It’s not uncommon that we get a phone call from a bride who’s wedding we’ve recently photographed. Typically the conversation starts with “This is Mary Jane, you shot my wedding a few weeks ago at so and so, Joe Smith is my husband” as if we’re not going to remember them! My memory isn’t perfect, but I’m definitely not that bad! Once it’s established that I absolutely remember who they are and their wedding, usually I get to hear all sorts of nice things about how great it was to work with us and how everyone loved the experience. Please know we never get tired of hearing that stuff!
Anyway, we then get to “We can wait to see the pictures, how are they coming along?” All completely natural, we know it’s soooo hard to wait to see your photos as we work on them!! Well, yesterday we received one of these calls from a wonderful bride named Kelly who’s wedding we recently photographed in Delaware.
Except, after the normal “This is Kelly, you shot my wedding at…..” she went off script and caught me completely off guard, she said ” I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but did you hear about the suicide bombing in Uganda this past weekend? One of my best friends, Nate Henn, was killed in it and the last time that he and all of our friends were together was at our wedding.” I fumbled some words as I tried to figure out something helpful, or comforting to say, and ultimately “I’m sorry” was all I could come up with.
She then asked about a few specific pictures that she remembered taking with him and their who group of friends and she wanted to know if we could send them over to her. Of course we sent them to her right aways so that she as well as the rest of his friends and family could enjoy them during this hard time.
After getting home from the studio I spent much of the night reading up on Nate and the details of what occurred. It’s truly a tragic and sad story. I found it somewhat comforting to know that Nate was following his dreams and doing what he loved, helping people. He was so happy to be in Uganda visiting friends that he had made while working with Invisible Children, and a non-profit organization who’s purpose is to raise awareness about the use of child soldiers in Northern Uganda as well as raise money to build schools and provide education to war-affected children. You can read more about Nate Henn as well as Invisible Children and their mission by clicking the embedded links.
In situations like this I feel it’s important to identify the good that can come out of it, and in this case it seems to me that Nate would want people to become more aware the situation in Uganda and to further Invisible Children’s mission to help the children caught among the chaos there. We’re currently working on setting up a promotion with proceeds to be donated to Invisible Children. We will post it on our blog as soon as it’s ready.
In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the wedding. Nate is the black jacket holding up the bride in these two bridal photos.
Our hearts go out to Nate’s friends and family during this difficult time.
Todd and the Pictures by Todd Crew