Maya and Jonah got in touch in October 2024, eleven months before the wedding. They had already booked the orchard, which belongs to a friend of Jonah’s family, and they wanted the photographs to show it the way it looks in mid-September: fruit on the trees, long grass between the rows and low light after five.

Getting ready

Jonah got ready in an upstairs bedroom of the farmhouse with his father and his brother. Maya got ready in the kitchen with her sisters, because that is where everyone ends up anyway. Sam stayed with Jonah and I stayed with Maya, so neither side waited for a photographer.

The ceremony and family photos

They decided against a first look. The ceremony started at 4:30 under an arch that Maya’s aunt built from pruned apple branches. We did family photos straight afterwards: eleven groups in 18 minutes, from a list Maya sent me two weeks before.

Portraits and the reception

At 6:15 the sun dropped toward the ridge and we walked the rows for twenty minutes of portraits. Dinner was at three long tables between the trees. The string lights came on at 7:40, and the dancing went on until the orchard’s 10 pm finish.