Rachael & Zack’s Wedding
We've been away from the regular wedding blog for far too long! Time to get back to where we started. At least that's the plan.
Why the lack of posts? During wedding season I'm so busy with, well, weddings! It's difficult to focus on blogging when I always have more photos to edit. So this year we're going to try to focus on getting things out in a more timely manner, but not sweating showing every little part of the wedding day. Instead I'm going to mostly be using the preview I provided to the couple in the days following the wedding, as I always do, and not spend hours belabouring picks from the entire finished wedding gallery.
Speaking of the gallery: I don't usually like to share exact numbers, but just to add a little context to how difficult narrowing things down is, I took nearly 4000 photos at Rachael & Zack's wedding, and delivered a gallery with 1498 finished images. This wasn't any ordinary wedding, though. There are three factors that make for a higher number of photos at this wedding:
They had photo coverage of their rehearsal dinner the night before. And it rained periodically throughout the rehearsal, so I stayed late to make sure I didn't miss anything… but I still took photos while it rained anyway haha. The rehearsal accounted for 254 delivered images.
It all took place in one location. Although I do love travelling to new and wonderful spots to take photos, finding hidden gems, going to locations that are special to the couple, etc, it's just a fact that when you're travelling around and setting up a new shoot at a new location, gathering and arranging people, losing people who haven't figured out how to use Google/Apple Maps, etc, I end up spending less time taking photos, and more time organizing photos on the day of. Totally normal!
Some days I do hybrid coverage, and although I work very hard to squeeze in the most bang for your buck (I am often told, unprompted, by random wedding guests, "You really need to eat / drink / sit down at some point. I have no idea how you're even still moving right now." and other very similar things along those lines, often with more colourful language), when splitting between the two, we end up with less photos and more video, of course. Even so, a full 8–12 hour wedding day with video is very likely to produce over 500 finished images.
Okay, I'll stop blabbing (for now), and let you take in the gorgeous wedding day of Rachael & Zack, at the always beautiful Whispering Willow venue in Scoudouc, New Brunswick. It still rained a little bit throughout the day, but I'm a sucker for dramatic clouds, so I say let it rain!
It's always great to spend the day at Whispering Willow, because you know everything is going to go without a hitch, and everything will be taken care of. Sometimes as the photographer you have to wear a lot of hats, and it somehow falls on me to make sure the wedding day keeps moving*, even so far as to holding things together and actually making them happen in the first place.
At Whispering Willow you're safely in one contained location, where the service is top notch**, and everything is meticulously customized and decorated. This shows in both the photos and in the expressions of the happy couple. They don't have to chase anyone down, rearrange things themselves, or worry about the little things on their wedding day.
The end result: a gorgeous wedding day with so many smiles and laughs and just pure joy. Congratulations on your beautiful wedding, Rachael and Zack! And thank you so much for having me there to capture it all!
And probably one too many cups of coffee consumed by yours truly.
*The hats I have worn, many times, over the last 13 years and 230ish weddings: fixing sound systems, renting a sound system and DJ'ing the wedding remotely while shooting because the DJ didn't show at all (that one has happened twice!), finding and guiding the caterer to site, driving the couple / wedding party around, telling the officiant how a wedding ceremony works (yeah, I know, but everyone has a first time doing anything), repairing clothing, drink runs, counselling, HVAC repair, fixing electrical issues, replacing blown fuses, fixing the tent, fixing tables, washing unexpected stains from clothes, giving people my clothes to wear (belt, shoes, vest, etc), silencing the fire alarm system, and the list goes on. I wasn't always a wedding photographer, and am one of those "I've been everywhere, man" sort of people.
**Speaking of which, the multiple excellent coffees handed to me without asking throughout the day likely also increase the number of photos taken 😂
