I take a drive almost every night I work, usually at 7:15 or 9:15, to a place south of Raleigh. I drive past the cottages at the edge of downtown, past the huge factory with the smokestacks and the clouds, which supposedly makes dog food, down the blank highway to the Wake County Detention Center. Its glass front is transparent but still totally uncompromising.
I don’t know where they keep the few hundred inmates. The jail’s designed so you don’t really think about it. I go down the stairs, to the grey-floored lobby with rows of seats and screens that always show something idly watchable. It really feels a lot like an airport gate. This is where you wait for the magistrates, who sit at windows behind rooms behind windows at the back of the lobby. People rarely seem upset. I come for the arrest warrants – who did what, when, allegedly.
It wasn’t more than a month into the job that I saw my first bride here. She was young, and she looked calm on her groom’s arm. She apologized that her wedding party was blocking my way to the arrest warrants as they had their pictures taken. Her only piece of bridely clothing was a veil. I was dying for some reason to take a picture, but not dying hard enough to actually do it. I found out later that people mostly get married in the building at night, when the regular courthouse is closed. Most work too late.
The next time, on the night before New Year’s Eve, I found a fully dressed-up couple and went for it. Only the weird bravery that comes with wearing a badge of any type allowed me to ask. I walked away with a hundred shots. I did this again with three more weddings over the next few months.
I’m still not sure why this interests me. Initially it was the contrast of the ceremony and the institution of detention. Now it’s not so much the irony, more how the cold setting puts the focus on the people. I like the spontaneity of the ceremonies, and the contrast against the excess of modern weddings.
