Their courtship consisted of six years filled with romantic dinner picnics along the Susquehanna River, some pretty competitive games of boggle, photo safari driving tours, long soul-to-soul emails and late night heart-to-heart conversations, the stressors and challenges of going to separate graduate schools and living in different cities.
Benjamin says that he’s learned to see the world in new and beautiful ways influenced by Uma’s perspective and passion for photography and architecture. It was her love of art and architecture that inspired the details of his proposal a year ago.
Benjamin says that “love requires making one’s partner a priority and reaffirming that love like a daily prayer.“ Choosing to be transformed by the power of Love and Relationship–“My blood has changed by being with her” he says.
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| Benjamin chose “Throne Room” by John Williams for his processional song. He honored the role that both of his parents have played in his life, by walking in with his mother and father. |
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| Wedding guests arrive in colorful and bright sari. |
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| A joining of families, both sets of parents greet each other at the start of the ceremony before taking their seats in the front row. |
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| The beautiful mothers of the Groom and Bride. |
Their Ceremony One of most moving parts of their ceremony was when they adorned each other with beautiful garlands made of carnations and roses, a Bengali tradition meant to bring a couple closer in a sacred bond for a lifetime. They asked me to share a poem Benjamin recited to Uma when he proposed to her at Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece, Falling Water the year before.
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| Uma: “With this ring, I gladly marry you and join my life to yours.” |
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| In Bangladeshi weddings, there is an emphasis on consent of the bride and groom. Uma and Benjamin wanted to sign their marriage certificate in their ceremony to as a way to show that their commitment was a social contract not only between them but their family and community as well. |
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Uma has become his daily prayer. And let all the people say, Amen.
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| Sometimes the glass doesn’t break on the first stomp. Looks like Uma and I need to work on our poker faces. |
Thank you to Tawnya Hemsarth, a fine art and wedding photographer based in Bloomsburg, PA for capturing these intimate moments and genuine emotion on Uma and Benjamin’s day and for allowing me to share these images here. If you are in the mood to listen to Peter Gabriel’s “Salsbury Hill” (I must admit, that I sometimes just keep A Click Photography’s website open and listen to this song for a whole hour!) and see some more of her work, please visit www.aclickphoto.com
