When I started my business, I planned on eventually getting into wedding photography. I really didn't think I'd get a chance to do so for at least a year or two, because people tend to want to make sure that the moments of their special day get captured in quality images that they can share with friends and family for a lifetime and for that people tend to go with someone who has an established track record of providing such images. Other than a wedding I shot long before I could even remotely consider myself a professional (a blog topic for later when I get more weddings under my belt), I had no such record - nothing that I could put in my portfolio anyway.
I really thought my big chance would come from someone I knew well, because it certainly is a risk to hire a photographer to shoot your wedding when they don't have experience doing so, no matter how good their other work is. Weddings are a different beast altogether. They are fast-paced and chaotic. No matter how meticulously planned out they are, things will always catch you by surprise and the photographer has to be on his/her game at all times. Most any pro will scoff at the notion of a newbie taking on a wedding without at least being a second-shooter first. To make it worse, most pros even won't take on second-shooters unless they have experience as second-shooters.
Having said all that, I was pleasantly shocked when, just four months after starting my business, Samantha and Jordan chose me to shoot their City Hall wedding over many other established wedding photographers who had also vied for the honor of doing so. I was also highly flattered that they did so based off my portfolio, which had no wedding imagery whatsoever. I was, of course, nervous, but those nerves were a bit mitigated by the fact that it would be a much smaller affair when compared to that of a traditional church wedding... But then those nerves shot right back up when they informed me that Samantha's sister was also getting married and asked me to capture that as well. All of a sudden the difficulty level went way up! I had another set of bride and groom to account for!
The wedding itself was a beautiful thing. It reminded me that it's the people involved that make the occasion special, not necessarily the surroundings. I attended a wedding a while back that was set in a beautiful garden with the ceremony in a building that I'm pretty sure was specifically designed for weddings, but I came away from it not feeling like anything special actually happened. At one point I found the bride sitting in a chair saying, "I'm soooo bored!" The event couldn't end fast enough! The bride and groom barely touched each other after the ceremony and ended up going off in separate cars. The fact that the groom's car was decorated with "Just Married" and you could see him and his best man driving away from the place together was a joke that capped off the dreadful afternoon.
Now, our Manchester City Hall building was itself was beautifully designed, but the site of the ceremony and most of the action was a courtroom. The lighting was dim and awful (by a photographer's standards). However, this case was the complete opposite of the story I just told. The brides and grooms and their family took over the courtroom and made the event their own. I witnessed the father of the brides walk proudly into the courtroom with both brides locked in his arms. He also walked each of them down the isle to their beaming grooms for each of the ceremonies. There was even a ring bearer! I heard later that he insisted on doing so. And to top it off, the grooms surprised their brides with some karaoke Top Gun- style by lip-syncing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". Those are just some of the many examples of moments that made this day feel special. Basically, this wedding was anything but dull. It had character, it was full of emotion and spirit ...and I was very fortunate to have been chosen to capture such an event.
Below is a Fotofilm (slideshow-video with a sweet catchy tune) that tells the story that I just spoke of. Enjoy!