“I don’t need a man to do this. I don’t need a plan. I just need you. And we’re gonna be okay.”
I leaned back, letting the quiet settle in, the sound of distant traffic and the sleepy hum of the town brushing against my ears. The baby gave a little kick under my hand.
I reached for my phone and opened the search bar, my thumb hovering midair like it needed permission to hope again.
Elopement planning in Georgia.
It felt a little ridiculous—like searching for lightning in a bottle while standing in the middle of a thunderstorm—but I scrolled anyway.
There were a few photographers in Atlanta, an officiant service based two counties over, and even a traveling pop-up chapel out of Macon that looked like it hadn’t updated its website since 2014. None of it matched what I’d started to build in Savannah. There were no bar owners or cake-baking friends, no studio lights or vintage squares strung with fairy lights—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a version of it here. Something quieter, maybe. Something mine.
The seed was small, but it was there, pushing against something solid, something that might finally hold.
Down the path, the baby squealed again, and both parents laughed without hesitation—loud and open and full of love thatdidn’t care who heard it. I stood for a minute longer watching them, letting the moment soften me.
Then, before I could second-guess myself, I stepped out of the gazebo and called over, “Mind if I take y’all‘s photo?”
The woman blinked at me in surprise, then offered a smile that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t a stranger after all. “Sure!”
I pulled my camera, which I carried like a lifeline, from my bag and began to shoot. The way the light curved around their shoulders, how the baby’s tiny hand clung to the edge of his dad’s coat, how the mother’s eyes never left her child for more than a second at a time.
It was love, right there in the middle of an ordinary day. Messy and loud and completely unposed. But real. Beautiful.
We exchanged information. I promised to edit the photos and send them along, and they thanked me like I’d captured a memory instead of a few snapshots.
I kept walking after that, making my way back through the square with Nancy Reagan trotting beside me. The town was still quiet, tucked somewhere between New Year’s haze and January’s slow unraveling.
A florist with a half-lit window. A bakery that smelled like warm vanilla. A dusty bridal shop with a paper sign taped crookedly to the glass. I paused at each one—not because they held answers, but because they felt like possibilities.
Outside the old courthouse, I stopped to take a few shots of the building’s weathered charm. A couple stood nearby, trying to take a selfie with trembling hands, all bundled up and laughing about the angle.
I waited until they lowered their phones, then stepped forward.
“Want me to take one for you?” I asked. “I can edit it a bit and send it back to you—if you don’t mind helping me out with a few practice poses.”
The woman’s eyes lit up. “We just got engaged!”
A spark kicked up in my chest—unexpected, but welcome after weeks of feeling flat. “Congratulations,” I said, smiling for real this time. “If you like what you see, I’d love to do a full engagement session. On the house.”
They nodded, already posing again, and I adjusted my settings, letting the camera do what it always did best—focus on what mattered.
Because here’s the thing about photography—and Lord knows I’ve been chasing the light with a lens in my hand since I was a kid—there’s beauty in the moments no one’s trying to make perfect. There’s magic in the small stuff. The ordinary. The overlooked.
A couple on a bench. A baby’s laugh. A memory slipping through your fingers long enough to make you ache for it.
A fleeting moment with someone who was only in your life for a heartbeat, but somehow changed everything.
There’s even joy tucked inside the grief of losing someone you love—because at the end of the day, the simple, aching truth is this: you got tolove.
And loving Charlie Pruitt—however fleeting, however tangled in grief—was the most beautiful thing I’d ever done.
***
By the time I got home, the joy I’d felt earlier had started to wear thin.
Dig had called to check in, his voice still echoing in my ears—asking if I’d heard anything from Savannah.
I hadn’t.
