When I shot my very first wedding 12 years ago, I had no idea it could be a career, let alone my career. Growing up going to dozens of weddings with my family helped me feel at home as I entered the wedding scene, but what freaked me out at first was everyone was looking to me for direction: “My dress doesn’t fit, I’m having a bad hair day, it’s raining, I forgot my suit, the flowers are all dead; What Should We Do Char?”
This was more than I bargained for, and I felt in some ways I had to “fake it to make it.” After a trip to Uganda in 2009, my friend Simon gave me a piece of GOLDEN advice that would serve me for years to come: “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break.” Weddings are full of unknowns. You can plan all you want, but at the end of the day the cake could fall on the ground, the altar could collapse, and the bride and groom will still get married despite the unexpected interruptions.
So here I am, 12 years in and 172 weddings later (in 2018).
You’re probably wondering, aren’t you getting tired of weddings Char?
Do I feel like a wedding crasher sometimes, waiting for the best man to mention he looked up “how to write a speech” on google? Does my job title sometimes feel like “professional emotional-buffer?” I’d be lying if I said I was laying on a bed of roses (hunched over my computer writing this blog post), and every now and then at the end of the summer I think to myself, ‘Why do I feel so tired?’ or ‘I’ve eaten wayyy too much cake.’
But the bottom line is, I have heard and seen it all (and then some) and I still absolutely love what I do–even more than when I started! Every single person in this world is unique and therefore, every single wedding has it’s own personality, style, and beauty.
Here is Visual Proof that I still love this job (check out the very last photo: where’s Char? SPOILER ALERT: On the Dance Floor 🙂
<< 79 Photos taken from 2018 Engagements & Weddings >>
