A special request from the bride to execute an American Gothic portrait in front of the iconic wallpaper inside the Hay Adams.
In the darkest moment of early 2021, Angie contacted me with a promising inquiry, revealing hints of understanding event photography well beyond the everyday person. After a fantastic initial consult, we moved forward, video conferenced, booked, and planned for the day.
The Hay Adams Hotel is an iconic Washington, DC landmark, on Black Lives Matter Plaza, and within shouting distance of the White House. Shame it took me until nearly the end of the wedding day to digest the foreshadowing of the venue.
But on the wedding day, the location couldn't escape the dramatic sheet of ice that an ice storm dropped on DC that day. So the bride and groom (there was no wedding party) and I were restricted to indoor locations within the hotel and a DC Metro station a block away.
The couple lives in Detroit, and live very busy lives, even in the midst of the pandemic, so our opportunities to connect were limited. As a result, I spent much of the wedding day learning about them, and just before the dinner began, the massive, accidental and Kismet-like reveal occurred: the groom is a political phenomenon, having worked in the Obama administration, as well as a critical figure in the Biden/Harris transition.
AND - I was hired because Vice President Kamala Harris' photographer suggested that the groom look at the WPJA website to find the right photographer. It all congealed from there.
