Oh man, where do I start…

So, I’ve shot more than 350 weddings, and while I’d had long term relationships, that “always a photographer never a bride” joke was starting to lose its shine. I had just finished the world’s worst series of online dates (some guy tried to bite me on the arm in a wine bar and I threatened to punch him, which shocked him and would horrify my parents, that’s a whole other story) and I decided life as a single dog mom was actually perfect and I was done, thanks.

I had become real-life friends with one of my former couples, Christopher and Nicole, and they introduced me to their neighbor while I was trying to teach them how to garden. He was wearing a man tank. Anyway, they were in the process of home brewing with hopes of opening a brewery down the road, and we both wound up at a “be honest” beer tasting at their home. There’s actually a group photo of us together that night. Logan, the man-tank-wearing neighbor and now my husband, tried to give me the strong-but-silent-come-hither nod... and I decided to go home to my dog. (Side note: Christopher and Nicole do in fact have a brewery now, and they are also now my neighbors as well. We regularly joke about how different all our lives would be if they had booked another photographer for their wedding!)

Logan, however, circled back around and invited me to meet up with him one night after I finished shooting a wedding. I was obviously stone-cold sober, but Logan... was not. He figured I probably wouldn’t show; they were loose plans, I’d probably be tired and bail (very in character for me at that time). I did show up, and he was several drinks deep, but we spent the whole night goofy dancing to an early 2000s cover band. It was silly and ridiculous; it was FUN. He kept pretending to be an Old West gunslinger; that’s his signature dance move, apparently.

I could tell you the rest was history, because that would just be so tidy and cute, but if I know one thing about love from my decade-plus documenting it, love is never a tidy one-liner.

The reality is that we just keep having a wonderful time together despite the ups and downs. We’ve said goodbye to my beloved family dog, been through two meniscus tears and one surgery, life drama, loss, a dog surgery, major career setbacks due to COVID-19, and now God-knows-how-many-days-of-quarantine together, but somehow we still end up having fun. We’ve cowered beneath screaming howler monkeys in Costa Rica, run from bears in the mountains, kissed under waterfalls (way more romantic in theory, you get water up your nose in reality), kayaked 11 miles to stay in what I swear was a haunted treehouse and 11 miles home, did an RV road trip through Tennessee, and most recently camped in our own backyard during the pandemic. If you can quarantine with someone for that many days straight and you still want to marry them, you are probably with the right person. Best/worst premarital trial ever.

The moment that, for me, sums up this man-tank-wearing-Star-Wars-obsessed prince of a man is this: It was August in Charleston. It was so hot, you were in a full-body sweat the moment you stepped out of the shower. And then, my HVAC unit bit the dust. It was 93 degrees INSIDE the house and no one was available to replace the HVAC for over a week. The dogs were miserable, I was miserable, we were all dehydrated, no one was sleeping. I had to work long days in the heat, only to come home to more heat. Heat rash was becoming a permanent thing. I burst into what I can only describe as ugly rage tears that probably made me look like a dying catfish, but Logan didn’t miss a beat. He hightailed it to Lowe’s and installed a window unit in the bedroom... and then he built me a fort using twine, clothespins, blankets, and Christmas lights. And for one full week, the two of us and our two dogs played fort - or igloo - in my bedroom while the world roasted outside. If that’s not a metaphor for love these days, I don’t know what is.

Here’s to a lifetime of turning lemons into limoncello, to blanket forts in your mid-30s, to camping in the backyard during the apocalypse, to carving out room for joy in an unpredictable world. It’s not perfect, it’s not always easy, but it sure is a lot of fun in between.

- Reese