Fiction
The Wedding Favor

By Tina Koenig

Carl adjusted the lens’ aperture settings on his Hasselblad camera compensating for any stray-light reflecting off the Tahitian waters. He carefully positioned a black accordion shade ensuring that his large-format shots would be spot on as befitting his reputation as a world-class fashion photographer.

He hated shooting seaside. The sand and salt damaged his equipment, breezes lengthened the sessions and the damn renegade reflections—he couldn’t control anything. Tough. Other people had it tougher. These would be the best shots of his life. He owed that to the clients.

Even though the format was less forgiving, he preferred it when clients requested two and a quarter square negatives instead of the new digital formats because it meant they understood the craft of image making.

The couple, Emmie and Daniel, was having a small wedding at a resort on Moorea, one of the many islands dotting the South Seas. Family members from both sides flew in, as did forty close friends.

As Carl fidgeted with his camera, the wedding planner coaxed the bride and the groom toward a sandy spot between a stand of palm trees. The trees jutted out over the ocean providing a dramatic backdrop for their formal photographs.

Keeping tabs on couple’s appearance and posture was a fashion stylist. Emmie’s hair was arranged in a partial updo leaving lingering blonde curls cascading down to the middle of her back. The stylist reinstated stray hair blown by the slight breeze, glossed Emmie’s crimson lips and applied loose powder to her face cutting bright spots. She touched up the eyeliner on Emmie’s wide-set aqua eyes, carefully curling her lashes every so often. The bride wore no veil.

If Carl said the folds in Emmie’s wedding gown cast shadows that were too strong, the stylist rearranged the fabric until it was satisfactory. She brushed sand off the slacks of the groom’s trousers. As Carl called out changes in position, the stylist gently folded Emmie’s fingers into the groom’s palm, or around a bouquet of marmalade and white roses. She tilted Emmie’s head by placing her palms on either side of her face making ever-so-slight changes in its angle--backward, to the right, or to the left. She would then make parallel the bride’s shoulders using gentle prods.

When the bride stirred, so did the five million dollars worth of jewelry she wore. A five carat pear-shaped diamond rested just above the plunging sweetheart neckline of the wedding gown. Its discrete chain, made of diamond encrusted platinum links in the shape of nautilus shells, complemented the wedding planner’s theme of the tropics. Earrings with a similar motif hugged the bride’s lobes. 

Emmie was glorious--as dazzling as any of the fashion models and actresses Carl had photographed. Her choice of a canary yellow gown, its box pleated skirt as broad as the sun itself, triumphed against the coral white sand and sky. Equally striking was the groom--although his jade eyes and bleached hair suggested more of an open collar print shirt with short sleeves rather than the black tie and tails he was wearing. Carl, in fact, was the only person dressed appropriately for the weather in a straw hat and Bermuda shorts. A day’s growth of beard remained on his face after the long flight from London. His shoulder-length hair was stringy; he desperately needed a haircut.

The couple smiled over and over again--the bliss of the day radiating from their bodies. The fluidity and grace with which the couple allowed themselves to be choreographed by Carl and the stylist was inspirational.  Occasionally one of the bride’s heels would get caught in the sand causing her to stumble. Carl’s assistant found a piece of half-inch plywood to place on the sand hidden beneath her gown. She never once lost her composure, and simply leaned on Daniel for momentary support.

It was clear that Emmie and Daniel had practiced the modeling exercises Carl had given to the wedding planner. The couple had rehearsed their smiles for friends and family members so they could learn how to feel which expressions looked the most attractive as assessed by those watching.

To help the couple synchronize the timing of their expressions, Carl had devised an audio system which beeped just as he was about to squeeze the shutter release. It worked well and he obtained wonderful shots except when someone blinked and he had to start over. Despite twenty years of experience, this was the first assignment where the models’ body language gave no warning of approaching blinks. On the upside, neither the bride nor the groom complained of the sun being in their eyes.

While Carl took his pictures, family members and guests complimented the beauty of the bride and the generosity of the jeweler for donating the gems adorning her. The photographs would later appear in a national magazine as part of a special wedding supplement. A major cosmetics company had paid for the entire affair.

The photographs were Emmie’s parents’ idea. They wanted a memory. Even though Emmie and Daniel would never see the pictures; they agreed to pose.

Born sighted, Daniel was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when he was seven years old. Neither of his parents was afflicted but it was in the family. Genetic studies determined that the RP was on his father’s side but nobody knew about it because his grandfather had died fighting in World War II.

Emmie suffered occipital lobe damage in a car accident when she was sixteen and the growth of scar tissue impaired all vision leaving only a slight ability to differentiate between light and dark.

A Braille teacher in New York had introduced them.

When Carl leaned over for a few minutes to change the film pack, the best man shouted over to Daniel, “Hey, you be careful walking out to the honeymoon bungalow because a narrow bamboo plank is the only thing separating you both from the bedroom and stinging coral below.”

Even though the crack was menacing, everyone giggled.