb Caen, mentioned that it was one of her favorite pieces. It's one of mine, too, forty years later.