'The Most Beautiful Thing I've Witnessed To Date': Photographer Shares Touching Wedding Moment

March 3, 2023

A wedding photographer said she was moved to tears during the father-daughter dance at a wedding in Riverhead, NY.

"In 12 years of photographing weddings I've never experienced something as beautiful as last night," Mary Latham said.

On Feb. 24, Tara Tandy and Joseph D'Esposito tied the knot at The Vineyards at Aquebogue.

The bride tragically lost her first husband, Joe Tandy, in 2016. He was just 29 years old. Her and Joe had met in high school, started dating in college, and deployed to Afghanistan together. They received a "Veterans Day Wedding" in 2013.

"Four years after Joe died Tara returned overseas to serve, in Africa, where she met another Joe. Someone who accepted her history, would go with her to visit her late husband's grave, and made Tara smile again," Latham said.

D'Esposito not only asked Tara's father for permission when he wanted to ask Tara to marry him, he asked her first father-in-law, Jack Tandy, too.

"Yesterday I photographed their wedding. And when it was time for the father-daughter dance, Jack Tandy brought her to the dance floor. And at the very end of the dance, while tears were pouring down my face behind the lens, he waved on Tara's new husband to the floor and grabbed them all into a hug," Latham said.

"Perhaps the most beautiful thing I've witnessed to date in my photography career."