Rob + Therese

A few weeks ago a co-worker asked if I'd be interested in snapping some candid shots at her sister-in-law's wedding. They couldn't afford a professional, and I'm not good enough to charge anything so we were a good match! I wanted to use the event, though, to really learn and practice so I recruited a hunky assistant named Zeb, borrowed two cameras, and ordered extra memory cards and we made a day of it!

They ended up contributing to my 'camera fund' after all, so it was kind of like my first professional gig.

We had an absolute blast. I can imagine that the fun of it, for the photographer, could all hinge on the bride and her mood. This bride was so pretty and chill, she just wanted to get married and have a good time. So we just photographed a pretty girl and her friends having a good time and it was great! The groom even insisted that my assistant have a beer while on the job. That's grounds for firing in my book but if I fired him who would make me coffee in the morning? So I let it pass. And I had a sip of his beer.

I made some mistakes. But learned from them and tried to work with them. I was scared of low light and indoor situations so I shot most of the photos on too high an ISO. When they came out a tad more grainy than I would have liked I decided to go with it and edit up the vintage, sunshiney look, my favorite look anyway.

I hope that's the look she likes.

She looks so happy! She was so happy!

These photos were all taken about ten seconds before the sun went down and we didn't have flashes, so I'm kind of amazed, and grateful for how well they turned out. It could have been a disaster.

Then we moved indoors and they just kept dimming and dimming the yellow florescent lights. It got hard to get any shots at all. Real photogs - how do you do it? Black and white does help salvage bad lighting.

I love it when they make the groom do a little dance before he gets the garter. It's so funny. She thought so too.

My co-worker caught the bouquet. Her boyfriend, the bride's brother, caught the garter. They put on quite a flirtatious little show before he finally put the garter back on her.

And finally they dimmed the lights so totally low that all I could get was a shadowy blur, but that's about how it was in real life anyway.

It's taken me almost two weeks working at it every day to edit all the photos. I have a newfound understanding of why wedding photographers charge what they do. And I'll do it all over again the next chance I get.