Sherry

BEST IN LARGE

Sherry, in Laotian dress, sits for a portrait on her wedding day.

On that morning, in an aged townhouse in the town of Boerne in the Texas Hill country, a shaman passed his blessings over two of my good friends who were to wed that same evening. Not only were we lucky enough to attend the wedding, we were lucky enough to spend the week before with them in Dallas.

I feel privileged enough even just to know this wonderful couple, so to be invited to photograph their entire wedding day was really exciting.

If they are as in love in fifty years as they are now, they will not need anything else in life.


***


That bit was nice and I didn't want to taint the perfection of the day with one of my stories so I put those asterisk things there to, you know, to keep my distance.

It was a worldly affair. Mirroring the coming together of the bride and grooms' heritage, Laotian families mingled with families of Texans. One bridesmaid was Welsh, another Australian. A strapping bloke from Wimbledon could be spotted practicing his enunciation with the local lassies. And the photographer (yours truly), not one to wear his nationality on his sleeve, and clearly unable to conceptualise the Texan midday sun that morning, donned his kilt.

Unsurprisingly I came to be known as the guy in the skirt. Did I let down my fellow country folk by failing to call them out each and every time, I hear you ask? No. No I didn't. Because the guy who said that was wearing a cowboy hat at the time, and you don't question a man in a cowboy hat.

And I know many of us here in Caledon-i-a are veritably bemused as to why our favourite woollen garb didn't surf the trend wave much further south than Carlisle. Well I can tell thee, dear reader, that the our plaid pal doesn't fare so well outside of its natural habitat of overcast and drizzly climes. It's normal for a kilt to me a little moist on the outside, but if you strap that mother-flipper round your waist in the Deep South you will walk like you've rubbed olive oil on your knees.

Giving that marinade that little bit of encouragement is the incessant friction from the tight woollen knit that brings out a rosiness to your knees in such a way that if the wedding just so happened to be fancy dress, and you'd forgotten, you could say that you'd come as a Scottish gammon smuggler. No-one would question that.

Especially if you wore a cowboy hat.