I love Historic Smithville in Galloway, NJ. When my wife and I moved from NYC and were looking for places, I even considered purchasing one of the properties there for my (at the time way back when) photography studio. My wife and I even spent our own wedding night at the Inn located on the grounds. So, any time a couple is getting married at the Smithville Inn, I am always very excited. And for Amber and Christian, there was an extra component of the wedding that got me even more excited.

After spending more than thirty years as an opera singer, I am probably more comfortable with non-English use in ceremonies than most officiants out there. For Amber and Christian’s wedding, I got to show off what is, admittedly, one of my weaker languages: Spanish. There were several non-English speaking members of the family in attendance, so several moments of the ceremony were repeated in Spanish, which is always fun for me. I’m still waiting for a chance to show off my two strongest languages, Italian and German, but hopefully that will come someday soon. 🙂

I also got to do a handfasting ceremony for Amber and Christian, which is a beautiful wedding tradition that can also be traced back to my own Scottish-English ancestry. So, their wedding was a total win-win-win for me. If that wasn’t wonderful enough, their ceremony and especially their vows were all so full of sincerity and love that I even got choked up a little (thankfully not while I was speaking!).

I am so very grateful that Amber and Christian chose me as their officiant, and I am very grateful that their photographer shared these excellent photographs of their ceremony with me. As someone who has photographed more than four hundred weddings myself, I can give a very educated and earnest recommendation of Hidden Gem Visuals (and I’ve added their photographer Geoff to my Recommended Vendors page). Thank you to everyone who was involved in making this ceremony the beautiful, wonderful experience it was!