This wasn’t our first family wedding, but it was the first from my side.  It was also the first family wedding that I got a babysitter for!  That really did help out.  Shooting weddings can be complicated enough but add family to the mix when you are working and it really complicates things.  Not that I would not do a family wedding again, by any means, if family is in need of photos, no reason we shouldn’t both help each other out!  But it really can get complicated.  In all cases, I’ve also gone over and beyond what a photographer does, often being part wedding coordinator or planner, too.  Scheduling things, booking things, doing invitations, directing rehearsals, etc.  Then the previous times (pre-babysitter) I also had to be MOM.  For the most part it’s fine but every time when Steve and the kids have shown up and Kayleigh has seen me, she’s cried because she’s wanted me.  I’ve had to be distracted with children from “will you hold her for a minute” to “Mom, Mom, MOM, can I have a piece of cake?!”  Since my kids weren’t immediate family or in this wedding, getting a babysitter (aka the in-laws) was the best idea ever.

Not only all of this but I need – and want – to greet our extended family.  So I have to be hostess, too.  I’m blessed, though, on both sides I have a decent amount of family, I feel like we’re not real small but we’re not real big, either.  I know people who don’t even know the names of their great-aunts and uncles, yet I’m lucky enough to know every one of them except those that died before I was born.  Heck, I even know one of my great-great-aunts.  That’s pretty darn awesome.  It’s just too bad she lives in California so I’ve only gotten to see her twice now.  Then, of course, there are my mom and dad’s first cousins (they would be my first cousins, once removed!) and my second cousins.   So it’s great to see all of them, too, even if just for a little bit since my time is mostly spent working!

But this wedding is all said and done and it will probably be the last family wedding for a while.  I guess you never know, though.  Now it’s time to edit the photos.  Always a fun part, ha.  Shouldn’t take as long as some of the others, though, as due to various circumstances, there just plain aren’t as many photos to start with.  She’s still going to end up with several hundred, though!  That and if I say so myself, aside from some face merges I know I’m going to have to do, these photos largely don’t need much editing.

I also have to say that I love, love, LOVED the bouquets at the wedding.  The one pictured above was the tossing bouquet and you can see a pine cone in it.  The bride also had pine cones in hers and the bridesmaids’ were all pine cones and crystals.  Maybe this is more common than I think but I haven’t seen it before, I thought they were quite unique.

A weird thing with E’s, too, the doctor prescribed 10 days but there was only 8 and slightly less than a half in there. Called the doctor’s office and they said call the pharmacy who, I know, is probably thinking I’m an idiot who didn’t dose it right. I know I did it correctly. They were like well we put as much water in there that it says (so they couldn’t possibly ever be wrong) so if the doc wants him to have another day and a half he’s going to have to write another scrip. Ugh. So the doctor’s office said well just forget it got now but if E had more eat pain we’ll do that.

Stacey and I are getting ready to shoot a wedding this weekend. It’s going to be interesting because it’s a bit unorthodox, but I think the weather is supposed to be nice enough that we can do some outdoor pics. Also unorthodox… for February.

I’m excited because we have scheduled several for this year already and have just experienced an influx in inquiries, too!

Who knew going through junk in the basement could be so tiring? I should go to bed, my back sort of aches!

Saturday, for the first time ever, I directed a live-to-tape recording of a wedding. Yes, we do this on a weekly basis, but have never done a wedding before. In fact, you could say in the past we have made it a point NOT to do weddings. But this was a special favor to several someones. While I was up in the control room, I took a few still photos, too. I will use one or both for the DVD menu, if nothing else.

This is the same church we were married at, I wish we had a photo like this from our ceremony. The couple’s photographer did not get anything like this, I’ve already promised the groom’s mother some high resolution images, she loved the photos. It’s just too bad I couldn’t have gotten a more dead-center shot, but the control room only overlooks the sanctuary with two very darkly tinted windows, one on each side. I’d love to have a center window, but that will never happen, haha.

Getting nervous about the surgery, it’s less than a week away. Had some nightmares that something went wrong during surgery and we lost her. I’ll probably be a total wreck next week.

Getting a urine sample is never fun, either, but thankfully this went better (for K) than it did last time. For us, it was a pain. The nurses were setting up to do it and K peed all over the table. Back to the drawing board. We had to wait twice and try for a sample twice. I was also (frivolously) disappointed to have to change her clothes, not to mention I looked like a bad Mommy because while I had extra pants and a onesie, I have never thought to carry extra socks (never needed any before)! However, it wasn’t until we got home that I realized Daddy put her clean onesie on backwards. :P

Thank goodness for spare clothes, though! Marie and another friend recently gave me some for K. Good thing, we were getting low! K is finally starting to get past that 12 month size and slowly going towards some 18 months. E needs new clothes, too. I’ve realized that all his jeans are short in the ankles! They grow so fast. I got him 4 pairs of jeans at Goodwill (hey, can’t beat $8) and they look brand new. Two pairs are 6′s and two are 8′s. He needs a belt with the 8′s and they’re only slightly long. The jeans he was wearing that I’ve finally had to take away were size 4! One of those pairs is a light sand-like camo. He was really upset when I took those away this morning.

Stacey and I shot another wedding on Saturday and had a blast! I’ve been through a few of the images but hoping to really get started on them here in a little bit. Had some other sessions to go through first. She has several from her visit to Oklahoma to do, too. This wedding was interesting, though, in that while it was on a gazebo like the last one we did, we couldn’t get close to it. The gazebo was out on the water in a large pond (little lake?) behind a private residence. It’s at least 10 feet from the shore to the front part of the gazebo. So we stayed back on the shore with zoom lenses. From what I’ve seen so far though, we did well.

And again, I started this post hours ago and got distracted, so… :)

I think we did the photography really well, too. This time I have over 2,100 photos to go through, between the two of us. I know I won’t be happy with all of my photos, but I can’t expect them all to be perfect! In between these, though, and the websites I am working on (adding two more to my work load now), I am going to be spending a lot of the time at the computer over the next month or so. O_o The photos are the only thing under deadline, though.

One thing that did annoy me, though… We were in front of the old courthouse shooting pictures of the guys alone because the bride and groom didn’t want to see each other until the ceremony and I turned around and suddenly there was this other wedding party on our gazebo. We’d already done pictures of the girls alone and now were about 10 minutes from the ceremony starting! Steve told me that he saw the other wedding party come out of their church, which is next door to the gazebo property, and the looks on their faces told him that they were VERY surprised to see someone using the gazebo. I just have to say, well, duh, that’s what happens when you assume things will be available for your own use. (I personally reserved the gazebo for us for that day.) Thankfully they didn’t stay there long because I totally would have freaked on them if they were there when it was time for our ceremony! I mean, darn it, we had 100 chairs set up, decorations on the gazebo, a sound guy with his equipment, a table with a guest book and programs and cards, and lots of people being seated… and here they come waltzing in to this reserved space.

Some other photographer, then, asked me if she could use the front of the courthouse where we were for a few minutes and I said yes, we were wrapping up at the time being, but we’ll need it after our ceremony if that was ok – she said she’d be done by then, she just had one couple with her. They weren’t there long, but the other wedding party ended up out front of the courthouse when we were due to go back over there and do some with guys and girls after the ceremony. They took a VERY long time so we never got back over there. I just thought, how rude. Here we had reserved this space and they had their wedding at a church that has it’s own property and were monopolizing part of our area when there were other places they could have gone. Quite rude, if you ask me.

My main other complaint is that I seem to have picked up someone else’s cold or maybe it’s allergy-related, due to the nice change in the weather. I woke up Friday, after rehearsal on Thursday (and stupidly sharing my drink without thinking about it at the time), with a sore throat and just not feeling well. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad for the wedding on Saturday and I was able to proceed as if I was just fine. Today, as I predicted, I am worse. I knew it would happen if I didn’t rest Friday or Saturday, so I expected to stay home all day today and do nothing but go through photos and mess around on the computer.

So here I am, lounging on the love seat, opening 100 photos at a time and doing initial quick processing. Just going to save all my other photographer’s photos in whole to CDs for her and then start cutting photos. I guess that’s the easy way to do it! K seems to have other plans in mind for me, though…

I am more than prepared, though. All I have to do is meet with my other photographer (maybe we will go equipment shopping) and buy another big box of AA batteries. At the last wedding, I started with a full camera battery and didn’t even get close to have to changing that, despite about 900 photos or so. I had to change my flash batteries once but I like to have more than just one set on hand!

The one thing that really makes me the most nervous, though, is the weather. This wedding is outside so i am really praying for no rain and for decent temperatures. So far we are looking at a 0% chance of precipitation, 5 mile and hour winds, high of 81° and mostly cloudy. In a word: AWESOME! I could stand for it to be a little cooler, but I would be happy with that weather for sure. I am also checking the weather forecasts obsessively from here on out. (Typical.)

I have lots of ideas in mind though and I hope that everyone is cooperative and happy to participate! Not so much the wedding party – they HAVE to be – but I have a couple of photos in mind that are going to require participation on the part of MANY more people! I know SOME people are going to be hesitant… ahem… but maybe I can throw some weight around. :P

In other news, my brother gave me a ton of stuff to sell for him. All video games and accessories or systems. Stuff that I guess he’s decided he doesn’t need anymore since he’s going away to college and is about to be a billion times busier. So far, sales on Ebay are going well on the systems. I get to keep $100 that he owes me and, he says, a commission of whatever percentage I want. haha! I won’t rip him off, though! I probably will keep very very little to nothing. Hopefully everything sells, though. The last thing I need around here is more useless stuff in the way.

We are still trying to get that “lower” room remodeled and it’s a real pain so far. In the past couple of years, it’s become a catch-all room, not to mention all of the candle stuff I keep in there. A lot of that is in the basement but not everything. I’m going to have to find a place to take more down there. Going to need to keep my wax up here though, I’m certainly not going to take 55 lb cartons downstairs only to have to carry it back up when I need it!

But we’re maybe finally getting some plans laid about some stuff so I really want to get this show on the road and it seems like everything depends on something else and I have yet to find where the chain starts. I can’t do A until I do B and I can’t do B until I do C and D which have to be done at the same time but have to be done after E, F, G, etc. If I could just find the perfect starting point, we’d be good to go!