I was contacted about photographing Jennie and DJ's wedding about a month before the actual wedding.  My first thought was that this was a busy time for me and there was no way I had the date open, but upon further review, and much to my surprise, the date happened to fall right in between a bunch of stuff I was doing.

I didn't meet Jennie and DJ until the actual wedding day.  Up until then I had only met with Jennie's mom.  I usually like to meet with the bride and groom long before the wedding so I can get a feel for their personalities.  It makes it a little tougher to just walk in cold having never met either the bride or groom but sometimes that's just the way it works out.

The wedding was to be held in a cute little Lutheran church and the reception in the reception hall of a Catholic church.  (You kind of cover most of your religious bases when you do it that way.)  The girls got dressed in the meeting rooms in the back of the church where the ceremony was.  At one point I went out into the sanctuary to get an idea of what the lighting would be like during the ceremony.  Having gotten a good idea of how I was going to shoot the ceremony I went back to doing more pre-ceremony shots.  When it was time for the ceremony I went back out to the sanctuary only to find that it was about half as bright as it had been when I checked it earlier.  I wasn't sure what was going on until I realized that it had clouded over and was now pouring rain.  That was going to make things interesting because to get from the rooms in back of the church the wedding party was going to have to go outside to get to the sanctuary.  A mad scramble for umbrellas ensued and eventually everyone got to where they needed to be.

The ceremony went well.  The ring bearer got cold feet at the last minute and no amount of coaxing by the flower girl could get him down the aisle.  We were going to do some outdoor shots after the ceremony by Chautauqua lake but it was still pouring after the ceremony.  I should just realize that whenever anyone suggests doing some photos by the lake it's actually code for, "it's going to rain really hard any minute now."

The bride and groom left the church in a cool old Chevy truck.  I'm pretty sure though, by the way some were acting, that this truck wasn't used to seeing any rain.  I believe it went home to the garage as soon as possible.

The rain eventually stopped and we found a little time during the reception to scoot outside and a grab a couple of shots of Jennie and DJ.  I would have liked to have had more time with them but by this time it was starting to get dark and they needed to be inside at the reception.

Things didn't work out just like we had planned but all in all it still was a good day.  Congratulations to the happy couple.

Joel