Just over a month ago, I had the pleasure to document Jennifer and John's wedding. It was held only months after their engagement, so you can imagine how crazy it must have been to pull it all off in time. Part of that planning was hiring me as their photographer. Now, with full disclosure, I'll tell you that I certainly had the inside track on the job as my wife and Jennifer work together and Jennifer had already seen much of my work. It was as simple as my wife asking me if I wanted to take the job and me saying "yes!", which was by far the most simple wedding booking of my still relatively young photographic career.
I experienced several notable (at least for me they were notable) "firsts" with this wedding. The first of the "firsts" was that it was a church wedding with a religious ceremony. This meant dealing with a Pastor, whose authority trumps (I hate using this word for some reason) that of the bride and groom, so basically I was at his mercy as to where and when I was allowed to photograph. At first, during my meeting with the Pastor and the couple, I had the feeling that I was going to be banished from the ceremony altogether - my worst nightmare! I mean, how am I supposed to tell the story of their wedding without pictures of the ceremony? I consider myself a documentary photographer and as such, telling the story is everything as far as I'm concerned! But, after a somewhat painful interview process with the Pastor, I gathered that I was allowed in the aisle during the procession, but once the ceremony took place I could only photograph from the periphery and back of the chapel, and if I wanted, I could recreate certain moments from the ceremony after it was over. The idea of recreating moments goes against every domentarian fiber of my being, so I just had to be happy that I wasn't banished from the chapel. In all my previous weddings I had full reign of spots from which I could photograph. One officiant told me what ended up being my favorite responses to the question of where I could be during the ceremony, which was, "Whatever it takes to get the shot!" Another time I literally ducked under and between the bride and groom and officiant to get to other side to get a different perspective (it was my only option in such tight quarters!). In reality, despite what I felt at first was a good deal of resistance, the Pastor's conditions were quite fair and the pictures from the ceremony turned out nicely.
Having to work along the periphery of the chapel led to another one of my "firsts", which was having to rely on my bazooka of a zoom lens. I originally bought this lens for exactly this reason. Last year I thought that I might book a church wedding based off photographing a City Hall wedding. I knew that the couple planned on having a second ceremony at a church and I thought there was a good chance they would pick me to document it. They didn't, but the threat of a church wedding led me to making my second largest photographic purchase, the aforementioned lens. For nearly a year, I barely touched the thing and even considered selling it. Luckily I didn't and it worked quite nicely for me during John and Jennifer's ceremony. I'm even considering incorporating it more for future weddings, as it allows me to be more unobtrusive, which is an adjective I like to use when describing myself when photographing events.
So with that really long back story, I will now get to the wedding day itself. It started in a hotel room with Jennifer, her sister, mother, and friend. I basically had about an hour and a half to document the preparation process. This is often my favorite part of the day, because it gives me time to get creative. There were plenty of mirrors and I love exploring the many opportunities that they provide. One of my favorite photos was one in which Jennifer was applying her makeup and a mirror in the background reflected an image of her wedding dress hanging on a curtain rod.
From the hotel I drove to the Church. Before Jennifer arrived, I had fun just moving around between the chapel and other rooms taking pictures of guests conversing, candles being lit in the chapel, Navy personnel practicing with swords, and other random tidbits. The chapel itself was beautiful. It had a very simplistic design and had near perfect lighting (from a photographer's perspective). The ceremony was a perfect length in that I was able to move around the perimeter and get most of the shots that I wanted to get without feeling too rushed. After the ceremony the couple went outside and walked through an arc of swords, stopping at each set to kiss in order to gain passage to the next set. This was also another one of my "firsts". It was a beautiful ritual and made for some nice shots.
Following the swords, I drove to the Puritan Backroom lounge for the reception. It had a relatively simple reception hall and a somewhat rustic bar off to the side. Maybe "rustic" isn't the right word, but it had lots of nicely polished wood and great lighting to give off a wonderful ambiance. The banquet hall presented a challenge in that there were several different competing light sources, including blue uplighting, fluorescent lighting, maybe some incandescent lighting, DJ lighting, and even a large window that backlit several of my shots with bright natural light. The real challenge was in editing the shots afterwards to give everyone skin tones that looked like skin tones. I started out with a lot of blue and/or red faces and adjusting the white balance was quite difficult at times. Converting to Black & White became my best friend with some of the more impossible photos to color-correct. Later in the evening when the dancing was in full effect, I brought out my flash, which made editing much easier.
The one thing that made this wedding fun to photograph was that the crowd seemed to be quite fun-loving, which presented me with an abundance of moments to capture. There were plenty of smiles, laughs, silly faces, hugs, emotions, etc., which gave the whole event a positive vibe. This made my life behind my cameras much easier and I got to enjoy myself. Another major plus (another one of my "firsts") was that my wife was a guest there! We got to enjoy a really good dinner together. They served lobster mac&cheese! Let me repeat that: Lobster Mac&Cheese! Delicious! The dance floor was quite lively and overall it was evident that everyone enjoyed themselves on this special day for John and Jennifer. I would also like to mention that Jennifer was quite the radiant bride throughout the entire day, despite what I later found out having to battle a bout of illness. I have to give her a lot of credit, because she didn't show it one bit! ....Oh and how could I forget to mention that there was a chihuahua named Maya, a very important member of the family, present for the ceremony? It's amazing how many of my weddings have featured dogs!
With all that said, here is a gallery of images that I think represents the story of their day(there are a lot of pictures in this gallery, but they are really only a small fraction of what I actually shot):
