My Cousin Candi’s Wedding With Her Two Favorite Customers From Her Job at the Sirloin Stockade is a documentary photograph by American photographer Chris Verene and one of the defining images from his long-running body of work centered on family, friends, and everyday life in Galesburg, Illinois.

The photograph shows Verene’s cousin Candi at her wedding reception alongside two of her favorite regular customers from the Sirloin Stockade restaurant where she worked. Verene later explained that the two men frequently attended the restaurant’s early senior dinner and were known for wearing western clothing. The reception itself took place in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, adding another layer of distinctly small-town American social ritual to the image.

Steven Kasher Gallery documents the work as a 1993 chromogenic dye coupler photograph, with a circa-2002 print measuring 24 × 20 in / 61 × 50.8 cm. Auction records also document a titled and signed example numbered 13/20, confirming that at least one print format was issued in an edition of 20.

The image belongs to Verene’s broader photographic documentation of Galesburg, where he began photographing friends, relatives, and neighbors from a young age. His work is known for its directness, frontal lighting, handwritten or narrative titles, and refusal to treat its subjects with irony or condescension. Instead, the photographs combine intimacy, humor, vulnerability, and careful observation of everyday American life.

This photograph became one of Verene’s signature images and was used on the cover of his first book. It was later reproduced in his publication Family, reinforcing its central position within his autobiographical and documentary practice.

A strong photographic work for collectors of Chris Verene, American documentary photography, vernacular culture, family photography, 1990s photography, and contemporary social documentary.

Artist: Chris Verene
Title: My Cousin Candi’s Wedding With Her Two Favorite Customers From Her Job at the Sirloin Stockade
Format: Limited-edition documentary photograph
Medium: Chromogenic dye coupler print / C-print
Image date: 1993
Print date: Documented examples printed circa 2002
Edition: Edition of 20 documented for at least one signed print format
Signature: Signed examples documented
Numbering: Individually numbered examples documented
Documented print size: 24 × 20 in / 61 × 50.8 cm
Series: Galesburg / Family
Location depicted: Wedding reception in Galesburg, Illinois
Subject: Candi’s wedding with two regular customers from the Sirloin Stockade
Country: United States
Presentation: Fine-art photographic print
Publication context: Image reproduced in Chris Verene’s Family and associated with his long-running documentation of Galesburg, Illinois