This past weekend, Barry and I drove to Vermont to attend the wedding of our nephew Corey and his beautiful bride, Rhiana.  We arrived late Friday evening to the merry sounds of people… people at a charming inn… on the eve of the wedding ceremony and festivities.

Vermont is a lovely place in early Fall and this weekend was exceptional by all standards.  Friday night was clear and crisp, Saturday morning was sunny and cool… but as the afternoon crept in, so did the sun.  It sat high in the sky and sent magnificent rays of yellow warmth all over the town, the inn and the outside ceremony.  The leaves on the trees danced with the wind and made a glorious contrast with the blue, blue, blue sky.

I love weddings.  I love the romance of it all.  I love the histories that the bride and groom bring to that day… that moment that forever connects two lives.  But most especially,  I love watching the bride as she comes to that moment.  Sometimes she walks with both parents.  Sometimes she walks with her mom or a special friend or relative.  Sometimes she walks alone.

And sometimes she walks with her father.  This walk is the one I watch with great joy because I never had this chance to walk with my Dad… because he died the year before I met the man who would wait for me at the other end of this most special walk.  I love the feeling of it… and it always makes me happy.  I love to photograph this moment.  I love what it captures.

At Corey and Rhiana’s wedding ceremony, the sun was casting beautiful afternoon shadows on that lovely Vermont ground… and I wasn’t quite sure what my little camera was seeing.  But when I looked at the photos later, I was mesmerized by the hands.  The hands of a dad and his daughter.  The hands clasped tightly and lovingly.  Tender strength.  I think the hands are the voice of the heart… the visible piece of the invisible.  On this day, the whole man accompanied his daughter down that Vermont aisle on her way to a new man, a new history… you can see it in his hands.

The hands.  The letting go.  And the giving.  The visible and the invisible.

I love this photo.  This moment.  These hands.

Congratulations, love and millions of blessings to Corey and Rhiana on this wonderful journey!  May your hands always find each other and touch each other in the greatest joy imaginable…