the one with Paulina + Qsi | A San Fernando Cathedral Wedding in San Antonio
Some weddings are personal before I ever pick up my camera.
Paulina has been part of our family’s wider circle for years. She and my daughter, Summer Zoe, became friends in college, like really good, I share everything with you and will love you forever friends . So, being asked to photograph her wedding to Qsi felt especially meaningful to me and HELLO! THE BEST. I wasn’t simply arriving in San Antonio to document a beautiful wedding. I was getting to witness someone I have known through an important season of her life step into an entirely new one.
And what a joyful beginning it was!
Paulina and Qsi were married at San Fernando Cathedral, surrounded by their families, their friends, their faith, and an impressive collection of little people with very important wedding-day responsibilities.
Paulina’s nieces and nephews served as the flower girls and ring bearer, and they brought exactly the kind of beautiful unpredictability that children bring to weddings. There were flower crowns, tiny dresses, small ties, careful walks down a very long cathedral aisle, whispered conversations, big expressions, and more than a few moments that belonged entirely to them.
In other words, documentary-photography blog gold. I LOVED it!
Before the ceremony, the rooms were full of movement. Dresses hung waiting. Rings caught the window light. Family members floated in and out, along with a kick ass hair and make up artists, various other folks helping with buttons, veils, and children. Paulina somehow seemed both completely present in the commotion and aware of what the day meant. She was in the thick of it for sure.
Then it was time.
San Fernando Cathedral gave the ceremony a sense of history and reverence that photographs can only begin to hold. Beneath its soaring arches and golden altar, Paulina walked toward Qsi with her father beside her. Qsi’s face said everything.
Their Catholic wedding Mass was filled with tradition, prayer, family, the body of Christ, and those small glances between two people who know that, in the middle of a grand ceremony, the promise is ultimately theirs alone.
They held hands. They exchanged vows and rings. They bowed their heads for a blessing. And then they walked back down the aisle together, married, while the entire cathedral seemed to erupt around them.
Outside, San Antonio gave us brilliant sunshine, old stone, city streets, and just enough wind to send Paulina’s veil sailing through the air. Paulina and Qsi laughed their way through portraits outside the cathedral, and that laughter followed them into the rest of the celebration.
The reception was not a sit-politely-and-observe kind of evening.
There were deeply affectionate toasts, enormous laughs, children weaving through the grown-ups, family members embracing, guests singing, and a dance floor that grew increasingly less concerned with dignity as the night went on. Paulina and Qsi were lifted, hugged, toasted, serenaded, and thoroughly celebrated.
Through all of it, they kept finding one another.
That may be my favorite thread running through these photographs. In crowded rooms and in the middle of a packed dance floor, there are quiet seconds when Paulina and Qsi seem to disappear into their own little world. A hand around a shoulder. A look across the table. Foreheads touching. A private laugh. The kind of moments that cannot be scheduled and should never be interrupted.
By the end of the night, Paulina was dancing non-stop, guests were gathered around the band, and the newlyweds made their getaway in a golf cart, which feels like a wonderfully appropriate ending to a wedding filled with beauty, faith, family, and just the right amount of happy chaos.
Paulina and Qsi, thank you for trusting me with this day.
Paulina, it was such a gift to see the college friend I knew through Summer Zoe become a bride, and an even greater gift to share a weekend with your family, Qsi’s family, and have such wonderful memories of a weekend that will not be forgotten! I’m so thankful I got to witness and photograph your wedding day!!!
May you always laugh this easily, hold one another this closely, and keep finding each other in every crowded room.
Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Tran
real moments. real love. all day long…
Love does,
Kristin
#kbedzLOVE
