Wog is Married.

My nephew, who for the life of me I can’t look at him and not see that 4 year old boy riding his bike off the porch or down the steps, got married this weekend.

I was about 8 years old when Paul was born.  He was more like my brother than my nephew. He annoyed the hell out of me and the term “I would rather drink Liquid Drano than…” came into play.  I would rather drink Liquid Drano then to have anything to do with him.  He was a boy and he always wanted to be right in the middle of my stuff.  If I had a friend over he was right there in the corner trying to figure out where he fit into the picture and wonder what his odds were of us letting him play Barbies or stuffed animals too.

As he got older and ‘cooler’, we allowed him to hang out with us. That might not have been the best thing. I think I ruined him and I have so many regrets when it comes to letting that little kid hang with us teenagers.  He would probably be a rocket scientist if he hadn’t seen his role model try to smoke pot out of a toilet roll.  I blame myself for the fact that he even smokes Marlboros.  I swear I had not part in that, but he saw me do it and that’s not a good thing.
This is why teenagers probably shouldn’t have children.  Just an observation.

When he was a teenager I was already married and living in Sacramento.  He grew up with only seeing him on holidays.  Every time I would see him, I would still see the little skater boy who would laugh and smile as he rolled down the hills on his board and tease me and my boyfriend if he caught us kissing.  He never really grew up to me.

The last few times I had seen him, he was just real quiet and I was almost a little afraid he hated me for something.

This weekend I went to Reno to take pictures of his wedding.  I didn’t expect to be able to spend much time with him because I knew his friends would be there and that weddings are always just so second by second.
The first day I got to hang out with him and his friends, who were totally cool and just adored him.  It’s cool to have friends who think you are just totally the coolest guy ever.
I kept reminding myself, ‘He’s 26 years old, he is NOT 10 years old anymore.’

On the morning of his wedding I was told he was upstairs getting ready.  Normally Shaun would take those pictures, but when I heard he was alone I said I would go up there. I was eager to be able to spend a few minutes alone with him.

When I got up there, I could tell it wasn’t just the nasty hangover that was causing him to pace and drink more water than my mother.
We got to talk.  He was scared to death.  He was worried about every single detail of what was going to transpire.  His biggest concern was his dad.  His dad and my sister haven’t really had the best of relationships since he … yeah, I won’t go into what a jerk he was…needless to say, he’s not the nicest guy in the world and I think he might be a bit resentful that my sister is so damn hot and he looks like an old Billy Crystal on crack.
I got a good 45 minutes of hanging out with him and talking and doing my best to calm him down. He was chanting, “MAN, OH MAN!” He was non-stop chattering.  I just sat and listened to him.  I watched him sweat, pace and chant over and over.  Then I got to see the most awesome thing in the world.  He put on his freshly ironed shirt and put on a tie and transformed from that little boy into the man he was.  He awkwardly put on his jacket and giggled because he had no idea what he was doing.  He looked at himself in the mirror and he could see it too. He managed to pull it all together and got more in control of himself.

I couldn’t believe it.  Little Pauly Wog was standing in there wearing a suit with a pink tie.  I told him, “I would haven’t have guessed in a million years that you would pick a pink tie to wear.”  He giggled again and said that is why he picked it. He wanted to shock everyone.  He is still just a little boy!

During the wedding I started crying.  Probably not the best thing to have one of your two photographers crying. There was no helping it though, that little boy was all growed up marrying his high school sweetheart with a baby on a way.

After the wedding I got more moments with him as we did his pictures.  Paul did something I never thought he would do, he smiled THE WHOLE TIME.  In every single picture!  He smiled.  It wasn’t that fake smile either, it was a REAL smile.

The pictures need a lot of work and it’s going to be a process of going through all them and fixing them to our standards. You’ll be seeing his wedding pictures slowly be added to my Flickr site everyday instead of just getting a hundred pictures in one shot.  I get to go through all of them slowly and enjoy each moment again.  I get to remember the fun we all had this last weekend and remember all the times growing up with him.  It’s all there in his smile.

MAN, OH MAN!