Parting Shot: Sealed with a Kiss

This bride opted to take photos with her ailing grandmother before the ceremony.

elyse dolbec wedding

Photograph by Scott Zuehlke

Before Elyse Dolbec and Clay Johnson shared their first embrace as husband and wife in October 2014, there was another very important person the bride had to kiss: her grandmother Doris. “My grandmother hadn’t been well for some time, and while we were hopeful she was going to be able to make it to the wedding, it looked like it wasn’t going to be able to happen,” Elyse says. So before the ceremony and reception at Granite Links Golf Club, Elyse asked her photographer, Scott Zuehlke, to follow her from her childhood home in Quincy to her grandparents’ house two doors down, where Nan and Papa were waiting to take pictures with the bride. “She lit up the room,” Elyse says. “The look on her face in the picture tells you right away that it was a really good moment for her.” Sadly, Doris passed away about a month after the wedding, making the photo session even more poignant for Elyse and her family. “I was their first grandchild to get married, so it was good that she was able to be a part of it in this way,” Elyse says. “All of the photos we got that day are these really great memories that we have of her.” 

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