One of the most crucial fundamentals of our adventures in wedding photography; is trust. Trust in the process. Trust in our gut. Trust from our couples. We rarely feel like hired help, we’re rarely treated as such, and our couples aren’t really clients so much as beautiful, fascinating humans who welcome us into their unique celebrations like friends with cameras. The epitome of this, was our experience at Beth and Chad’s wedding in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. Beth and Chad trusted in us implicitly… not only to document their story and immortalize their memories… but to do so while beating the shit out of their very own camera gear. Beth and Chad just happen to be a world class professional wedding photography duo.
With great trust, comes great responsibility. When we first stumbled our way into the peculiar niche of photographing really, really good wedding photographer’s weddings… it was an intimidating, albeit humbling, endeavour to say the least … doing what they do so well for so many who trust in them… for them at their one and only wedding. That’s pressure, but having now photographed the weddings of world renowned photographers (Joseph Radhik, The Brenizers, Mike Rodriguez, Jamie Bott, Right Start Photography…) we’ve come to realize that the pressure is entirely self-imposed by nothing more than the ridiculously high expectations we place upon ourselves. The access, trust, and creative license we’re gifted at these weddings is remarkable and humbling. It’s an honour we cherish and pour everything we’ve got into fulfilling.
The real pressure to do Beth and Chad’s wedding justice, however, had less to do with our shared professions than with how much we fell in love with who they are. They’re just great people… down to earth… easy going… wholesome to the core. Their love for each other is a beautiful, enriching thing to be around. Embodying that in photos, and chronicling their wedding with their cameras was an exhilarating, challenging, hilarious affair. The whole experience was full of wondrous, downright bizarre plot twists… all of which Beth and Chad took in glorious stride, like water off a storm trooper’s back.
Beth, believe it or not, began her wedding day by baking homemade cinnamon buns for all the guests at their beach house rental. Chad, meanwhile, was a hot awesome mess for much of the day, with nary a drop of alcohol (he’s allergic), arriving at The Watson House without his shirt. He was, nonetheless, very well showered and squeaky clean.
Chad eventually found himself properly dressed, standing beneath a harrowingly erected arbor, anticipating the arrival of Beth and their beautiful dog, Geo. Meanwhile, Beth was absolutely beaming, cruising through the streets of Emerald Isle on the rooftop of a double decker bus. Ultimately, it all came together amongst the hurricane battered sand dunes of Emerald Isle beach in glorious, albeit challenging, light. Their hilarious friend, Mike Ball, delivered a beautiful ceremony in remarkably tight pants. It was all just perfect.
From there on in, things continued to be perfect, and weird… storm trooper cameos… inflatable dinosaurs… Jared Gant‘s head on a stick. One of the coolest surprises, however, was when Beth discovered that Chad had secretly arranged for their first dance to be live painted (that’s right, actually, physically painted) by the talented Dan Nelson Art. The painting was spectacular. As was Beth’s reaction.
In the end, we were all covered in champagne, smiling ear to ear, happy to have been part of such a great day with such a great group of people.
In writing this, I’ve become acutely aware that making these photos was the easy part. Finding the words to describe it all is exceedingly difficult. I keep thinking of David Allan Harvey‘s famous photography advice, “Don’t shoot how it looks. Shoot how it feels.” That mantra has always guided us in our photography, so rather than attempting to describe how this wedding felt, we’ll just hope these photos succeed in that.
Beth and Chad, we cherished every minute of this with you. Thanks for your invincible trust in us. We really cannot wait to hang out again soon!
Venue : The Watson House
Florist : Avalon Event Floral and the Watson House
Catering : Seaside Sensations
Painting : Dan Nelson Art
DJ : All Events DJ
Cake : Mrs. Vingerbers Sweets
Cookies : Insomnia Cookies
Bartender : Joe Cadorette
