Brandon & Gabi — A wedding with everyone in it

To Brandon and Gabi —

The thing I'll always remember about your wedding is that it was full. Full of family. Full of children. Full of cousins I would meet once and never see again. Full of the kind of crowd that signals: we are not eloping, we are inviting them all, every single one.

I keep the cellist. I keep your niece sitting on the floor watching him. I keep the front-steps portrait with what must be three full generations of you both, lined up like a class photograph, the wreath on the door behind. I keep Gabi's veil through the back, walking down the garden path on the morning of, before anyone else had seen her yet.

The biggest weddings are the ones that have to do the most work to feel intimate. Yours did the work.

— Stephanie