chris and amy {married}

chris and amy are in love. i know that that's what you would hope for when two people get married, but chris and amy just seemed like they were embracing that love. like, they owned that love. and it made me sigh and think of my husband and look forward to their future together. it's nice to love the love you observe. 

many thanks to my wonderful friend, aria, for letting me come along and take a few snapshots over her shoulder.

her flowers were gorgeous. they were like white poppies with black centers.

tyler and julie {married}

meet tyler and julie. as of december 16, 2009, they are husband and wife.

funny story about this gig: evelyn is a an old photographer friend from utah and julie is her husband's sister. since evelyn was going to be in the photos, her family asked me if i'd be able to come to temple and shoot some group pictures and some couple pictures. so, i got to try my hand at shooting a wedding (by myself: terrifying) and see an old friend (and her little children who don't know me and spent most of their time eyeing me suspiciously).

the last wedding i did i spent the whole time trying to remember my own wedding. this time i spent more time thinking about julie and tyler's parents and how seeing their children wed must feel. when julie's dad, stuart, kissed her forehead, i watched his wife's eyes fill with tears. both julie and stuart turned and teased her a bit.

"don't cry," stuart said, reaching over to give kathryn's hand a squeeze.

"then don't kiss her," she said, trying to laugh and scoop up her tears all at the same time.

it reminded me of my mom and how every time i stood next to her on my wedding day, she reached over and held my hand tightly. and i look over at my little ava and my even littler seth and i can hardly imagine a day when they don't belong to me. oh yeah, i'm going to cry. and kiss them on the forehead.

it must come as such a shock. a happy, sad, beautiful, sudden shock. but watching tyler and julie together, you know it's going to be okay. well, it's more than okay. it's beautiful. it's love. tyler was so attentive and helpful. and julie was so gentle and her smile was just so sweet.

what a joy it is to observe love. what a lucky girl am i to have the job that i have.

to stuart and kathryn, thank you for hiring me. it was a pleasure.

to tyler and julie, best of luck. really. and have fun.

tori and adrien {married!}

dancing at her wedding

the rings

funny how i spent an entire day with these two, photographing them, taling with them, laughing with them and at the end of the day, i came home and realized that i am probably not going to talk to them again. and here i was, at their most special day, spending more time with them than anyone else. isn't that strange?

so, tori and adrien, we may not speak again, but i wish you all the best. life can be tough and i hope you stay true to one another, i hope you can stay honest and kind. and i hope it's still fun years later (and i don't mean 2, i mean 15).

cheers to you!

thoughts on wedding photography

1. being the wedding photographer is, in some ways, like being a member of the wedding party. you spend an awful lot of time with all of the family, with the bride and groom, with the wedding party and you develop these relationships and inside jokes. by the end of the night, i felt like tori and adrien were friends and i sincerely wished them well. it was only when i got home that i realized that i'd only met them earlier that day and that i really had no idea what they were up to next.

2. spending the entire day shooting a wedding made me remember back to the days when we were first dating and when we first married. it made me feel nostalgic and romantic. i wished to hug ryan a million times and, if taking pictures didn't require two hands, i'm pretty sure i would have texted him all day long. so, when he called to ask when seth usually goes down for a nap, i was so pleased. even if all we talked about was the baby. i also realized how little of my wedding i actually remember. also, how unimportant it was in the grand scheme of things. which, at the time, was not how i felt.

3. i left my house at 9:30 (in the morning) to make it in time. i had a bit of a break between portraits and the reception and arrived home at 10:30 (at night). that's about 11 hours of work. on a saturday. then there has been, of course, the uploading, sorting, editing, communicating, etc. conclusion: weddings take an incredible amount of work. they are exhausting.

4. as assistant, not only did i shoot pictures, but i helped lug all of the equipment. leila jones, the woman i was shooting with, had two large bags, a smaller bag, a monopod, a tripod and a reflector kit. that is a lot of stuff. a lot of expensive stuff. plus i had my bag and charla, the second shooter, had a bag of her own. i was in awe of the equipment. and i got to use it, too. that was awesome.

you know, wedding photographers are expensive. but the work is hard! there's a lot of it, plus the other people that are hired to come along. there's editing and sorting and driving and the equipment to pay for. if you want good pictures for your wedding day, then you need to pay for a good photographer. i understand that now, having shot a wedding, better than i ever did.

conclusion: i'd love to do more. i enjoyed every bit of it. but maybe not every weekend. like i said, the work day is a bit intensive and so is the week afterwards. but watching two people commit themselves to one another for all time and eternity? what an honor. totally worth it.

pictures to come!

i'll tell you this much, shooting weddings is intense. and wonderful. and hard. and exhausting. i am so glad i did it. i could feel myself stretching as a photographer, it was like a crash course in photography. my mentor, leila jones, invited me to come along and assist as she and charla blue were shooting. such a good experience, to stand together and swap ideas and tips and tricks (mostly those two and i listened and asked questions). i didn't shoot a lot, but i certainly shot enough. enough to stop at a best buy on my way to the reception and purchase another memory card!