By absolutely no stretch of the imagination am I a photographer. I enjoy taking pictures. I have a kick ass camera. I have an okay eye. But I've never studied composition. I don't even really know how my camera works. But my friend recommended me to someone to shoot their daughter's wedding. I'm still not quite sure why. They decided on Wednesday to have the wedding on Saturday. The guy was in the military and he's going to California this weekend and they wanted to get married before he left. So it was a backyard wedding, nothing too fancy. The bride was in a full gown, and there was a maid of honor. Everything looked really nice, and not rushed at all. But I have never done a wedding before. I've taken pictures of friends. But you can redo that stuff if you mess up. You can't really reshoot a wedding. But they had no one else, so I agreed. Now, I didn't have the heart to tell them I had never done anything like this before and are you sure you want to trust your only daughter's wedding to someone who really had no idea what she was doing? So when she asked how much I charged, the number 10 came out of my mouth. Which, later, Tosha pointed out made it seem like I had never done this before and really had no idea what I was doing. She said even the cheap guys in Ohio charged $75/hr. I reminded her that they at least had their own business. And, now that I'm thinking about it, that $75 probably included film and developing. I used to work at a camera store, and I went on a shoot with my boss. I think he charged $30/roll & $30/hr. My total, after developing, printing, the initial cost of the film, and my impressive hourly rate, will end up around $200. So it's not as bad as it seems. Plus, did I mention I had never done this before?

So everything is going well. I'm hanging out with the family. Taking pictures of the bride as she gets ready. The ceremony is going well. I'm sort of in a front corner by the pool, and I can only shoot the groom from this angle. Because it was in the backyard, there was no room for me to get around to the other side to shoot the bride. Unless I Jesused it up and walked across the pool. But, I didn't want to steal the bride's thunder, so I stayed put. Then I switched rolls of film. Well, they weren't slowing anything down, so I was kind of rushing. Then the minister said he was going to have them light the unity candles and if I wanted to shoot this, I could get in the aisle. I fumble around, but make it there. This also gives me the perfect opportunity to move to the other side to shoot the bride saying her vows. Then they kiss, walk down the aisle, stop at the end, kiss again, and now it's the reception. As people are filing back into the house to get food. I look down, expecting to see "14" or something thereabouts. I see "E". "E" as in empty. "E" as in the film didn't catch because I loaded it too fast. "E" as in eegads, don't let me throw up in front of everyone. So I didn't get any shots of the bride. Or the unity candle. Or them kissing.

Well, I took 8 rolls of film and other people were taking pictures and video taping. Maybe no one will notice. I should get the photos back tomorrow night. I hope they are in focus. I hope it looks okay.

So that was my first experience shooting a wedding. I learned a lot. But I don't think I'm so ready for another one any time soon.