Wedding at Penn Oaks Golf Club in West Chester PA: Maria & Chris

This past Sunday, Wil and I had an awesome opportunity to photograph our  first Greek Orthodox wedding. Wil started his day off with Chris and his groomsmen, a few minutes away from our house in West Chester and I travelled  to Maria’s parent’s house where she was getting ready in nearby Thornton, PA.

After an awesome time photographing the gorgeous Maria Sophia, her girls and her family, we hopped in a limo and headed to the St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Media.  The church and ceremony were both beautiful. I have always really loved seeing the myriad of ways different cultures choose to celebrate this special and defining moment, and this ceremony was no exception. To those of you who have never had a chance to witness this kind of ceremony it is steeped in symbolism, and runs fairly long because of the various rituals that are performed . The part I found most touching was that the typical ring exchange got the added twist that the Koumbaro (or religious sponsor of the couple) trades the rings back and forth 3 times between the couple to symbolize how in married life the strengths of one partner will compensate for weaknesses the other may have.

After the ceremony we took some family portraits, and then headed to Penn Oaks Golf club where we had a chance to take some bridal party and then couples portraits during the always beautiful golden hour.  We ended the evening photographing all the festivities and great dancing to live traditional Greek music inside the ballroom at Penn Oaks. I’ve  definitely written enough of a novel on this one so now on to our favorite photographs from today: