What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

What I learned from shooting my first wedding:


* Weddings make me want to get married again. Same man, same dress....but again. Every weekend. (pretty please, Mattie?)

* Matt is not only capable of keeping our three children alive in my full-days absence, but thriving.

* Always wear reliable shoes (or bring spares). I found this out when my shoes broke within the first 30 minutes of the bride getting ready. I had to go barefoot through most of the wedding. Thankfully (and amazingly), it was an outdoor wedding and the family are all sorta free-spirited like that anyway. Talk about sweating it.

*I need another memory card. One is just not enough. I know because I didn't get to snarf any food because while everyone was eating, I was deleting excess photos to make room for the other half of the wedding pictures still yet to take. Talk about looking like the amateur that I am!

* You don't need to convince brides and grooms to pucker up for a picture. On the contrary, most of the time I was an uninvited guest into their romantic interludes.

*Excessive hand gesturing and many smiles work well at conveying messages to those who do not speak English.

*I need to research whether in the Korean culture it is taboo to kiss on cheeks. Didn't think anything of it until the bride's parents got all weirded out by my suggestion. oops.

* You can SEE love in eye sparkles.

* Timing never goes according to plan before a wedding. Plan to compensate. ( I knew this already from my OWN wedding, so I didn't get all panicky when the bride came 20 minutes before the wedding to get dressed. Not as much time to get bridal portraits and NO time to get groom portraits, but hey. I got getting DRESSED shots anyway!)

* Ladders are a photographers best friend.

* 8 month pregnant women who photograph entire weddings like they are not carrying around 30 extra pounds and get in all sorts of weird positions for the perfect shot will have very, VERY sore thigh muscles for three days afterward. Maybe four. Let's just say Matt has been calling my Grandma and I can't say as I blame him.

* ain't no way, ain't no how I can host a July 4th party on the heels of shooting a wedding. Thankfully, though I considered it long and hard, I didn't find this out the HARD way.

* Matt is way better than I am at getting stranded with a blown out tire in the middle of No man's land Pennsylvania game lands with three children, in 90 degree weather, and a donut tire whose rusty cable is making the release of said donut impossible, with only his muscles and a little leatherman. Thank you Lord, it wasn't me.

* Editing hundreds of photos is exhausting.

* Choosing FAVORITES from hundreds of photos is exhausting.

* I can proudly say I CAN do weddings, I DID do a wedding and I am happy with the results I got (and hopeful the bride and groom will be pleased too). A HUGE milestone for me. yay. (YAY being, of course, a huge understatement)

____________________________________________

I will post a FEW favorites from this weekends' wedding in a day or two-when I decide which ARE my favorites.

I do solemnly swear, though against my natural instinct, NOT to post all 600 photos.

You have my word.

And my word is my bond.

11 comments:

Bonnie said...

Phooey. I want to see all 600. BUT. I am glad that *you* are pleased with them and that all went well, and I can't WAIT to see the pictures!

(Oh, and at 31 weeks, I'm still measuring 32. Whew, huge sigh of relief)

Anonymous said...

What if we want to see all 600?? :)

Glad it went so well!!

Melissa

Dana said...

I love shooting weddings, too! In fact, having shot a bizillion of them before I got married, I knew just how I wanted my own wedding to go and it made planning a breeze! We may renew our vows on our 10th anniversary (in just over a year) so we can do it all over again. :-)

Anyway, I'd LOVE to see some of your shots! The b/w dress shot is great!

Blessings--
Dana

Riahli said...

Oh that would be hard, if I were you I would want to post all 600...I always have a hard time choosing favorites. In fact I just did a post with way more pictures then any sane person would ever want to look at, ha, ha! Can't wait to see the pictures you took!

Nanci said...

Glad things went well with the wedding. Feel bad about your exhausted aftermath. I prayed for you each time I thought of you on Saturday. Congratulations on successfully photographing your first wedding! I knew you could do it!!! (although it must have been diffult to do pregnant).

I can hardly wait to see the pictures!

Unknown said...

Oh Rebecca...I am simply exhausted reading this! But really if the shoes, memory card, and a few time pressures are all that happened, I THINK YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!! :)
I helped out a teeny bit with a wedding once and it was HARD and there were THREE photographers! HAHA! AND I wasn't 30 weeks pregnant! *standing here cheering for you* Glad you made it through and I really wish we could see at least 350 of the pics! ;)

Happiest Wednesday!

Full of Grace said...

Looking forward to seeing the pictures you share..now the real question, would you shoot weddings again if asked?? :)

Leah said...

I can't wait to see the pictures you took either! I sure do wish I could've made it to the wedding not only to see my cousin get married but also to see you again, however briefly. :)

Victoria said...

I'm doing my first wedding the end of August. Thankfully, there are 2 of us shooting!

Let me know what you use for editing. Can't say as I can afford Photo-Shop, but trying to figure where to best put my $ at this point.

Saw the pics in your most recent post - FABULOUS!!!

Rebecca said...

Hiya Victoria. Good luck with your wedding in August~it really does end up being fun, even though you sorta stress about it beforehand. (or I did)

I don't have the moolah for PhotoShop either (and wouldn't probably be smart enough to figure out how to use it anyway) so I use the free program Picasa for most of my editing (go to Picasa.com) and for REALLY special shots, I will upload them to Flickr and edit them using Picnik (also a free account). Picnik is where you can add the vignette shading around the edges of photos.

It is amazing what you can do for free!

Victoria said...

Thanks, Rebecca!

I use the Picnik Premium, so sounds like I'm on the right track:) I've used Picasa before w/ my point & shoot. I found that printing them was not good as they shrunk the files so badly. Hope that didn't happen w/ yours.