Saturday, October 27, 2007



The wedding was on Friday and this evening has been spent going through our photos. I'm pleased to say it was a SUCCESS - we have enough good photos for our niece and although I was terribly nervous and anxious beforehand; I ended up thoroughly enjoying my role as official photographer!! I made a few mistakes and we had a couple of disasters but on the whole I'm happy!

The photo is of the beautiful bridesmaids, including our twin nieces aged 10. Aren't they sweet? The bride made all the bridesmaids dresses, plus she knitted all the flowers used in the wedding, along with the little rabbits and dorothy bags the twins are carrying. I hope to post some of the photos of the flowers later; they are very effective!

The day was very dull and we had some exposure problems. I found I was constantly having to vary the ISO and over or under expose.

The advice I had from various sources was invaluable; here are the bits I found most useful:

Be assertive - this didn't come easily but I decided to sort of act a part as a confident photographer and managed to carry it off. I was told I was telling jokes and seemed very calm and assured - phew!Inside I was shaking!

Have a list of the photos I wanted to create - this really helped in those "my mind's gone blank" moments.

Get help rounding up people for shots - one of the ushers was brilliant; I gave him a copy of the above list and he was very helpful.

I concentrated on formal groups and Phil did mainly candids.I bottled out of the big group shot however and he did that one!

We did the big group shot first after the ceremony when everyone was out of the church- great advice. I would add that a small step ladder is useful for this if space is restricted - Phil managed to rustle one up when we realised the area in front of the church was smaller than we'd remembered and it worked out very well taking the group from a higher vantage point.

Things that didn't go so well...our new speedlight refused to fire for the signing of the register and the "in the car" shots weren't too good for the same reason.The confetti toss...we only had enough for one attempt and if we do another wedding; I'll make sure we take our own supplies!

We did a "mock" cake cutting before the reception - much easier than doing it in front of a room full of people!

We were lucky enough to be able to do "detail" shots - flowers, rings etc today. This took a lot of the pressure off us yesterday.It was a lot of fun...we played around with tulle, beads, silver confetti etc.

Thanks everyone for your advice (especially picperfic and John) and encouragement...

Now, I just want to do another wedding!!

13 comments:

picperfic said...

hah! told you! Sounds like you had the best time...we all have a few moments when things don't go exactly as we want. So glad it was a positive experience for you. Love the idea of a step ladder, what a great idea! I will add one to our 'kit'! We have taken some from a room above when possible. Can't wait to see more photos! x

Anna Ridley said...

KNEW IT!!! Congratulations :) I am so glad that all went well and that you enjoyed yourself. The photo you've posted is wonderful; I love the relaxed and natural expressions.

{{HUGS}}
xoxox

RUTH said...

Beautiful photo. I did wonder how the weather would affect things when I saw how gloomy the weather was here on the big day. Well done on coping with all the obstacles :o)
{{HUGS}}
Rx

picperfic said...

oh yes, I forgot to say what a lovely photo that is!

Gledwood said...

That sumptuous fabric came out... well... "sumptuously"!!

Kerri Farley said...

Beautiful photo! I'm sure the others you took are as well. Congratulations on getting this first one out of the way!

Lori Schmidt (LoriProPhoto) said...

Sounds like a resounding success!! Well done. I hate doing weddings LOL would rather photograph animals than people :-( I always managed to mess up one of the formal shots (rings, kiss, signing etc) and if that happened always restaged it. Looking forward to seeing more of the results.

Thanks for your visits, you are always in my thoughts.

On the MRCA thing, Larry has had it before on some of his many many visits to the hospital and now he is always tagged as a risk when he goes in. I hope K gets through this okay without contracting it.

(((Hugs)))

Lori
xx

Akelamalu said...

WOW how talented is the bride - making dresses and knitting flowers - they look amazing as does the photograph!

artisbliss said...

I've been dying to see the results of your weekend! Looks like you did a wonderful job. I hope this will lead to more wedding photo jobs for you. The dresses came out just gorgeous in that shot. I love red anyway, and you treated it beautifully. Congratulations all around.

photowannabe said...

Fantastic pictures and I think this is one resourceful bride. What a job making the dresses and flowers for everyone. Quite unbelievable to me.

Mafia Wife said...

I'm so glad the day went well for you! Weddings can be stressful to photograph, but so much fun! There's always going to be something that goes wrong when you do this sort of thing, never fails to be the case. Just having a plan B on the back burner is the best thing!

Sounds like you had a good time... hmmm, do I see more weddings in your future?

Jo's-D-Eyes said...

Hi Julie ,

Wonderfull bride-maids ( and the broom was in red too?) beautifull dresses... great shot , made by you...

oooow its terrible indeed when your speedlight refused to fire for the signing of the register ,and also the "in the car" shots, thats a stessfull thing dor a photographer.

Once I was photographing a wedding and my camera ( nikon 5700) wasn't quick enough for the ONLY and 1 kiss ( after the YES!), so I asked them to kiss again, and again , my camera refused 3 times.... . Quess how I was feeling?

(like a fool you got that right!)

So today some flowers from Italy and I might start with my own Dutch photograps (after this one)who knows.... I made too many photo's . Do you know that feeling?


Bye JoAnn:)

JAM said...

The four wedding's that I have done have been for friends at our church that couldn't afford a pro. Between my camera and the Pastor's lighting set for the formal photos, no pro could have done much better.

But if I ever want to get paid for doing it, I'm going to have backup equipment for each piece. I trust my stuff, and go over and test everything first, but I sure would love to have an extra body, flash, lenses, etc. Had any of my equipment failed, I would have been sunk.

Glad it all came out well in the end.