The Wedding of Megan and Jay

October 23, 2023
1 min read
Listening for spirits.

It was my great honor to photograph the wedding of my friends Megan and Jay at the courthouse in downtown Chicago on Friday, October 20.

By sheer coincidence, I first met Megan back in 2017 on the day after Megan and Jay’s first kiss. I was photographing her then too. We were at a castle, wearing fantastical costumes, with our ears pressed against a trapdoor, listening to the voices of spirits. I recommend this practice for making friends.

Preparation

To prepare for Megan and Jay’s big day, I made big plans: I packed a heavy bag full of equipment to cover every type of photography imaginable. I hoisted the bag on my shoulders and walked around the house like a turtle. Finally, wisdom prevailed as I considered the practical realities of the time and space I had to photograph the wedding at the courthouse downtown. I repacked a smaller bag containing everything I needed, and a few extra options. In the end, this was the right choice. I had everything I required and a few small tools I didn’t need, but which didn’t slow me down. 

Photography

A BTS shot from Megan’s cell!

We started by taking some photographs while waiting in line to get into the waiting room. Once we had seats, I had the opportunity to watch this lovely couple crack one another up. The justice who married them was kind and warm, and he passed on heartfelt well wishes. When it came time for the exchange of rings, Megan and Jay taught him about the Claddagh tradition. 

Apart from the actual ceremony, our whole afternoon was one rolling conversation. It was a beautiful autumn day with bright blue skies and colossal white clouds that stretched between the skyscrapers. We moved from the courthouse to the streets of downtown Chicago. From there, we visited Margie’s Candies, the site of Megan and Jay’s second date. I’d wanted to visit Margie’s since seeing it on The Bear earlier this year. (The SafeHouse, where they had their first date, has closed.)

When I looked at the photographs the next day, I couldn’t help smiling at all the moments of laughter and tenderness between Megan and Jay. I hadn’t even remembered taking those pictures. We were having such a good time throughout the afternoon that it had breezed on by.

A small selection of images from Megan and Jay’s wedding.

Photographing Megan and Jay’s wedding truly was an honor. As the photographer, I was the only guest, and I felt privileged to share in their warmth, laughter, and conversation. I’m not accustomed to getting to talk to the bride and groom at the wedding—they’re usually too busy! Megan and Jay’s wedding, on the other hand, was a warm, intimate, memorable time hanging out with two extraordinary people, and I am grateful to them for having me along on their special day.

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Steven Townshend is a fine art/portrait photographer and writer with a background in theatre, written narrative, and award-winning game design. As a young artist, Steven toured the US and Canada performing in Shakespeare companies while journaling their moments on paper and film. In his transition from stage to page, Steven continued to work as a theatre photographer, capturing dramatic scenes while incorporating elements of costume, makeup, and theatrical lighting in his work. Drawn to stories set in other times and places, Steven creates works through which fellow dreamers and time travelers might examine their own humanity or find familiar comfort in the reflections of the people and places of a distant era.

  1. Practicing Patience with Personal Projects
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  4. Alone at Last, with Laughing Stock

The All Worlds Traveller

Welcome to The All Worlds Traveller, an eclectic collection of thoughts, pictures, and stories from a Distant Era. Illustrated with Distant Era art and photographs, these pages explore the stories and worlds of people beyond the here and now, and the people and creative processes behind such stories. This is a blog about photography and narrative; history and myth; fantasy, science-fiction, and the weird; creation and experience. This is a blog about stories.

Steven Townshend

I’m Steven Townshend—your guide, scribe, editor, and humble narrator. The All Worlds Traveller is my personal publication, an exploratory conversation about stories and how we interact with them, from photographs to narratives to games—a kind of variety show in print. It is a conversation with other artists who explore the past, the future, and the fantastical in their work. Not one world—but all worlds. Where Distant Era shows stories in images, The All Worlds Traveller is all about the words.

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Distant Era creates fine art and portrait photographs of people and places from imagined pasts, possible futures, and magical realities. In collaboration with other artists, we evoke these distant eras with theatrical costume and makeup, evocative scenery, and deliberate lighting, and we enhance them with contemporary tools to cast these captured moments in the light of long ago or far away. We long to walk the lion-decorated streets of Babylon, to visit alien worlds aboard an interstellar vessel, and to observe the native dances of elves. Our images are windows to speculative realities and postcards from the past. They are consolation for fellow time travelers who long to look beyond the familiar scenery of the present and gaze upon the people and places of a distant era.

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