Wow.  Wow wow wow.  That’s pretty much all I’m left with today after this amazing weekend!  I know it’s easy to type online and say I love weddings, but if you’ve ever seen me at a one, then you know I really love weddings.  When I’m heading out the door at the end of the night, I’m just as excited as I was when I walked in that morning!  It’s a passion I never even placed my finger on before I started wedding photography, but it makes sense why I was so drawn to this industry.

This weekend as a team we had 4 weddings.  FOUR!  Three for photography and one for videography.  And… then we had that hurricane Joaquin scare.  I had a feeling it would go out to sea, but I also think that feelings was just all my hopes and dreams.  We can overcome a lot on a wedding day: Indoor pictures, extra lighting… it’s not our typical style but we roll with the punches.  Flooding is something that is not so easily overcome, though.  If a venue is only approachable by boat, then it creates quite a problem!

We got lucky though.  And by ‘we,’ I mean everyone in the wedding industry and all the brides and grooms and guests!  There wasn’t sunshine, but there wasn’t a hurricane, and there were just enough breaks in the weather to get some outdoor photos with adventurous brides.  Man oh man I love my brides!

For photos, we had three weddings in three days.  I’ve seen people ask before about whether they should book three in one weekend or put their limit at two.  It truly depends on the person.  For me, I’d happily do five wedding days in a row!  It’s important to have systems down, but if you feel energized at the end of a wedding day and have a good feeling about a 3-day-weekend marathon, then I’d say go for it!

At the first wedding there was a good chunk of time for a dinner break, so I took that time to transfer memory cards to my computer and edit a quick sneak peek for the couple.  Some of their professional images were on Facebook while they were dancing the night away at their reception!

Once I got home, I confirmed that all cards had been transferred, and then I backed up the photos on two separate drives.  Knowing I might have to use those memory cards again that weekend, I actually looked in each folder to confirm that the pictures were there and opened some photos to make sure they were not corrupted.  Then I culled through all the images and loaded them into Lightroom.  They’re ready to edit!

And here are some behind the scenes snapshots my second shooter, Emily, took with her phone.  The wind was insane– so strong I had great difficulty opening my car door.  At one point I just had to wait for the wind to die down before getting in the car.  So we chose a parking deck for the bridal party photos, and it worked wonderfully!  There were some downsides, like tons of oil spots, but the bridal party was relaxed and up for anything, so it made the whole day run smoothly!

That night my fantastic husband charged all my batteries and packed my camera bag for me.  That is something I love about double wedding weekends– my bag is already packed and just needs batteries recharged!  Josh automatically did that for me and that was a complete lifesaver!

At the second wedding, I knew I was going to be a little more tired by dinner, so instead of transferring memory cards and editing during dinner, I took that time to relax and recharge for the rest of the reception.  It was a wise choice and since Josh was driving, I was able to transfer cards on the car ride home.  Once home, I backed up the images on two external hard drives, edited some sneak peeks, and set them to post on Facebook the following morning.

That night, I recharged all my batteries because Josh also had to be up early on Sunday.  A wonderful friend kept our daughter at her house and brought her to church on Sunday so I had one less thing to handle.  I got up that morning, drank some coffee, double checked that my bag was ready, and headed out to the last wedding of the weekend!

For the third wedding, I was shooting solo and had a shorter amount of time than normal to shoot the details, so during dinner I grabbed a quick bite and headed back to photograph additional details and guest interaction photos.  Once home, I transferred all the cards, backed them up, and posted some sneak peeks.

I have to admit, my whole body was sore by the end of the third day.  I wasn’t limping or anything, but a good sore that I can tell I had been working hard.  It’s interesting– I certainly use every muscle while photographing a wedding!  I wish like anything I had a FitBit to tell me how many steps I took this weekend!