A day in the life of Charlotte Wedding Photographers, Kenneth Light Studios
A Wedding from start to finish.
So many people think the life of a professional photographer is a dream, and yes it can be. But, the reasons it is are far different from the assumptions of those who are not professional photographers. For the most part we have the ability to design our own schedule, though the work flow is a nonstop process, and many days we “work” from dawn to dusk.
Let’s take a look at Sara and Cory’s wedding in Chapel Hill for example…
Friday we meet with Sara, she’s frantic as the Wedding is in two days and she has no photographer. We discuss our packages and services; she’s thrilled with us and executes a contract. Sara leaves confident and happy as can be.
Knowing the Wedding is several hours driving from our home and an early one at that, and being we haven’t done a tour of the venue as usual we decide to drive up the night before to prep for the Wedding. In order to accomplish this we have to rush to find a last minute pet sitter for our dog, a decent hotel for the night, pack clothes, pack up camera gear and make sure we haven’t forgotten anything.
We arrive in time for dinner, a recheck of gear and recharge all batteries, then hop into bed in the wee hours of the morning for a few hours of shut eye.
The morning starts early as we also have a client meeting at the Carolina Inn before the wedding from a couple in Virginia. Our meeting goes well, afterwards we head over to the venue Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, and then we’re off to the Sierra Hotel to meet the Bride.
After gearing up in the parking lot, both myself and Sherri head up to the room cameras in hand, looking like we are packing heat with all the gear we carry and photographer vests over our business attire. We enter the room, make introductions with everyone and begin taking photos. We check on the Bride who is having her hair done, the makeup artist is missing. Turns out there are two Sierra Hotels in the area (recipe for disaster) and the makeup artist is at the wrong one and is now running late, though enroute. Sara is handling it all fairly well but obviously concerned. All ends well as the makeup artist, Mellissa, walks in rushed and out of breath, but yes there is enough time before the moment comes and the makeup turns out beautifully.
While all this is going on, we keep taking our detail shots, wedding dress shots and getting ready shots of all in the room. Time is getting close and Sara is ready for her dress, I get up on a chair and wait for Sara to come in and get her dress on with the help of her sisters, as the dress slides on I take those key photographs and they turn out awesome as expected. Soon as the dress is on we are capturing the veil going on and last minute details then we rush to drive back over to the Carolina inn for more “before” shots.
As we pull up the Valet takes our jeep as we lug our gear into the hotel. We start right away, Sherri goes out to the ceremony area outside while I stay inside to capture entrance shots. It’s a beautiful day but a hot one and we get all the prep shots just in time. We cover all the ceremony shots needed and also the bride crying with joy as she walks away from the alter.
Next comes all those hug shots, and then we smuggle the bride and groom off to some great locations we found during the venue scouting that morning. We capture all the bride and groom shots, then on to the reception. This is our time for the detail and photojournalism shots everyone loves. And, as the day rolls on and winds down we capture all the images needed, then bid our farewells to the bride and groom, followed by a big hug from Sara and Cory for our work, a pleasant, unexpected surprise from them both.
We reload the Jeep and head for home, I catch up on calls and emails while Sherri drives part of the way, then we switch and it’s her turn to do some catching up. Dinner is on the run, next the dog gets picked up and crammed into the back with all our gear. Arriving home we go right into the pack it all away mode, cameras and cards go into the office ASAP. We kick start the computers and upload the cards right away while making a backup at the same time just for safety sake, then it’s off to bed after a very long day.
Refreshed in the morning, we start the post processing, reply to client emails and set up new appointments. Depending on the amount of images we will spend four or more hours a day editing, in-between other routine business, and can work on one Wedding for as long as two weeks until we’re satisfied with the final images. We have a work flow that separates us from the others, we dedicate many hours carefully, meticulously editing images one at a time to get them perfect, the way we want them, the way they should be done.
Once editing is done, images are sent to a secure website for our clients, then we begin building the image and slideshow DVD’s to recreate the day as it happened, this process will take a few days. Then it’s time to put together the templates for the Wedding albums. Each page has to be designed, sized, and sorted, again, another process that takes a fair amount of time. After all has come together and is done, we order, ship, print and tie up any loose ends if needed. And, finally, we’re off to the next job.
So next time you wonder what a professional Wedding Photographer does after the “I Do’s” and garter toss you’ll have a better idea. As you now know, it’s not such an easy task of taking photos for a few hours, there’s a lot more that goes into post Wedding, not to mention the pre Wedding preparation we do, technical and product research, client meetings and correspondence, scouting venues. It’s hard work but we enjoy it, we do it for the love of it, to see the happy faces of a just married couple is a pure joy to us and we capture this in our photographs.
