Home of the Snarkmaiden

Whenever the Yoshino cherry trees really get going on the Quad, one of the inevitable consequences is photographers, but a particularly entertaining subset of these are bridal photographers, here taking advantage of the backdrop for that Perfect Memory. Now it's tricky, because the weather doesn't always cooperate, as early one morning walking to the office I spotted a poor young woman huddled in her wedding dress and parka combo in the chill mist and spitting, ominous gloom, waiting while her photographer set up his equipment and framed the shot. Or the public doesn't cooperate, by not staying away in droves, like last Sunday, when the lawn of the Quad was so full of humans it looked like there might recently have been a rock concert -- I didn't see any brides out in the largely black-clad surge of humanity, but you never know. Bridal photographers can be pig-headed, er, I mean "dedicated." Or possibly, "service-oriented."

Today, we have the wedding photographer who is framing his subject in cherry boughs. I'm sure these will be lovely photos, the happy bride surrounded by gorgeous, massed pink sprays of cherry blossom, but the rest of us are treated to the odd spectacle of Bride in a Tree. Or perhaps Onna Stick.

Oh well, at least the guy brought a ladder for her to use. When it's the boyfriend-photographer-girlfriend-subject combo, you often get the guy badgering the girl to climb the tree unaided. The Things Portrait Photographers Do, Man.