Ben,
Sorry it’s taken me/us so long to write a note of thanks to you… life’s been hectic. frick. isn’t it always?
Sometimes, when my heart can take it, I flip through yellowing prints of a life lived before I remember my own. I look deep into the images trying so desperately to see, in the few early photos we have of my parents, evidence of their love, new and beginning. Theirs was a love that survived insurmountable odds. A love so strong they died only a year apart, while only in their early 40s.
We were just kids when they left us. Too young to know that one day we would want shared the story of their beginning. Too young to ask, too young to listen. And so today, all we have are dimming mental images, memories chosen by ourselves in our late teens… to them we grasp, but from them we are guided less and less as our age eclipses theirs.
And so with this in mind, Josh and I set about to find a photographer who could ensure this never happened to our own children…
When Josh and I found the first of your albums online we saw real people. We saw real love, real anticipation, real relief, real excitement, real beauty, real lives. Your albums told a story of a day, a love, a community, a shared devotion between lovers and loved. Josh and I, in looking at your pics, felt your only purpose was to capture real life – the people you photographed did the rest.
Your intuitive ability to capture our family, warts and all, and remind us of that within us which makes us who we are is why we are so thankful that you were there with us on the day.
Thank you Ben.
Because of you and what you do, my kids and their kids will read, in our wedding album, the story of us. Of those who hold us high. And of a day of celebration for optimism and perseverence overcoming all.
M and J xxx
Here’s hoping your dream comes true…Properties are always so peaceful & free!! Keep it, live it & love it 
by Ben Marden
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