I ♥ โคมลอย

I’ve photographed dozens of wedding in Thailand, and most of them involved some variation of releasing khom loy – paper lanterns – into the sky. It’s always a beautiful moment during a destination wedding, when the bride and groom and their family and friends stroll down to the beach after dinner and release lanterns into the night air, to float off above the sea and disappear somewhere into the darkness.

The darkness. That’s always been a bit of a problem for me, the photographer. I like at least a little colour still left in the sky. Lanterns floating out into the night makes for a difficult photograph, usually with fiercely orange lanterns and barely recognizable people surrounded by a shroud of the deepest of deep blacks. So I’m always a little disappointed that such a beautiful moment couldn’t be just a little earlier in the evening.

That is, until Annette and Paul’s wedding earlier this week in Phuket. A big thank you to the event organizers at the Trisara (Girl! Bib!) for scheduling khom loy at sundown. 

So. Much. Better.