April 22, 2007

• Rain or Shine, this Bride was getting married outdoors!

  Here is the lowdown. Its Saturday afternoon around 12:40pm my business phone rings and its a photographer friend calling me & telling me she is really sick and has a wedding today that starts at 4pm for a 6pm ceremony. Its in the Sierra Foothills at a winery and she needs someone to cover it. Its a hour and half drive away from me too.

  The BIG problem:

  1. Not knowing the couple or the families

  2. Its going to rain and be 49degrees out in the early evening

  3. Am I going to be the hero for the bride for coming to her rescue or is she going to hate the idea that I’m not her original photographer she paid for?

  4. I’ve never been to this venue and have no idea where I can shoot from or how they have it all laid out and I don’t have any info on families, groupings or what the Bride is expecting.

  5. I find out the original photographer I am helping only charges a 1/3rd of what I charge, but never mind that, I’m helping out two families and a fellow shooter.

  

  Timing: I start at the Inn in Plymouth ,California its 4pm finish up some shots of the bride getting her hair and makeup on while listening to her go totally ballistic on the phone with the people at the winery. She has told them that she has paid thousands of dollars for her OUTDOOR wedding and she doesn’t care if its a hail storm… she is marching down the isle with her $2500 couture gown and 25 foot long train in the soaking rain, she doesn’t care, its her wedding and thats what she has been planning on for more than a year. The problem here was the winery has never had anyone do this and they wanted her to have the ceremony in the tent where the dinner was to be. Hey, I told her whatever she wanted, its her day.

  My big problem was how am I going to shoot a wedding without destroying all of my new Canon ($30K worth of equipment) in the rain? Well, when I got there I had the employees group together 4 market umbrellas in the back, and I shot from 200 feet away trying not to get any water on my cameras or lenses. Ah.. success it worked!

  Ok it all worked out so far. When we get into the tent, you guessed it water was all over the floor and the wind was still bringing in water and the staff was brushing it out all night long. We all had to work, walk and tiptoe around so not to slip and fall. It was like working in a pool of water all day and night!! Who says we don’t work for our money! Ha!

  Anyhow, I thank GOD for giving me the talent and personality I have to calm down and make people laugh, it really helped the other day and I think my couple and their families are going to love the images I created for them.

  

   

  

   

  You really can’t see it, but it was raining on us the entire time, I think the Bride gained 40lbs in water weight that day with her train, we rang it out about 6 times.

  The grooms Tux coat was so wet it went from light grey to dark charcol in my photos and dosent look that bad, but he was like a sponge too.  

  Hey, at least they can look back and laugh about the day. All in all, it went pretty smoothly after the ceremony started, and the guests didn’t complain a bit, it was like a summer wedding…only different! LOL!!!

  • 6:37 pm
  • 16 Comments