Shooting a wedding is no joke. This isn’t something new to me of course, but it’s also something that doesn’t get easier with time. I mean, after all, we are shooting somebody’s wedding. As in, probably THE most important day in their lives up until this point.  And even if it’s your tenth wedding or your hundredth wedding, it’s not like the more you shoot, the less important they are. So experience doesn’t necessarily mean less stress. Sure, it means that I have a good idea what we are headed into, but it’s still new every time. And I think it’s important for me to always be thinking of it that way so that I don’t get lazy and let my guard down.

I’m not going to lie–weddings are a great gig. They are enjoyable–nearly everyone is happy! And there are so many fun things to photograph. And, of course, the paycheck is nice too. We can’t forget about that. But I think some people are under the impression that wedding photographers have it made. Sure, we only shoot one day a week! And then we get to party for the other six days!  Yahoo!  I won’t sit here and lecture you about what really goes into shooting a wedding, and how the actual “shooting” of the wedding is just a fraction of the hours that are part of the job.  But I did want to give you a little glimpse into what a wedding day looks like for us–and this post is specifically about last Saturday.

Our day began at 6:00 am and ended at midnight. For eighteen hours, we were on the go. We were “on the clock” technically working for about sixteen of those hours. Two of us. So that’s 32 working hours right there. That’s not even mentioning the hours and hours needed to cull and edit the photos, create the blog, create the website for the couple with their edited images, create the album, the parent albums, revise the albums according to the bride & groom’s changes, order the prints, etc. I mean, we are talking a LOT more hours on top of those 32 already spent.

We herded our kids out the door with breakfast on a paper plate and dropped them off at our friend’s house, who we’ve pretty much hired for the month of August to be our “wedding nanny”.  Then we headed to the airport where we picked up our reserved rental car. Our vehicles are both on their last leg, and we didn’t want to risk a breakdown or something of the sort, and we had a long drive ahead of us. The reserved car unfortunately wasn’t reserved for us, so they had no vehicle on site. We waited a little bit for them to secure one, and then by this point it was 2.5 hours before we were supposed to start shooting and we had a two hour ride to a place that we were supposed to get to and scout some locations since we had never been there before. Of course, at this point I’m freaking out–James had gone to park our other car in the parking garage since we were in a hurry and all of a sudden I had visions of driving around lost at the airport in a rental car not being able to find him because we all know how confusing airports and parking garages can be. Thank goodness we have cell phones and he tried to calmly talk me through where he was while I was anything but calm. And he had to go to the bathroom, but too bad, there was no time for that.

We finally got everything figured out and headed South.  Thank goodness there was no traffic, we didn’t get lost, and it actually only took an hour and forty-five minutes. So we were there in plenty of time, got to scout out some areas for the First Look, and grab a bite to eat at Wegmans before starting. At this point we had already been awake for five hours and felt like it was bedtime 🙂

Thankfully, James and I work very well together. I am pretty even keeled and calm, and only sometimes freak out at him in a silent way if he’s not where I need him to be. We always love getting to eat dinner together with no kids every so often, so that’s always a bonus too. Weddings certainly are action packed, and there’s not usually much down time. We finish one “leg” of the day and then hop into the car like we are in the Amazing Race to pull open the folder, punch in the next address and then talk through what we did well with that last part and what we could’ve done differently or what we will work on next time. We talk about our favorite parts, smile and laugh, kick ourselves in the pants for missing the ring bearer yawn by .2 seconds or the flower girl do something adorable, but celebrate that we got some great expressions here or got the sun just right there. It’s a constant up and down and all around, and our brains are pretty much on overload all day.

The tough part about this past week was that we finished coverage a little bit before nine, but didn’t arrive him until just about midnight. The ride home was longer because the day’s events slowly led us more and more south, with the reception ended about 2.5 hours from home. And then we had to drop off our rental car back at the airport as well.  Of course, I really, really wanted to sleep on the way home. But I knew that really wasn’t an option, unless I wanted to tempt James to also fall asleep.  Thank goodness for Pandora and smart phones. We found a Pandora station we loved, and James knows every single word to like every song–but I don’t. So I type the song into google, and read the lyrics while I sing. Cheating? Yes. But fun for me? Of course. And James is often surprised that he has been singing a line wrong for like fifteen years when I sing it the right way and he’s all like what?? that’s what they are saying?! So funny. AND it keeps us awake. Bonus and bonus.

Eighteen hour work day? You ain’t got nothin’ on these two love birds 🙂  Let’s do it again tomorrow!