Unplanned Witnessing of Love

During my junior year at East Catholic High School in Manchester, Connecticut, I took a fall semester course in public speaking. The teacher, James Quinn, was a well-liked English teacher who specialized in theater arts. Each spring, East Catholic mounted its yearly musical and Quinn would be the show’s director. He was a demanding teacher who expected the best of his students (as well as cast members of the yearly shows).

During a unit in his course in public speaking, we were to deliver impromptu speeches. Essentially, an impromptu speech was a speech that was ‘unplanned’. Each speaker was given a topic and was to deliver an unplanned argument, explication, or a commentary on that topic. The purpose of the challenging exercise was to not only hone our speaking skills but to use our proverbial heads to delve into a new subject.

On a hot Saturday afternoon in late June, I planned to do a series of photographs of a major church in Philadelphia. But, before I arrived at the church, I had an ‘impromptu’ moment. I was to make an ‘impromptu’ set of several photographs of a wedding walk conducted by a South Asian couple. I did not know the names of the newlyweds or their guests. But this ‘impromptu’ set of wedding photographs brought out a colorful display of colors and was a beautiful manifestation of the long-standing purpose of a wedding—a display of mutual love.

Will I delve into wedding photography? It’s too early to tell. But I hope to add more images of ‘unplanned’ scenes of love as manifested by weddings in my new set of impromptu wedding scenes as I grow my website.