In the hopes of avoiding the stress of a big wedding, couple Katie and Brandon had decided to have an intimate ceremony with just their family at this lovely cove on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Never in their wildest dreams, says wedding photographer Eric Mansperger of L’Amour Photography, did they think this would happen—”this” being a celebrity photobomb by Aquaman star Jason Momoa.

“We were doing their portrait session after their ceremony when I looked over my shoulder,” Mansperger recalls, “and there was Jason Momoa standing about 20 feet behind me.” It turned out that Momoa was staying at The Four Seasons right by the cove. “I pointed him out over my shoulder and the couple was so excited,” Mansperger says. “The next few minutes of the shoot were more challenging than having 15 uncles with cameras, phones and tablets over my shoulder.”

The actor and his crew waited patiently while the photographer finished the couple’s session so they could have their spot on the reef. “If I had not been working, I wouldn’t have bothered him at all,” Mansperger adds. “He was obviously doing a promo video and he also had his kids with him. Fortunately for me, I was working, so I feebly asked him if he would mind photobombing our couple on the way out past us. He politely declined to take a picture with them: ‘I’m sorry, I’m kinda working right now.’ A quick second later, he realized I had asked him to photobomb them, not just take a picture with them, and he was completely game. He very politely asked the couple if they would mind—they didn’t, of course—and then I had exactly 36 seconds to take the most widely distributed pictures of my career (four in total).”

Within a few days of posting the image on Instagram, Mansperger received a flood of emails and contacts from all kinds of media platforms. “I saw the image go out on news sites worldwide and received texts from friends with video clips of it playing on a bunch of news stations and national shows like Good Morning America,” Mansperger says. “When we cleared out from the cove, Jason and his crew took our place out on the reef and filmed their promo. The couple had an amazing wedding even before their celebrity photobomb, but it was truly taken over the top with this fun addition. The timing of this image with the release of a huge movie made it go big. But even without the movie or even the celebrity involved, I would still love the shots I got to take, especially this one. It’s a moment of pure joy and fun. Plus, I got to shoot freaking Aquaman, and that is flipping awesome!”

(Shot with the Sony A7R III and a Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 lens at f/3.2, 1/200 of a sec. and ISO 320.)

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