Monica and I were privileged to attend the wedding of Mark & Nicole Valdez (nee Contreras) over the weekend here in Pueblo.

Nicole is a sales rep at the paper, Monica’s Zumba instructor, and a family friend.  I met Mark sometime after he and Nicole began to date and my insights to their relationship are, at best, peripheral. That said, I can’t help but feel these two will make a pretty good team–I can’t explain why, I just do.

During the reception, I went up to where the groom and bride were sitting and asked if I could snap a photo of them, it was probably the billionth photo they had taken since the wedding a few hours earlier.

I went on stage behind them and asked them to turn around. As is my modus operandi, the flash didn’t fire on the first frame (I didn’t have my glasses so I really couldn’t see to navigate the camera app on my iPhone). I got it close enough on the second frame.

To make a long story a tad shorter, I converted the file to B&W, did a few photo app-tweaks, added a touch of sepia and came up with the image above. I had sent a variation of this photo to Nicole that evening but I like this one more. It’s a nice keepsake from the day.

Nicole liked it too; she put it on her Facebook page and it had over 200 “likes.”