The Starfish Bride

I just shot a wedding in Hawaii. I've always wanted to say that. As a matter of fact I'm saying it out loud as I'm typing,  because it feels so good. Not just because as a photographer you dream of such things, but because for me it was life full-circle. Raised in Hawaii since I was four months old, the wedding was just one sandy strip away from where I grew up gathering shells, getting pummeled by waves, and eating sand. Not on purpose of course...

As the 6'4" Brigadier General towered over his precious bride, her three children looked on. Bare feet with sand clinging to their toes from their morning jaunt in the ocean, the family gathered for an intimate ceremony on the bluffs of Bellows AFB General's estate. The attentions to detail were personal. She was his starfish. He told her a story one day when they first fell in love: There was a cranky old man walking down the beach amidst a slew of stranded starfish. Suffocating in the sand, a young woman came by and began to throw them one by one back into the sea. He looked at her and said, "My dear, why waste your time throwing them one by one back into the sea. There are far too many to save. How could you possibly think this is going to make a difference?" The young woman answered as she picked up each starfish and said, "It matters to that one", and  flung it to the ocean. "And that one...and that one...and that one..."

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