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September 29th 2007, Bruce Mayhill and I drove down to Hilton Head SC to shoot Kim and Scott’s wedding. We spent two amazing days down there, having a blast with their their family and friends. The wedding day was quite spectacular as the beach was virtually empty. Albeit a little windy, the couple, family and friends enjoyed a memorial wedding ceremony.
Before the ceremony even started, we captured getting ready images at the beach house, along with a “The couple meet before the ceremony” set of images. It always amazes me how much value there is in a couple meeting before the ceremony. Both are dressed up and ready to go. The only thing is, even after some quiet reflection, they are both very nervous, which is only to be expected and on edge. Meeting one another, somewhere quiet and by themselves (except for two photographers :), they were able to decompress and relax.
Bruce and I were able to get various angles for the whole day and night. There’s nothing more that I like to capture and witness, and that’s the raw emotion seen at a wedding. It has become very apparent with me that a wedding requires several different types of photography. Everything from Photojournalism to more assisted, instructed posing. It is possible to be creative in both situations.
The reception was a lot of fun to capture during the evening and night. I had the idea of showing a slideshow at the reception, of those images captured during the day. Sitting at a laptop in a spare room I backed up and selected images as they came in from Bruce. We did this as a complete surprise to the couple, their family and friends. After selecting 70 images, I put together the slideshow and we did a dry run in the spare room. Towards the end of the reception, we setup a backdrop and the projector. Giving our music choice to the DJ, the announcement went out to gather around and see a slideshow. It was quite an amazing sight to see: laughter, crying and hugs. The family was able to see a sample of the images captured that day at the end of the reception and in affect, see a summary of the day. They were completely overwhelmed!
After about 5 hours sleep, we were up again and ready to head to the beach house for a sunrise “trash the dress” session. I have to say, dispite the windy cold morning, lack of sleep, the immediate family and friends were all up keeping everybody company, and having a laugh. The newly weds were jumping around in the sea and generally getting very wet. We had a blast photographing this sesison.
Before hitting the road, we managed to squeeze in an hour to decompress at the pool, before driving back to NC.
Thank you Kim, Scott, family and friends for being such wonderful and warm people.