I am not a wedding photographer.
Nothing about the way I shoot lends itself to being a wedding photographer (film, labs, old heavy cameras, waiting). I do not have business cards, especially ones with the words, "
Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and Special Events" written beneath my name . I am incapable of charging a fee, for fear that the photos will not turn out and I will be thought of with regret forever after. I detest giving people direction; the phrase,
"Move a little to your left," makes me ill. I avoid weddings like one avoids an ex-boyfriend after gaining 15 lbs; you do it if you have to, but you better be wearing a badass dress and have a "plus one."
I am not a wedding photographer. But my life as of late would suggest otherwise.
A year ago, Gabe, a friend from college, asked if I ever shot weddings. I said I had once, but, well, see above. He urged me to think about it, that his fiance loved my photos, and they, above all else, would love to have me there. So I thought about it. I thought about where I would be in August of 2010, I thought of how my photo skills would have surely progressed, I thought of how nice it would be to visit the state my grandparents came from.
But there was another thought happening somewhere in my subconscious as the word,
"Sure," so effortlessly tumbled out of my big mouth.... There's something about events that are a year away. I always think they'll never really happen.
As the rental car swerved deep into the Poconos Mountains, further and further away from civilization, I thought,
"This is, in fact, happening."While Paul and Jill (guests of the wedding and my ride) helped me to recount the times we must have met during our four years at the same college I began to get genuinely excited about the people I would be seeing. The people I vaguely remembered, but knew I thought I really liked I'm pretty sure I hoped.
We arrived at the house where most everyone would be staying and the festivities were well under way. The wedding was scheduled for the next day and friends and family from all over the country were congregating at this impossibly beautiful farm house to "pre-party" as we used to call it at Colorado State.
I found Gabe right away and gave him a big hug. The truth is, I was flattered. Gabe had always kept in touch. His perseverance was unmatched. He sent postcards on a regular basis, followed my blog and berated me to post more, checked in on my website, and just plain cared about what was going on in my life, even when I was silent for months at a time. I was happy to be there with him and for him. Kind of like a way to make up for my lackluster 3 to his sparkling 50 postcards sent. To set the good friend score even and show him that I do value our friendship, regardless of the fact that I had not seen him in more years than I had known him. Oh, and the bride, Lea, was one of the most lovely ladies I had met so far this century.
But that is not the point of this story. The point of this story is that I am not a wedding photographer.
Gabe showed me to my room and I began to unpack. My dress went on a hanger, my book on the bedside table, my toothbrush by the sink, and my charger in the phone. Then onto my film and the systematic divvying up of how many rolls would be allotted for what. Finally I grabbed 1 of the 3 rolls set aside for that night and the precious time to hide behind my camera had arrived. I went to my bag to get it.
My parents once left my little brother behind at a rest stop during a cross country road trip. They realized it a few miles down the road, sped back, and swooped him up, barely causing a wrinkle in our family vacation.
My camera, unlike, my little brother, was not a few miles down the road. No, no, it was, say, 2700 miles down the road, AKA, on the other side of the country. It is difficult to relay the pure horror-agony-panic trifecta that set in the moment I realized that my entire purpose of being at that moment was not with me.
My first instinct was to run, naturally. Because, ya, that made sense. Just run away and never come back and they'll think you died and they'll never ever know that you destroyed the single most important day of their young lives. This truly seemed like a more than viable, and flat out reasonable solution. But there were too many of them! They were everywhere. In the halls, behind every corner, outside, inside, even a few passed out in the field leading to the road, no doubt.
Running was out. Being a grown-up was in.
A short prayer:
"Dear God, please let there be cell reception up here in your gorgeous mountains." as I dialed my home number.
"Jon. I left my camera at home." The next hour was a blur of Jon scouring Craigslist for old Nikons, me sobbing through phone calls to strangers in Scranton asking if they'd take $175 (all the dough I had on me) instead of $250 for their camera, and occasional silent mental breakdowns every 10 minutes or so. Finally we found Russian Steve in Allentown selling an old Nikon for the right price and promising in the most unsettling tone,
"You can drust me, eet workz. Eet workz pearfectly."Up at 6am to start my 2 1/2 hour drive to Allentown to test his camera, drive back, and make it to the Poconos by 11:30am to start shooting the girls getting pretty and the boys hitting the back 9. Fat chance. Or more specifically, morbidly-obese-needs-stomach-stapling chance.
For the first time in my life, I did not get lost driving
to a new place
from a new place. That was the only thing that went right that morning. Russian Steve did have an old Nikon, but "
eet" did not work. At all.
Mid-meltdown on his couch under a painting of Jesus at Gethsemane, he revealed to me that he did have this
other Nikon. This
other Nikon caused a series of begging and pleading with Russian Steve to please accept a personal check on top of my $175 so that I could purchase it and not have to kill myself because I single handedly ruined an old friend's wedding day. He finally conceded and handed over a beautiful old Nikon F4. A dream camera of mine, to be honest, but the glory of my possession of it fell flat in this veritable nightmare.
I believe I kept my fingers crossed the entire drive back to the Poconos, hoping against hope that this F4 would not only work, but take beautiful photos and save the God-damned, God-forsaken day.
I arrived at the bridal suite at 12pm and the ladies had just begun getting their hairs done.
Here's what happened next...
I think if I were a wedding photographer, this experience may have kicked me right out of the business. Luckily, I am not a wedding photographer, and this experience was one of the most special and fun I have had in quite some time. And though I didn't have my "plus one," I sure as shit had one badass dress.
