It's Not Where You Come From - Antonio and Mia Vigil Wedding - Torrington, Wyoming

With each wedding I photograph, I have one image that I take that is etched in my mind that sums up the day for me.  And it’s usually not a moment, an image, that others would describe as iconic.  But as an outsider looking in, it’s the moment where I really felt a connection to the day, to the couple.  It’s the moment that punches me in the gut and gives me all the feels, even when no one else feels it.

That moment at Mia and Antonio’s wedding was when Antonio’s mom asked if she could dance with the bride to a song she’d picked out just for her.  Initially, I think we all wondered where this was going.  By the end of the song, I had to wipe tears away.

“It’s not where you come from
It’s where you belong
Nothin’ I would trade
I wouldn’t have it any other way
You’re surrounded
By love and you’re wanted
So never feel alone
You are home with me
Right where you belong.”

Here was the mother-of-the-bride telling her new daughter-in-law “You belong with us.  I don’t care what happened before, this is where you were supposed to be.  You are my family now.”

We all want to belong.  To one another, to our friends and families, to our culture, to the world.  It is a fundamental need.  We were created to belong, to be part of something bigger than just ourselves.  I think that so many of us drift through life, never truly living until we find our place in this world, our center.  For me, that center has been different over the years…my family, the horse community, FFA, my college tribe, and now my husband.  Even Goshen County.

What a beautiful gift to receive on your wedding day.  Belonging.

I have no doubt that Mia will take that love and reciprocate it in kind.  She will be a better person because she and her son have a new, bigger, crazier family to belong to.  They have ‘Tonio, and his parents and his aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpa and cousins, surrounding them with love.  I have no doubt she is right where she belongs.

There were many other beautiful moments and special touches put on Mia and Tonio’s wedding at the Goshen County Rendezvous Center: cakes and decorations made by an aunt; a ridiculously sweet toast from the Maid-of-Honor, a special musical tribute from the groom’s family.  But none were so powerful, so intimate and raw, as what I will always think of as the mother-daughter-dance.  But I’ll leave you with some other favorite images.

–Teresa