A beautiful wedding day, held at the Orchard Lake Country Club in suburban Detroit, is amping up on the dance floor as dinner is winding down. Jay Dreifus fuels himself with the last few bites of his food, eaten quickly. He and Kathy, his wife and shooting assistant, then head to another room to shoot details while the bride and groom steal a few moments elsewhere for a little quiet time. But the DJ, working the room, is having none of that.

“All of a sudden, we heard the DJ going nuts,” Dreifus recalls. “He was riling people up, encouraging them to welcome the bride and groom back in the room. Hearing the noise, Kathy and I ran back into the dining room and the DJ was standing there getting everyone excited. I grabbed the ladder I bring to every wedding and told Kathy to grab whatever light she had laying there. I’m guessing it was a Profoto B2 on a stick with a two-foot Profoto octa, but I can’t be sure. Literally a few seconds later, in came the bride and groom to this raucous crowd.”

Some key things made this spontaneous frame a winner for Dreifus (who submitted it and actually did win second place in WPPI The Annual’s wedding photojournalism category): the bride’s delicate posture, which he’s convinced he couldn’t have possibly directed, and the fact that every face is completely mesmerized by this moment—except for the two in the top right corner who are following their lead.

“I live for the day I’m able to capture another moment like this,” Dreifus says. “I’ll be happy to even come close.”

Submit your print work to The Annual by January 24, and by January 31 for digital images.

(Shot on a Canon 1DX II and 24mm f/1.4 II lens at f/4, 1/125 sec. and ISO 640; edited and printed by Rocco Ancora of Capture to Print.)

Check out more Photos of the Day, and email submissions to rangefinder@emeraldexpo.com.