Ginny & Aaron

I can completely understand why some people might be frightened at the offer to photograph a funeral-themed wedding. Me, I get giddy. A few months back, Ginny e-mailed me explaining that she was having her wedding on Halloween and was going to have the place done up with corpses, caskets, skulls—the whole nine yards. She made it clear that this wasn’t going to be cheesy goth creepy, but full on night of terror wedding. For years, I’ve been not-so-secretly wishing to shoot a wedding on O’Hallows Eve and jumped at the opportunity.

Ginny made it clear—she wanted all her decorations captured on film and that took priority over everything else. Human skull. Check. Corpse in the corner. Check. Casket cake. Check. Keep in mind, the wedding was done at the Il Villaggio in Carlstadt, NJ—a very upscale Italian pavilion style manor that probably doesn’t see this type of spooky cacophony too often.

The wedding was amazing. Everyone was dressed in black from head to toe, except the bride. Ginny came out to “Fade to Black” by Metallica, which blew me away. When she kissed her new husband, Aaron, for the first time “Hells Bells” by AC/DC blew through the speakers—this was the most bad ass wedding ever. As a thank you for shooting their blessed event, the newlyweds gave me a resin skull and a mini-butcher knife. I swear, I love my clients.

Best wishes to Ginny and Aaron. You were right, your wedding was to die for.

As an aside, after I sent Ginny her slideshow, she sent me the sweetest email ever. Here’s the abridged version, minus any gory details:

“With every pic you took of me i can see and remember exactly how i felt at that moment which is wonderful because it all went so fast, i get to relive it at my leisure now, enjoying every minute the way i wished i could’ve. We got a once in a lifetime break with you because your talent is worth so much more then we ever could have afforded and i feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to have you be our photographer. You gave me my wedding to cherish forever instead of the messy blur in my head, which short of donating a kidney, is the greatest gift ever. By the way, if you ever need a kidney, I’m here for you.”

Ginny, you can keep the kidney. I’ll take the kind words. Thank you so much.