What else could go wrong- Our Wedding Story

Hi Friends, thanks for joining me here in this space. This is a story I have wanted to tell for a very long time, but it is a difficult one. As strange as it sounds I am still scared, to this day, to hurt the feelings of those that not only hurt my feelings but my husband and our families’ feelings as well. But before we get to those details I feel we must start from the beginning.  

My love of photography started very early on and probably like most photographers. My parents had a really nice Minolta 35 mm film camera, with several lenses and a flash. My mom taught me how to use the camera, even gave me my first directions regarding light.  Thanks, Mom! In true cat mom fashion, my favorite subjects early on were our cats. I then moved on to photographing seniors. Eventually, I took out a loan, yes I legit took out a loan, to get my very first DSLR, lenses, and flashes. I continued photographing pretty much anything anyone would pay me to photograph. From seniors to maternity, to babies, to eventually weddings. I loved photographing weddings, please don’t get me wrong, but at this point in my story weddings were not yet my passion.  Keywords right there, ‘not yet.’ 

We’re going to skip ahead here, about seven years. I was in my last two semesters of school when Joe and I decided we wanted to get married and shortly after he proposed. Joe also just started back at school after a hiatus. We didn’t have a huge budget for our wedding, we knew that, so there was part of the problem. There was also lots of family drama, but for now, I’m going to spare you most of that. I wanted to elope, I know many of you that see me at weddings or with a camera in my hands may think I seem quite extroverted, but I am a pretty efficient introvert. I don’t like the attention on me.  Education and my camera are pretty much my security objects. I love teaching others, I used to teach high school science at the amazing Bay Port High School, and I miss it dearly. However, outside of teaching and when there is a camera in my hands, I really prefer to blend into the crowd.  Even as a little girl having a huge wedding was not something I ever dreamed of. My ideal wedding was small, very intimate, and if I’m being completely honest I only wanted my best friend there (Joe). Well, Joe’s idea of his wedding was much different. He wanted the full Catholic Mass, in a church, complete with bar hopping, and the big reception. For my non-midwestern readers, bar hopping is a custom, although losing popularity, here in the midwest where the bride, groom, and wedding party go around after the ceremony to countless bars to drink before the reception. So, we eventually settled on a compromise. I got my small ceremony we had four of our closest friends and family stand up on each side and only our parents attended the ceremony. We then took some photos and went out to dinner at Grazies, who were kind enough to make an exception and make a reservation for our wedding party and parents. See I am not a fan of being the center of attention and I HATE, pretty much despise, eating in front of everyone. The idea of sitting on a riser eating and people making us kiss, yeah just not for me. We then hosted an hors d'oeuvres reception for 200 of our family, friends, and guests. 

I know, I’m weird, and that’s totally okay. Throw a camera in my hands and I absolutely LOVE everything about big weddings. I love watching the couple be able to celebrate their marriage in front of everyone that is important to them. Even when I attend big weddings as a guest, I still love them, it was just not something I ever wanted for myself.  

Alright, alright, I know so this doesn't sound so bad, so you’re probably wondering  what this has to do with why I am a wedding photographer and why weddings are my passion. Here it goes, our wedding was horrible. Basically, anything that could go wrong did. It was more stress on our relationship than a wedding ever should, and now looking back honestly we should have just eloped in the first place. We didn’t have the budget to do it right, some friends and family members didn’t behave how they should have, and we both knew this would be an issue before the wedding. I guess maybe we were hopeful that it would have all came together and all worked out, but it didn’t. I guess we all know what they say about hindsight being 20/20 though.  

Even though Joe and I came to a compromise on the way our wedding day would work, we were happy with our plan of the small intimate ceremony, followed by photos, a private dinner, and a larger reception, not all of our family was very happy about the plan. Unfortunately, there was some drama that surfaced about two weeks before the wedding which made everything very stressful. We actually called it off for about a week, so I stopped working on all of the final details (last minute things for centerpieces, wedding party gifts, and a few other things). I mean who wants to get married with their family having so much drama?! It definitely wasn’t me and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. Eventually, we worked through the drama and seeing as everything was paid in full at this point, we figured why not get married. So we literally rushed to do all the last minute details the week of the wedding, all while I was teaching full time and Joe was working part-time and going to school full time. 

Another stressor came in using friends as vendors. The “friend” that was supposed to DJ our reception decided at the last minute to change his rate because he had something else he wanted to do that day. So three weeks before our wedding we were left to find another DJ on our already tight budget. Alright, lesson learned here so we hired another DJ that a friend recommended. So, we got that all figured out. Entertainment- Check!

We also hired a friend to do our wedding photography, I know what you’re thinking.  Oh, no. Trust me I should have known better, but I thought there was no way I’d be another statistic with this one. I had known the photographer for a long time, we were good friends the entire time. I had seen her work and I watched her evolve from the beginning. This was something I didn’t think I had to worry about. 

On the morning of the wedding, my mom and sister were unable to go to the reception venue to set up decor so I already began stressing about getting ready and having to try to get there early enough to set up. One of my bridesmaids was running late so she was unable to come for the getting ready portion of the day. I was going to have her help finish my veil which I intended to make from a portion of my mom’s veil. So we skipped the veil. After I got back from the salon, where I got my hair done, my makeup artist arrived and we started working on my makeup. My BFF, Lindsey and I had all of the details set out, including my dress, shoes, jewelry, etc.  

Our photographer showed up as I was at the end of getting my makeup done. I asked several times for her to start doing some getting ready photos and detail photos of my dress and other details. She somehow convinced my makeup artist to do her makeup. I’m still baffled at this one. We asked so many times for her to start taking photos. I even hauled out my camera and grabbed a few photos of my dress and my shoes, apparently, that didn’t even get the point across that she should have been getting to work. At this point the rest of the getting ready portion is a blur to me. I was beyond frustrated with everything leading up to this day and now this. Since the one bridesmaid was running late and the other was meeting us at the venue, Lindsey was the only one left to help me get into my dress, and as crazy as it sounds it was a two person job. The only person I could think of that was nearby, was Joe. So I called him to help get me into the dress. So much for our first look. Finally time to head to the venue. 

Now this one, we will take full ownership of, we forgot the marriage license at our apartment, we only discovered this once we arrived at the venue, which was nearly a 35 minute drive each way. So, Joe dropped me off and went back for the marriage license. I was more than just stressed at this point. I’m pretty sure at this point in the day I was wishing we would have just said F**K it and flew to Vegas because honestly, anything would have been better than this. I felt so undeserving at this point, did I really not deserve to have one thing go right on my wedding day?  Thankfully our amazing best man, Kyle, saw I was pretty distressed and he brought over a few of my favorite shots. Those of you that know me already know that it was Partón. Maybe a drink or two will take the edge off. Spoiler alert, while it did help me forget about the stress for a moment, this day was just too much. There was no taking the edge off. 

Seriously you guys, I bet you’re thinking that this has got to be a joke, but I can assure you that this is not. Our officiant showed up and didn’t want to go outside for our October wedding so we had to have our ceremony inside our reception venue, between rows of tables. At this point, I was so stressed, that honestly, I didn’t have the energy to fight anyone on anything. Not that it would have made a difference anyway. So we had our ceremony inside.  The photographer had me set up her camera. I was already livid at this point what was I supposed to say? No? So, I helped her get her settings figured out. Honestly aside from not partaking in my own wedding to photograph it myself, there was nothing I could do this last minute, but to go along with it. I should have already known that they wouldn’t turn out, but again nothing I could have done at this point. Sometimes you just feel so broken, what does it matter anymore? I mean were we supposed to just cancel the wedding again, on the spot, because our photographer was working out? Sure, I guess we could have, but we didn’t.

After the ceremony we finally get to go outside to where our ceremony was supposed to take place, in front of a bridge between two willow trees. Y’all it would have been perfect. It was a nice semi overcast day. Honestly it would have been perfect there are just no other words to describe it. This is where we took our wedding party and family photos. Our photographer was cold and wanted to go back inside. We spent maybe 15 minutes taking photos of Joe and I. She even for some reason found it appropriate to ask Joe to take a photo of her because it was so pretty, and it was beautiful out. The fall colors were at peak, the lighting was gorgeous thanks to mother nature’s giant cloud softbox. I was literally so broken and mad. This honestly was the icing on the cake. Hey we might as well use a wedding related cliché right? I mean it’s a horrible story anyway. Why not.  

Time for dinner, we all arrived at Grazies no problem. Dinner was pretty uneventful other than I honestly couldn’t eat. I ordered soup and I think I maybe took two or three bites. I felt too full to even attempt to eat. At this point I started texting every photographer that was invited to our reception to bring their camera, I wanted some photos, really of anything at this point. I know horrible person moment to even think to ask friends who were invited as guests to bring their cameras, but desperation calls for drastic measures. Some had already left, and others were traveling from too far and didn’t have their cameras. Apparently us photographers don’t travel with our cameras everywhere. Who knew? Ha!  ;) 

After dinner we arrived at the reception where it was silent, our DJ who was supposed to be playing music for our guests was just sitting behind his setup even though he was scheduled to start before we arrived. Joe went in and had him start playing some music, again at this point what else can go wrong?  

Honestly, the rest of the night wasn’t utterly the worst. We had multiple wedding crashers show up, but other than drinking the alcohol they were not invited to drink things went pretty decent.  It would have been nice if they at least brought us a card, but apparently, when you are a wedding crasher you lack tact in all things. The venue manager offered to have them thrown out, and while I appreciated the offer, it was just another fight and more drama so we declined. We were going to borrow cutlery for cake and it was forgotten so we had to use a knife from the venue, again such a minor thing in the grand scheme of this nightmare wedding. Honestly, if I wanted to bore you with all the details there were so many other little things that went wrong, this is already getting to be longer than I thought.  

After all, was finished, we got back to our hotel room as planned. I was so exhausted and sad and honestly disappointed that I predicted most of this would happen and that it actually came true only 100 times worse. I knew there would be family drama, but some of the worst parts were having “friends” treat us so poorly. People we chose.  

We finally got the disk of photos and honestly, they were horrible. They were of one of three categories: overexposed, underexposed, or blurry or even some combination of the three. They were shot in jpeg so I couldn’t fix them in raw. I kept one photo of Joe and I, and the rest were tossed. I mean who really needs memories of this horrific wedding anyway?  

I’m not going to lie to you guys, even telling this story is hard for me. Joe and I were wrecked after our wedding, and not the cool kind of wrecked either. We were sad and disappointed. I never want another couple to feel the way we did about our wedding. Any of the parts; leading up to it, during, and the disappointment after. In all honesty, that year after our wedding was hard.  In so many ways.

And that my friends are why I am so passionate about weddings. I don’t want anyone to know what it feels like to live the ‘disaster’ wedding and it breaks my heart when I see others going through a similar situation.

For those wondering Joe and I FINALLY got our day. It’s a day that is more celebrated than our “legal” wedding day. We did a vow renewal in my most favorite place in the world and honestly, this is when I first felt married. More on this in my next post. 

Here is our only photo we kept from our wedding day.