Adventures of a Wedding Photographer – Part 2

The wedding was a beautiful day, full of love, smiles, promises and hope. It was my distinct honor to be the photographer for Becca and Seth’s wedding, and I can’t wait to process the images and to show them to you.

As with each wedding, there are always some adventures along the way. 

In yesterday’s case, Matt and I started out at the gas station, filling up before the trip. I was trying to plug the directions of the first location into “Myrtle” – our GPS. [Yeah, I thought it’d be nice to give her a name.] Myrtle and I are at about a 70% love 30% hate relationship right now. There have been some key addresses that she hasn’t been able to locate. The address for Becca’s house was one of them. That was, until I put in the zip code instead of the city from their mailing address. Apparently there’s a difference between townships and what the GPS actually has as the city listed. She redeemed herself there. … Recalculating… 

There’s something you should know about Matt and my 2 vehicles. Neither of them has working air conditioning. I KNOW. See why I sweat so much and always have disheveled, windblown hair?? The air in Matt’s car was actually broken when we bought it, [but we didn’t know until a month or two later,] and we paid a crazy amount of money in Hawaii to get it fixed. Well, that lasted 2 weeks and then it went back to blowing luke warm air. Then, on our road trip while driving to the Grand Canyon, we lost a piece of the car and it turned out to be a necessary piece of the AC system. So we have NO air at all on that vehicle. In mine, I think it might just need a recharge, but it’s been finding time to take it in that’s been the problem. Matt called our preferred car repair shop on Thurs, asking to take it in. The next opening is next week. SO. We drove 5 hours total yesterday in hot, sunny and humid weather, in dress clothes [at least I was wearing a dress though, Matt was in pants and a dress shirt!] and whew, it was a HOT one! 

Aside from the GPS and the insanely hot car ride, we got to the Cities in one piece and met up with the Bride first. The preparations were beautiful, Becca was GORGEOUS and Seth was so excited, he couldn’t wait for the day to get rolling. Their First Look was so precious and the wedding party was fun. They were such great sports about photographing in the blazing sunshine. Fast forward through a nice ceremony in the air conditioned church, and then the plan was to continue on to a quick trip to a local pub, a stop at White Bear Lake for some photos and then onto the reception hall. Matt and I walked out to the car to load up our gear and then follow the bride and groom’s vehicle to the pub, and Matt said… “I don’t have the keys.” Two more steps and we were peering in the windows of the car, only to see the keys on the front seat of the car. With the car doors locked. OH NO.

Knowing that in the past, my dad has put a lock box someplace under the car with a spare, I searched for it, but couldn’t find it. I didn’t want the wedding party to leave without me, so I left Matt to call the lock smith and I hitched a ride from the coolest videographer team ever. We continued on with the photography/video show and then just as we were about to go on to the reception, I get a call from Matt saying that my dad called him back and told him where the box was!! HOORAY!!! No expensive locksmith bill, if we’d even been able to find one! Apparently all the ones Matt called were closed because it was after 5pm on a Friday. God was watching out for us on that one!!

So, we were able to get into our vehicle, I was able to get all the gear I needed for the reception, we were able to drive home after the beautiful and fun reception, and I plopped into bed sweaty, sticky, stinky, and happy. 

That was, until I heard the obnoxious music coming from the going-out-of-business party coming from a local bowling alley. After driving 5 hours total, shooting for 9 hours in the heat and sun, getting keys locked in the car, sweating 100 gallons, and getting home at 1am, I was not in the mood for a bumpin’ bass and loud lyrics floating in my window. Luckily, I only remember being cranky for 2 minutes. After that, I woke up to major lightening and thunder, followed by hail at 3 am and ran to close the window. The music was over by then, and I drifted back into my post-wedding coma.

Now that, my friends, is a successful wedding day!