...here comes the bride

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to take wedding pictures for a cute couple that was a friend of a friend. This couple had no great expectations, they weren't even going to have a photographer, but since I needed practice, I offered to do it for free. The ceremony was on the beach in Galveston and it was so freaking hot. At the last minute the hubs and Tooty decided they wanted to come along. At first I was pissed because I didn't want any distractions, but in the end I'm glad I had a driver...I was exhausted to say the least after this was all said and done. The ceremony was supposed to start at 10:30 and I don't think the bride showed up until a little while after that...so it was steaming, but I was doing good, but my anxiety was creeping up. Earlier on the drive up there, Brad of course, had to freak me out. "I think you need to just take the pictures on dummy mode, what if you have the wrong settings and mess up their wedding pictures, you can't re-do this"....thanks dude, I'm glad you have so much faith in my photo ninja skills! So with that rattling around in the back of my mind, I started taking more and more pictures in "dummy mode". As the ceremony started I was all setup with my tripod and my 75-300mm lens so that I could take pictures without being up close and personal with them. I really really regret this! I should have just left my 18-55mm lens on and got "up close and personal with them". I have so many shots where their backs were cut out of the picture or I was having to walk backwards and hope I wasn't tripping over something so that I could fit everything in the picture because I was so close up. So I'm in this dilemma and of course can't change lenses mid-ceremony, so I had to just stick it out until it was over.
So I continued to take pictures and I was drenched with sweat...my eyes were burning because my sweat was getting in my eyes - it was not pretty. The bride and groom were both hot as heck and they really just wanted to get the pictures over with.

So by the end of the day, I was feeling queasy and thought I was going to barf...and I had a wonderful black mark on my eyelid...it looked like a makeup session gone wrong...all that squinting from having my eye on the viewfinder really did a number on me. Note to self: wear waterproof mascara next time, or don't wear any eye makeup at all - not cute! I finished up and threw all my gear in the truck and told Brad - "I don't think I want to do weddings after all....I can't stand the pressure!" It was lots of pressure and I was on the verge of an anxiety attack, however, after I cooled off, and wiped the makeup disaster from my face (baby wipes are a lifesaver!) I realized that IF had I been more experienced as a photographer and had more opportunities working with the couple, things wouldn't have been so bad. I also realized that if I do decide to pursue this many years from now :) I will definitely have to have a partner - there's just no way to catch everything, the little things, the things that are special with just one person.