Dancing Through Life

The journey of Emma and Colby

Two weeks ago today, I was standing in my daughter’s sauna-like living room in Harlem, anxiously waiting to leave for the shoot. The sky was a deep gray, the humidity thick like a full sponge, and I already was sweating profusely.

It was an all-too-familiar scenario. I’ve gone out numerous times, often in the summer heat, for shoots with our twins, Emma and Ben, and their performer friends.

But this one had a twist — Emma and her fiancée, Colby, were in their wedding dresses.

‘Just Feels Correct’

The nuptials, a small ceremony in their apartment, were set to begin in a couple of hours. Colby’s mom and dad, who had flown in from Seattle and Canada, respectively, were decorating the apartment with the help of Rachel and Tyler, two of Colby’s longtime friends who have adopted Emma as their own.

Ben met me at the hotel that morning and we walked the 20-plus blocks to Emma’s apartment. The sweating started when we took a detour and climbed through a nearby park because our son — already nervous because he was officiating — missed the turn to cut through to their place.

Despite the backstage sniping you may have read about or seen fictionalized in movies and TV shows, Emma has built a lovely community of close dance and theater friends since moving to New York after graduating from college. The community only grew after she met Colby, also a dancer.

Together since 2022, Emma and Colby became engaged last summer. They are, in many ways, ideal partners. From the minute we met Colby, in New Orleans two years ago, Jill and I saw what Emma saw in her. We also felt our youngest daughter’s newfound peace and contentment.

The wedding originally was planned for August 2026. However, with anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and social/political/policy threats facing the gay, non-binary and trans communities, they opted to move the ceremony to June 17 and hold it during Pride Month. The date, one week after Jill’s and my 29th wedding anniversary, came two days after I finished shooting the annual dance recital at the studio where Ben, Emma, and Kate spent many of their days and nights while growing up.

As Emma said during her vows: “The timing of this, like every step of our journey, just feels correct.”

Writing It Out

When she was 12 or 13, Emma asked one of her (as always) pointed questions: “Dad, why do you write about us?

My response: “Family is fodder.”

Faced with a quizzical look, I then explained that writing always has been the way I process thoughts and emotions. I can only absorb so much information, and no matter how much I talk about it, eventually I have to write it out.

Even though she professes to hate it, I believe Emma is the best writer in our family. Like me, she waits until the last possible second before vomiting words onto the page, but the end result reflects her careful and considered thought process that is a hallmark of everything she does. Her writing is vivid and visual in detail and full of humor and emotion.

No Labels, Just Pride

As both a writer and photographer, my twins are two of my biggest supporters and two of my harshest critics. When I started this photography journey — not unironically, also in New York — they helped inspire and guide me in the same ways I’ve tried to do for them.

Ben and Tyler accompanied Emma, Colby and me on the shoot, which had three primary stops. Emma had the locations planned, so even though we got off to a late start, it was quick but productive.

The pictures turned out beautifully, just like the brides, but I didn’t have time to go back to the hotel to get showered and dressed. Jill brought me a change of clothes from the hotel and I hurriedly got ready in Emma’s bathroom, where the steam heat was doing me no favors.

Figuring It Out

Soaking wet, I sat next to the window unit as everyone got ready for the ceremony. Nick had flown in from Durham; Kate was on a same-day up and back trip from her job. Emma’s close friends Sam and Georgia were there; we also FaceTimed my mom in from Texas and Emma’s friend Kyra, who is performing on a tour.

In her vows, which she had finished that morning, Emma described her journey and how her friends and family had supported her along the way. She graduated from Point Park in 2019 and was just starting to get established when the pandemic forced her to move home for two months. It was during this period, as Emma said, where she was “figuring out who I was.”

“Along the way, I discovered my capacity for love and life went beyond the prescribed social norms,” she said.

Three years and one day before the wedding, Colby had introduced herself to Emma at a “West Side Story” audition. They communicated online and then met again in person at The Chipped Cup, a coffee shop in Harlem.

“Neither of us knew if it was an actual date,” Emma said.

But it was.

And for that, we are eternally grateful.