Halifax — Halifax-based photographer Tom Lyons was hired for a destination wedding in Cuba last week, and to his delight, he managed to upstage the hundreds of other Nova Scotia wedding photographers by capturing an extremely rare moment on his used DSLR.
“The bridal-party-jumping-in-air shot is practically the holy grail of wedding photos,” said Lyons. “I’ve seen them, but they’re few and far between. Everything has to be perfect for it to work: everyone jumping for joy simultaneously, the ideal lighting, your camera ready and focussed — it’s only the most skilled and lucky photographers who manage it.”
But manage it he did, and the bride and groom said they never dreamed they’d be among the newlyweds in possession of such a precious memory of their wedding.
“Honestly, I didn’t even plan to jump up right then, but we were all on the beach and the mood just hit me,” recalled new husband Ryan Everton. “Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut.”
“And I felt so full of joy that I just flung my bouquet in the air, faced the camera, put a cheeky grin on my face and jumped as high as possible,” said Everton’s new wife Krystal. “And evidently all my bridesmaids and Ryan’s groomsmen were just as pumped to have paid to be there because, wouldn’t you know it, they all jumped up too!”
Krystal’s mother did a reading during the ceremony, and according to the photographer, she helped him continue his hot streak by choosing an uncommonly used Bible passage, from 1 Corinthians 13, that goes: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud…”
“It’s not every wedding where you see a middle-aged woman tearing up as she reads from the Bible about love,” said Lyons, “so I turned my camera to video mode and captured that too. How many other wedding photographers that you know have done that?! I totally nailed it!”
Afterward, Krystal shared a dance with her father during which that cheesy Heartland song “I Loved Her First” played.
“I got an amazing photo of Krystal and her dad dancing that I think will go down in history. I mean, no DJ plays that song, and if they do, how many photographers are gonna be there to get it in black and white?”
Because of his many successes at the Everton wedding, Lyons is now completely booked for the following three summers in Nova Scotia.
“But I’m not making any promises…the chances of me getting that jumping-in-the-air shot again are like, one in a million. As impossibly unique as all these weddings.”