Jake and Emily's Wedding

This last week my wife and I took a week to spend down in Florida to stand up in Jake and Emily's wedding. They are a wonderful couple that we have served in Taiwan with in the past and will again in the future. They both first met in Taiwan with a similar story to ours with some differences.

We left Wednesday driving all the way down in one day. My wife makes fun of me for this but I have a rule that we can only stop once about every 5 hours. So basically we only stop when we need gas and food at the same time, any bathroom needs must wait until those stops come up.

When we finally got down to Florida, just past Jacksonville, I heard a loud noise. Now my car makes all sorts of weird noises so I normally ignore them. However moments after I made a comment about it to my wife our tire blew. We originally were going to arrive at our stop at 11:30 but got delay until about 1am.

The next week Kyle Paradis, another groomsmen and I charged lots of tires including the Bride and Grooms honeymoon car the day of their wedding. Luckily the bride never found out...

Kyle Changing Tires

The actually wedding was at a resort at St. Pete Beach. It was a beautiful location and aloud us to have a decent amount of time at the beach.  There was lots of old friends from WOLBI (Bible College) that I got to see again and made lots of new friends.

Picture: I snapped a few pics of Jake getting a haircut for his wedding.

Both Anne Marie and I had the privilege of being in the wedding. About 30min before the wedding it was down pouring. When the wedding finally started there was still a very very light rain but it made for a beautiful ceremony with people holding umbrellas in the audience.

They wrote their own vows. Jake has an amazing way with words. Most of the time its for making jokes, but he can be really powerful and make people feel and understand his emotions. Many people were crying after he finished his vows to Emily.

The next few days we were able to meet up with friends and spend a few days with Anne Marie's relatives. We even stopped by were we got married almost 2 years ago. While we were there we took some photos of ourselves trying to re-enact the photos from our wedding day. (but I don't have those to upload at the moment)

My First Wedding Shoot

I was finally asked to shoot my first wedding. I was pretty hesitant about it. I take pride in doing a good job and don't really try to sell myself because I think I could be a lot better. I told them I would do it. However they have to understand that this is my first wedding and if they had the money to go with someone who has experience.

Apparently the groom used to read my blogs about Taiwan when he was planning on going there. And I was also the bride's English teacher for a semester while living there. He already saw a lot of my work throughout the years and I think my work helped him learn a lot about his future wife's culture/country.

Seeing we had that connection and were friends I didn't really want to charge much. I charged enough for me to kinda break even on the flight. In the end I lost money however it was my first wedding shoot and didn't want to charge them much for taking a chance on me and giving me that experience for the first time.

This was a very nerve racking experience. I have never shadowed under another photographer in any sense, especially not for a wedding. I tried to do a few shoots for free to assist another photographer at a wedding but it never seemed to work out. I began studying wedding styled photography and tips from the web and youtube. Many photographers that I came across had very poor work which gave me some confidence going into it thinking "If people are happy with their work I should have no problem." and at the same time annoyed me because they would sell their work with such terrible results.

It was raining terribly for the rehearsal. So the rehearsal was inside. The space we had was very tiny and not optional. This allowed me to practice using my flash and getting settings right for an "indoor" wedding, however the actually wedding turned out to be outside.

So here it is...some of the photographs from my first wedding!

This is the "full" Flickr.com album. (only 65 out of 250 photos)

We started the day with taking photos of the groomsmen. I had a second photographer take care of the ladies for me.

The men prayed before the wedding, it got a little emotional.

The Groom's first time seeing the bride.

After the wedding we shot pictures of the Bride and Groom with family members. Then shot the wedding party.

The sun was super harsh but then quickly began to go away. We had to work quick to still get great photos of the bride and groom while also getting to the reception on time.

Overall my first wedding shoot was a really good experience. I wouldn't do it for as cheap as I did ever again. The day wasn't too bad but the post-processing work took me a good amount of time. It was defiantly nerve raking for the first time. I had no idea what to expect to come of my work. The hardest part of the day for me was posing the wedding party and the bride and groom. The other difficult part was having to quickly adjust my camera during the ceremony with the harsh sun glaring directly into my lens.

I sent 3 photos to the bride and groom the day after their wedding. This is something my wedding photographer did that I really appreciated. This aloud them to get a quick glimpse of the day while on their honeymoon. It then took me about 2 weeks to get them the rest of their photos.

My Brother's Wedding

My brother got married and had a beautiful wedding. However sadly the snowstorm prevented all of the Canadians except for her parents and one set of grandparents from coming. She still had an awesome attitude though.

Taiwan Wedding

One of our students, Joseph, fell in love with an American girl. Her church from Missouri works with his church in Taiwan, doing ministry together in both countries. They ended up having a wedding in Taiwan and then off to America to have another one.

As they walked down the isle they sang to each other. Joanna has been learning Chinese and sang beautifully in both languages.

Ryan and Echo aren't that into weddings. zzzzzz

Please Click on the Image below to enlarge it...

Most of the things at the wedding were not super Taiwanese, it was a good mixture of both cultures.

However you will quickly notice in Taiwan that the average person doesn't care about presentation. The whole time during the wedding the professional photographer among others would stand right in front about 2ft or less from the couple to take a picture.

When they were about to do the kiss, almost 15 people got out of their seats and crowded the couple obstructing the view from anyone sitting in their sits from the "kiss

The other main cultural difference was before the kiss, as the choir sang two long songs, the groom slowly rolled up the brides vale. Slowly rolling it up until the last song was over to give her the kiss.

At Taiwanese weddings the bride will change her dress 3-5,6,7 times during the reception. I am not sure the reason for this, but it seems like a lot of work.