A friend of a friend asked if I could photograph their wedding for them. It was not a paid job or anything like that, but I was given a place in the wedding and reception and all of the food that comes with it. For me it was more the challenge and the opportunity to experience an Argentine wedding that motivated me to do it inspite of my heavy workload. And it was well worthwhile too.
Mabel and Gabriel, the newly married couple.
The civil wedding was the first step, which took place on the wednesday. We went to an old government building filled with people completing paperwork and paying bills to the government. The building was old and in a slight state of disrepair with an atmosphere typical of public government buildings. One room in this building was dedicated to the weddings. A large room with lovely decorations, it was obviously prepared for photos, and judging by the rest of the building, it stood apart in its beauty.
Friends and family in the nice room ready to witness the civil wedding.
Civil wedding in progress.
On Friday the church wedding took place. I had been promised help for this day, but instead was left on my own to both video and photograph the events that took place. After consulting some girls, it was decided that a video of the church ceremony was more valuable than photos, so there are virtually no photos of this part of the event. Afterwards however we took many photos of the couple in various parts of the city.
After taking the photographs we moved on to the reception, at the home of one of the parents of the couple, where I interchanged my camera with the video-camera throughout the day. It was a very lovely event, and for a couple that had hardly two cents to rub together, everyone made the best of what they had and all present chipped in with whatever they could to be able to give the newly-weds a great start to their new life together.
One of the photos after the church wedding.
When I looked through my photos, I was quite disappointed with the results. This was the first time that I have ever tried to do something like this, and it was such short notice that I did not have much time to look at other photos of weddings to get some ideas. The main thing amongst it all however was that with a nervous couple on my hands, I did not encourage them to smile a whole lot, so many times they look pretty serious. My favourite photos below are those where they did manage to smile, or where I caught them unawares.
The wedding itself was very similar to many weddings that I have been to, although there was no destroying of the wedding car (mind you they did not really have a car, so perhaps that was related), and rice was the flavour of the day to throw at the couple, which they did only at the civil wedding.
Throwing rice on the couple as they emerge from their civil wedding.
My last task before leaving on holidays was to compile the video and photos of the two stages of the wedding and leave it behind to give to the couple when they return from their short honeymoon. They will be precious memories for many years to come.
The bridge behind is one of the major symbols for Corrientes.
Travelling in the car to another photographic location.
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