Erin & James: Wedding!

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for! The kick-off of wedding season! I have posted entirely too many pictures here, but I figure since it's the first one, I'm just going to do it and live a little. It's totally like people that have a zillion pictures of their first kid (that was me!) and then just a couple of the highlights of the second kid. But seriously, I'm excited to be underway! Be on the lookout in the coming weeks for a barrage of engagement sessions!

Okay, so the (totally not) funny thing about this wedding is that my brand new camera malfunctioned right as we got started. Hello, TERRIBLE TIMING. I think I freaked everyone out a little during the formal pics, but thankfully it was nothing too major and I could still use it, but for the geeks out there, I like shooting in aperture priority mode, especially on the group shots (makes it go quicker) and, without giving a long technical explanation, that mode was SO not working. I ended up doing the entire wedding in Manual Mode, which was no biggie, but meant I had to think a little harder! All in all, though, I think it went really well, and it was nice to have to exercise my brain muscles (and yes, that is a real thing), and in case you were wondering, the always fantastic Roberts did switch out my camera and made it as hassle-free as possible for me. I love those guys!

Alright, now on to the main event!

Erin and James went the "seeing each other before" route, and here is where they met up.

One of the things about this wedding was that the food was totally gorgeous, and there was a lot of Asian flavor (pun!) to it. I don't think I've included even close to all the pictures I took of food, but I did pick this one specifically because this is almost exactly how this shot came out of the camera, with the most minor tweaking you can imagine. I just could not find a way to improve on the color. So even though my camera made my life a little difficult that day, I still LOVE it and am so happy with it.

The back of Erin's pretty hairpiece, and bouquets in the background.

The violinist warming up. I like to get pictures of the musicians and stuff while they're practicing so I can totally get in their faces, since I figure when people are at a wedding, they want to see, oh, I don't know, the WEDDING, and not my butt.

Oh, this one! This is Matt, one of the guestbook attendants. I love the light on his face! I know it doesn't look "natural sunlight" colored, as the rules dictate, but I love it anyway and changing it to black and white made it really lose something for me. Plus, he is all GQ posed here and I loved his outfit, and I think that vests on boys might be my new favorite thing.

By the time Erin had me arrive, she was pretty much ready to go. Thankfully, though, she had to take the skirt part of her dress off to be able to sit down, so I was able to get this shot of her sister getting her back into it. Seriously, people do not know the kind of pain and inconvenience that brides go through.

And this picture totally explains why--they always look so happy and radiant that you don't think about how many pounds of satin they're lugging around. :)

I loved this one of Erin and her dad on their way in. I know it's a little blurry, but life is like that sometimes, and it doesn't take away the moment. :)

You guys would totally make fun of me if you knew (and now you do) how proud of myself I was for remembering to take a picture of the church ceiling. I know it sounds weird, but I always see all these gorgeous pictures of ceremonies that include the ceiling (often the most beautiful part of a sanctuary, if you ask me), and I really wanted to get one. And I did!

Me and Billy both "awwww"ed this picture for different reasons--he thinks little kids in glasses are always cute, and I think kids double-fisting food is always hilarious. Well, I actually think that anyone double-fisting food (or drinks) is funny, but kids just seem to pull it off so well.

Who doesn't love a good hug after a toast? Toasts are some of my favorite pictures to take because the facial expressions during them are always so great.

Cutting the cake! I loved James in this one, since he's usually a pretty reserved guy, but something about cake just really brought out the joy on his face. :)

This is the cake topper, which I thought was amazing. One of their friends made it for them (I'm not sure out of what, but it was pretty delicate), and look at it! It's a replica of Erin's dress! That made my crafty little heart so happy!

Also, funny napkins! Anyone know the movie that the quote is from? (I'll tell you at the bottom.)

Oh, now this one. There has been much discussion about this picture, because I am going to say something about it that I totally shouldn't say. But this was my favorite picture of the day, and you may wonder why I shouldn't say that, but it's because ... BILLY TOOK IT! This was his first wedding being turned loose with a camera and he did an amazing job.

More food! I couldn't resist this one. First of all, the colors are so pretty, but also, I loved the idea of the slabs of granite--very unusual!

Also, on a related note, we will always appreciate it if you give us permission to eat something. Erin graciously gave me some cake and told me that she was a Mennonite woman and she knows how to eat (although it sure as heck doesn't show!) and that I should go for it. I couldn't pass up an offer like that, so I had some delicious cake. Thank you again for being such a good hostess with so much other stuff going on, Erin!

And last, but SO not least, is a picture Billy took of James' grandma. Oh my gosh, I LOVE it. She looks so happy and cute.

So there you have it (the tip of the iceberg, that is!). Speaking of Billy as a budding photographer, I still can't guarantee him as a second shooter (or charge clients like he's a second shooter), and he insists that he only wants to take "bonus" pictures and not be responsible for anything he deems important, but I was so impressed with him! My favorite part came at the end of the night, when I saw that he had fully embraced what it meant to be a photographer and was willing to get in people's way to get the shot. That's my boy!

Thank you again, Erin and James, for such a nice start to the wedding season!

(Oops!  I'm editing to add the movie quote answer, which I totally forgot--it's When Harry Met Sally!)