Sunny, beautiful weather, San Diego sky for an outdoor wedding, flowers, cakes, nervous bride, Starbucks run at five am, way too many guests... wind.... clouds.... three video cameras.... main photog defunct.... erm.....

Okay, so it was the biggest thing in the AV side I can think of. The wedding of Stephen and Shaela Opgenorth had a full Audio Visual setup including three video cameras plugged into a mixer, and two photographers, one of which was me.

Except, actually, that the other photographer got sick and then it was only me.

So the day started off with me bounding off to Starbucks to get everyone coffee. Actually, that gave me one of my very favorite photos, since when I was at the Starbucks I had told the girl behind the counter which one of the slushy-coffee-whatsists was for the bride, and she labeled it that way:

I thought it was cute. And... it made the bride laugh, which was a bonus, since the bride was extremely nervous as all brides tend to be.

So this lovely wedding of two fantastic people was taking place on a balmy San Diego day, and it was outside in a fantastic backyard that was full of flowers and grass and WIND.

I had two problems.

One, I was the only photographer. This is not normally a problem, and I'll bound around from front to back and crouch my little butt (ok I'm really tall) behind the pastor and hope no one notices. But this backyard was enormous, and there were about thirty rows of chairs!

That entailed me taking off in a dead run right after the ceremony so I could be at the OTHER end of the pathway in order to take pictures of them as they walked off as a newly married couple.

The other problem was the video cameras. This was the first time I'd encountered three of them at once- one was at the back of the row, and two were in the front. Why was this a problem? Because I was trying not to get in the way!

I crouched and crab walked a lot that day.

The day started off, as I said, at Starbucks. Then I wandered around the house, taking pictures as the Bride was getting dressed (those pretty ones where the mothers are helping adjust her veil and helping her put on her shoes), and photographing the Groom as he shined his shoes and tried not to look quite as pale as he was feeling.

Once the wedding started, I was up under the gazebo, crouched under a video camera, and poking my zoom lens through the vines and trying to look inconspicuous. I had two cameras slung around my neck, and trust me, that's heavy.

Being right underneath the pastor's armpit was useful! I got some fantastic photos of the Bride and Groom as they said their vows and kissed. It's very difficult as a photographer to not get emotional at how beautiful weddings can be!

After the ceremony, I took off running, as I mentioned before, and luckily I'm not going to say something like "I fell over a cable" or anything like that. Nope, I made it to the other end just fine, and after the receiving line, I started lining everyone up for those posed shots everyone needs, like the "Grandmother, mother, daughter" shot, or the "Groomsmen giving the new Groom a hard time" shot.

However, my favorite photos always come from when I'm snapping away BEFORE they start posing. I was lining up the Mother-of-the-Bride in her picture, and they were talking and laughing before the shot:

At the end of the day, when all the rice was thrown and the Newlyweds had driven off in their car, I transferred all seven hundred plus photos onto a CD and put them aside for them.

I'd say my biggest nerve wracking moment was wondering what they were going to think... since Stephen is himself a professional photographer as well!

He must have liked them- he used one of my photos as their Christmas card... yay! All those leg cramps I got the next day from crab walking underneath video cameras was worth it :)