I had the opportunity to shoot my first wedding along with Shauneen (better known as RedMum online) and Lauren my fiancee. Karen and Damian are good friends of ours and are, in fact, the reason Lauren and myself met since Karen contributed to the same group blog as myself (along with Shauneen) and we were nominated for an award at the second Irish Blog Awards. Karen brought along her newish boyfriend, Damian and her bestfriend Lauren.
Four years later Lauren and myself will be married this coming August while Karen and Damian were married last Thursday. When she first asked Lauren and myself to help take the photos at the wedding I refused and tried to talk her into hiring an experienced professional. She held her nerve and her faith in us and insisted on having three friends photograph her wedding.
It was a hectic day and we really didn’t stop running until well into the evening festivities and the cameras continued to make appearances until the party retired to the residents bar. Karen and Damian were very accommodating of us, allowing us plenty of time and putting up with the 3 lenses pointed at them for most of the day. I had the pleasure of photographing the groom preparing and his family were great, welcoming me into their home on the special morning and treating me like a family member instead of the mad man with the big flash most would have assumed I was.
Since then the work has been trying to get them a set of photos before they left for their honeymoon this morning and now taking those prints and doing some extra processing on them to try and come up with samples for the album. I’m gaining a whole new respect for wedding photographers.
(Update: I posted this late on Sunday before getting on a plane to Italy so I forgot the links to the girls blogs. Also I’m not too fond of the last photo at the castle, it’s only an early work in progress and I shouldn’t have uploaded it. I’ll probably post more complete photos later)
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A couple of weekends ago Lauren and I were entrusted with taking the wedding photos for two of our good friends here in Newfoundland. Carla and Brian had asked us to take their photos and despite some inner fears we agreed. It was a great day, not only for the happy couple but for us too. We had shot a wedding back in Ireland some years ago so it wasn’t completely new (Lauren had shot some prior to that as well, she studied photography and journalism in college) but there was still lots to learn and new techniques to master. We did ok I think, at least the couple seem to like the photos we have sent them so far, there are many many more are to be processed but I’ll get through them soon.
Wedding photography is one of the things lots of people with an interest in photography think they can do but they don’t fully realize how much work, skill and experience is involved. I don’t mean to sound like a photo snob but having done it I can say there are several things to think carefully about:
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