When I walked into the bridal dressing room for Cindy and Daniel's micro wedding at the First Rock Fellowship Church in order to introduce myself to the everyone, I was greeted with a surprise. "Mel, the man who just walked in is the photographer." The bride told her sister.
"Oh, I thought that would have been obvious with these two cameras and all these lenses," I remarked.
"Oh, well my sister is blind," the bride replied, then added "and so am I!"
Having never had a blind bride before I quickly realized, as I started to document the getting ready photos, that I was going to have to approach things a little differently. I was going to have to be more deliberate and explicit with my instructions, and make sure that the people around me knew where I was. I am used to being a quiet fly on the wall as to not disturb the happenings of the wedding day, but for this day I was going to have to make my presence known auditorily so as to avoid the bride and her sister running into me (which definitely happened.)
For the getting ready photos I utilized my large aperture lenses as to blur the background out a bit more than usual as seeing the bride was getting ready in what looked like a playroom for kids. Seeing as this was just a three hour wedding day, I got a little of the bride getting ready, a little of the groom getting ready and then it was time for the ceremony.
The father of the groom was the officiant and he did an excellent job of it with a beautiful wedding homily. The bride and groom had both written their own vows and they were well written, and emotionally poignant. You could tell just how much they meant to one another and it was a really beautiful thing to witness.
After the ceremony and family photos I took the couple outside for a few shots but it was still a little too early in the day for the best lighting, so we went in for the lunch that had been set up by the bride's grandmother and mother, where there were a few speeches (including a beautiful poem by the bride's sister) the cake cutting, and general pleasantries.
At this time the sun was in a better spot in the sky so I invited the bride and groom outside again for a few more sunset/golden hour type photos before we went back in for some dancing, the music for which the bride's sister provided (so multi-talented!) There was a touching couple's first dance, father/daughter, and mother/son, and sister dance then what could only be described as a free for all for the final song.
After all the reverie it was time for the send off and for the couple to start the journey of the rest of their lives together.
