I'm A Wedding Photographer: Take 2

I did my first ever solo wedding yesterday.

I looked up tips for new wedding photographers and there was all this scary stuff like 

"you have no idea what your doing"

"you're not prepared"

"hire the couple a real wedding photographer"

"you will most likely ruin the wedding"

"don't do it"

After many encouraging messages, I figured the morning of the wedding would probably be too late to call and cancel...

So I put on my big girl panties and walked out the door.

This was my mantra for the day

"Stay calm. Act cool...kind of like you know what your doing"

I'm learning MANY new things every time I do a shoot.

Here are the things I learned yesterday.

1. My height is a disadvantage

2. I need to buy a couple extra lens covers. Those suckers get lost too easily.

3. A light diffuser thing is life changing. I need to return this one to it's rightful owner (Thanks Jedi Josh & Kelley!) and buy one of my own

4. Other vendors become your friends during the wedding and keep you company
5. It is a guarantee that I will put the camera down and join in on the cupid shuffle

6. Stay calm

7. Act cool...kind of like you know what your doing (I think they believed me)

This was like one of the most intricate weddings ever.

Christy handmade 98% of everything. Bouquets. Table decorations. Boutonnieres

I wish I could show you everything.

I'm not legit enough yet to say "Christy and Mike's Sneak Peek"

but here are some of my favorites. 

Or a lot of my favorites.

Whatever. Don't judge. There was a lot to take pictures of.

Every center piece was a different color of the rainbow and looked completely different

brown table

pink table

Brittany and I got a shout out!

These were used in the game to decide which order the tables got to get up and eat

All bouquets match the girls. Christy made each one by hand out of paper.

Christy's bouquet

paper flowers made that hung from the tree where the ceremony took place

getting Mike ready for the first look

the first look about to happen

they were having just a little bit of fun :)

She was just a bit stunning.

Boom.

First solo wedding. 

So Excited.

I am so stinkin excited. 

I entered to win a absolutely fabulous bag designed specifically for cameras. 

(On this blog)

First of all, let's just state the obvious.

I could NEVER afford this 3 digit number

(not that it's not worth it, just not in my oh-so-glorious teacher budget)

but I had seen ONA before and thought they just looked like wonderful.

Especially the plum color.

(Random fact: I am consistently teased by close friends, and the hubs, about having a different favorite color every week)

I think plum is a beautiful color to wear.

But red (and yellow) will always remain first in my heart.

Long story short, 

I WON IT!

This little padawan right here.

I'm so excited I think I'll post a couple more photos that this little ole padawan has taken from this little ole big girl camera that will soon have a beautiful new home!

I sure do hope I am "earning the respect" of a new lens. 

Did ya all know I still almost pee my pants when I hit the submit button for a post with pictures. 

That's fun fact #2 for the day.

Oh! We need a new photo up top. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED our wedding but it's about time. Anybody like to play photographer like me and would like to snap a few of us in the next couple weeks, por favor??

I totally would, but, let's be honest, we all saw how the self portrait turned out. 

Um, I'm a wedding photographer?

So. You all thought that my first "all by my lonesome" wedding shoot was in February.

Well you were wrong.

And so was I, as it turns out.

My hubs sent me this text last Monday

"Want to take photos of a wedding on Sunday for free?"

My response:

"Haha. No?"

Please.

I have plenty of opportunities to practice weddings all the time.

Not.

It turned out that his coworker, Elashun, had gotten engaged two weeks prior and was getting married Sunday.

The only thing she bought was a dress and the rest of the wedding planning, her church was throwing it together.

Josh offered my amateur services as our wedding gift.

Well, alright.

I guess it's no pressure. 

It was either my amateur photos or no amateur photos.

I decided why the heck not. 

I had met her once before and knew she was super sweet.

So we arrived at church yesterday and I patiently waited with my handy dandy (and quite handsome) assistant.

(Amateurs are totally allowed to have assistants FYI)

It seemed like we waited FOREVER.

And then once it begun, it begun.

(now I know I promised all the good and all the bad. But I already deleted all the bad.

oops. But you can trust me, there were plenty of "blurfests")

So, I'll just show off the ones I'm proud of

(...at least for right now. I'm already going back and looking at photos thinking, 

"Seriously, Melissa? That was kind of embarrassing.)

All a part of the process, people

Oh and at this moment, I have a free trial of lightroom going on so that is what I have been getting to play with! if anyone wants to give me a hands on lightroom 101...yes, please.

:)

waiting to walk down the aisle! 

Now my favorites..

LOVE the tat. 

So I just realized this is like 99.9% the bride.

Can you blame me though?

Honestly?

She was stunning. 

Ok.

So lessons learned. 

1. An ISO of something in between 800 and 1600 would greatly benefit me.

1A. Grainy is better than blurry. Lesser of two evils.

2. having an assistant is great, even if it is only for emotional support :)

3. photographing a wedding is nothing but an adventure

4. I need to be confident and assertive

5. Not so great at posing people. I tell people kind of where to sit and tell them to do what is natural and hope that it looks good.

6. Seeing what a church family can pull off for one another is greatly encouraging

7. I still have A LOT to learn but it was a great experience

Pooped Padawan

I'm pooped!

Within 24 hours I went up to Chino Valley, AZ with my mentor and jedi, Liana (from A Moment In Time Photography), to shoot my first wedding and then woke up and shot my first newborn photos!

Phew!

Here is some knowledge I have gained in the past 30 hours

I need to build up stamina. 

Seriously. Shooting a wedding is like running a marthon. Except you are also carrying heavy camera stuff everywhere and doing squats while not taking any breaks.

I think I'm gonna start running marathons and lifting weights. 

Which leads me to my number 2. 

I'm weak.

Like super duper weak.

My arms are so sore today and my big girl camera doesn't even compare to the mother of all cameras that Liana was carrying.

(I did use her mother lens at the reception for a little while but I had to change it...my arms were so tired! I was too scared I was gonna drop it and cause a scene and never be invited to a wedding shoot again)

Insane, right?

Lighting always changes.

ALWAYS

Even if it is only 10 steps in the opposite direction.

Gr.

Dancing people are hard to capture....

The ratio of not bad photos to "blurry blurs" is about 1:80.

I had to apologize in advance to Liana for all the photos she was going to need to delete.

I'm meant to be a zumba instructor

It was really hard to not get my groove thing on during all the fun music.

Eventually the awesomeness of music with a great beat broke me down. I couldn't contain myself.

If you ever want a dancing photographer, you know where to go.

Newborns like to smile for the 2 seconds you put down the camera

Hopefully some out of the 400 I took, she will at least have two opened eyes :)

Babies are faster than you think

All their cute, slow, baby-like movements?

No.

You would be surprised at all the blurry hands and feet I got.

But maybe that is just because I was on manual and should have adjusted something.

Windows "Fix" doesn't cut it

I'm getting ready for big girl editing stuff.

Wedding hangover is real

...and it's not the drinking kind

It was all so much overwhelming fun, I don't know how to contain myself except for fall asleep out of exhaustion.

But, hey..
I haven't even had Zoila for 3 months yet and I already got to tag a long for a wedding with a legit photographer

Holler!