041 Wedding Recap: Associate shooting at Meredith Manor

Rain, tight timelines, and a sparkler exit under a wooden awning… what could go wrong?

In this episode of A Second Helping... with Allison Barto, I’m breaking down a real spring wedding day from start to finish. From navigating a full Catholic timeline with no first look to problem-solving portraits in the rain, I’m sharing what worked, what didn’t, and how we adjusted on the fly.

Plus, we’re talking workflow, lighting in tricky reception spaces, and the reality of culling 7,500+ images after a long day.

Oh, and wait until you hear about the flowers… grown by the couple’s former students. 

If you’ve ever had to pivot mid-wedding (so… all of us), this one’s for you.

Transcript

 Welcome to a second, helping with Allison Barto, a wedding photography podcast with a focus on. For this week's wedding, we had to navigate rain. That started during the church ceremony and continued through the rest of the evening. We had a sparkler exit that took place underneath a wooden awning. And then lastly, one of the sweetest details. All of the wedding flowers were grown from seeds that were started by the couples former students. So come along with me to hear about the wedding before, during, and after. It's a lovely spring day in April. I am off to shoot a wedding. I'm associate shooting for Haley today. Elyse will be my second photographer. That was my light stands. This one's nice, and then it's kind of close to my house. We have bride and groom prep in Downingtown. We have a church in Downingtown, and then the venue is Meredith Manor in Phoenixville. So a little bit of driving, not bad, but also suburban Philly. So we'll take it. The couple seems adorable. We have, I wanna say seven and eight on the wedding party sides. I think it's seven on the bridesmaids, eight on the groomsmen there. Looks like there's a flower girl. The addresses for prep are right next to each other, and it looks like. Her parents might own both properties. So that is different. 'cause normally when you're doing prep at somebody's house, they're, they could be kind of nearby, but they're not normally next door to each other, especially if they're not Airbnbs. Like, I've seen it with Airbnbs. But, um, so this will be interesting. My second shooter, Elyse, is going to meet me at Bride Prep to get some cards from me so that she can shoot on those and get, then give them to me at the end of the night. So that I don't have her cards. That way I can download and cull everything and then I will send over the cold images to Hailey. So my relationship agreement with her when I associate shoot is that that's included. So I like that as an associate shooter because then. I know what was like important during the day that may not have jumped out as meaningful for somebody who wasn't there just going through. So I do like that, even though it does take a little bit more time, but I'm compensated for it. We do have, it's cloudy, overcast right now, which is totally great. However, it's like a hundred percent, I think it was 96% chance of rain and drizzle this afternoon. So that will be. Our challenge for portraits, there is no first look, so we are going to be doing a dad and bridesmaids first look and that's it. Then we are traditional timeline. So after the ceremony we're supposed to do family at the altar, and then at the venue we'll be doing wedding party and couples portraits. I've shot at this venue once before. The interior is very, shall we say, warmly lit. It's an orange barn inside, so there's stone and everything. When Hailey and I shot there before, I feel like we got good reception pictures. I don't know that it's going to be the easiest if we're doing all wedding party in there, so that's gonna be a challenge, but hopefully it'll be fine. The temperature's decent. It's 53 degrees. I'll take that better than 83 degrees. I've worked with Elyse before. That's it for now. We just got a picture of them. Uh, Hailey sent Elyse and I a message from the bride. It was a screenshot, I guess, on her wallpaper. It's the bride and groom. And then her calendar notification came up that said like, wedding day, let's get married. I had her pictures like her an engagement photo, so they look so sweet. So it should be a good day. I'm excited and we'll see. See what happens. It's raining. All right. It is 3 44, 10 minutes away from the venue. So far everything has gone well. We were a little bit ahead of schedule with bride prep. The one bridesmaid needed to leave early because someone had to drive her to her house because her husband couldn't find his shoes, so she had to find them for him. But, um, everything else was smooth. I was able to get like pictures with her first, and then she left. Ceremony was fine. Typical Catholic ceremony and then. It was starting to rain. I had said, let's keep the wedding party so that we can do like a safe shot. Did family photos when it came time for the wedding party, same bridesmaid had already left because she wasn't riding in the party bus and was told only nuclear family needed to stay. So I got a shot of the full wedding party without her. I mean, obviously we don't wanna use it, but I also needed to get like a safe shot of. The majority of the wedding party before we head over here to the venue. So we're gonna get to the venue. Right now it's raining so we won't be able to do this shot outside, so I'm gonna have to find a spot for wedding party and then we're gonna have to come up with some locations for the couple's portraits. We are gonna be getting there five minutes before cocktail hour starts. So. Um, it's obviously gonna cut into their cocktail hour, but they did not do a first look, so it's expected that portraits will eat into this. I can also see if there's a chance we can pull them away during the reception to do a few more portraits. We will see the groom's very nice too. They're both very sweet. Um, yeah, so it's a little unfortunate that the rain held off until. The time that we wanted to be outside, we did get a wedding party as far as like groom and groomsmen, bride and bridesmaids, like outdoors before we, whoops, that was a Pepsi, um, before we left. But we don't, we wanna get like a full wedding party. So that's that. Let's hope. Hopefully have a nice reception here at Meredith Manor. Nine 15 ETA at home, 9 45. It's raining, it's cold. It's 44 degrees. It feels so cold. Very lovely couple very nice families. My favorite though is that, um, they, they had the dj, well he was DJing, but. Um, they loved dancing too. Pink Pony Club, hot to Go. It's raining men, all of your amazing gay anthems and yet super religious family. That always just cracks me up. 'cause like when I walked into her parents' home, it had more religious. Artifacts isn't the proper word, but just shrines all over the place. I mean, the decor was Jesus and to each their own. It was a lot of Jesus all over the place. And so just very, so like immediately I'm like, okay, like make sure I'm not saying like shit, or gosh darn, or like, well I couldn't say gosh darn, but you know, like I just have to be like super aware. I'm not normally dropping F-bombs like. Normally there's like a swear or two. So I was like, I gotta be aware of that. So you're like on a hyper alert. And then it's just really funny when you fast forward to the dance floor later and they're just having the time of their lives with grandma out there dancing to Hot to go. Um, so, but they had a good time. It was challenging so. We got to the venue five minutes before cocktail hour started, landed my stuff, went up to the suite and they were almost all up there, and I immediately was ready for wedding party portraits. So did like the full wedding party portraits. Then she wanted like girls. And guys again, no problem. So I did that and then there were a couple of other groupings. So I feel like those are okay. Like we were inside with just bounced flash because it was raining hard, like the venue was passing out umbrellas to guests as they got out of their cars. And then we went over and did like some couples portraits. The groom wasn't really into it. Not that he wasn't nice, but it was just. The venue didn't bring them food. So I actually asked the groom and I asked one of the groomsmen if they would go and make a plate of food because they had it on their agenda. Make sure to have snacks. But also I know that it's a long day for them and I don't want them hungry and like weak, you know, like they should be eating some food. So we took pictures while we were waiting for their food to come. Once their food came, I. I gave them a few minutes, like I ran to the bathroom, I went and I got someone from the venue to bring us clear umbrellas. I was a little annoyed with the venue because you know that the couple's gonna be disappointed that it's raining, because that's one of the reasons you book a venue like that for the outside space. And nobody was, I don't wanna say catering to them, but I mean, I don't know that that's the wrong word to use. Like they're like that. That's the time you should be catered to. They're literally caterers. I just feel like there could have been a little bit more of like a, someone paying attention to them. I got the umbrellas. She really wanted a gazebo picture, like I wouldn't have made them go outside. She wanted to go outside. She wanted a gazebo picture. So we went out, we did pictures of the gazebo, pictures of the clear umbrellas. He was ready to come back inside. He was getting nervous because he was doing a toast, and then she said she wanted like vail shots. I hate Vail shots. I, and it's not just like, oh, I don't like them. I don't feel like I'm good at taking them. I just like it's, it's unnatural and so like, it's unnatural for me. I feel like I'm not focusing on the right thing. I feel like it just looks not good. I should work on that. Most people don't ask for them. I know several photographers that I work with that they like doing them, so they're comfortable, so they suggest it and do it. I've never suggested it. She asked for it, so I was like, sure. So we got like a few of those, but then he was like ready to go inside. Um, and I also get it because at this point it was like four 40, introductions are at five. So people were lining up. So they only had a little bit of time. And again, that's why I like a first look because you get some breathing space in there, you know? 'cause if not, it's like she walks down the aisle at two and it's ceremony right through to family photos. Then they're racing to the venue. Then we're doing, you know. A couple's portraits, wedding party portraits, and then it's like he's, you know, all of a sudden it's gonna be time for introductions. So I kind of, I checked in with them. You could tell he wanted to go, you know, so they take their umbrellas, they head up. I got pictures of them like walking up the hill with their umbrellas. She's holding her dress, he's holding the flowers. They were like, they were okay. I was disappointed because it feels rushed and I, I just, I didn't have the space. I would've wanted to get the portraits I would've liked. The other thing that was bizarre, not bizarre, but like when we got there and walked in at like five till four, people were already seated at their tables. I don't remember. I guess cocktail hour is probably typically outside in that covered area, but I think 'cause it was cold and raining, they just had them milling about. But maybe they do do that because that is where they line up. They do that center. They do a long center table and like wine barrels, but I guess normally people come in and get food and then go outside to like high tops because that wasn't a viable option. I don't even know if they had high tops, high tops set up. They were like really seated at the tables, so we would like get through there to drop stuff off. Elyse was great to work with. I just, I trust her. I know that she's good. She is someone that. I would work with again. I enjoy working with her. I think she got great stuff with the guys at Groom Prep and then we had introductions, so we used Harlow continuous lights, and then I had my lights set up as well. It's a weird space. It's a not weird, it's a long space. So you have the stage with the DJ and then. A long dance floor with the sweetheart table at the end. So it's like a tunnel isn't the right word, it's just long. And then what happens is it almost ends up being like two dance floors. 'cause you have people in like one section and then another section. The nice thing is that it's not. Crowded you can move around, which I always appreciate when I can quickly get from like one side of the room to the other. But I did need to to light it. I think the lighting for the speeches was good. And then Hailey likes after speeches. Once it gets to like dancing, she likes direct flash, like head down. So I remember to put both. I, I don't ever shoot like that. Hailey likes it, so I have to like really make a mental note to point the heads of the flashes at the subjects. So I did that. We had six speeches. They were good, they were heartfelt. I teared up a little bit. Her sisters, I think her sister went first. Hers was good. He had two best men and one was like a good friend of his who like started crying. I started crying and he was just talking about like how the groom's family like took him in and he became like a son to them. And then they kind of reciprocated that in their speeches. So that was really touching. And then his brother did a great job too. His brother started crying early on. So they were just like really heartfelt, thoughtful speeches, but they were each a little bit long and then, um, they don't hold the microphone up high enough. And so the brother, the longer he was talking, the more his microphone was getting lower and lower. And then when you get emotional, it's already like, kinda, the words are a little bit staccato, but then the microphone's like going down. So it was like harder to hear exactly what he was saying. The bride's dad got up and gave a toast. And he was funny 'cause he said apparently at his other daughter's wedding he gave a 15 minute toast. I don't know if he was joking or not. When he said that he had pictures and a PowerPoint. They told him to keep it short. So he said he would try to stick to 10 minutes. He gave a nice speech as well. So like I said, they were all good. Um, and they're really, again, just lovely people. They raise their children well. They just seem to be well loved by everybody. I did take her bouquet that was in a vase on the sweetheart table. I set it down like in front of the table, and then I made sure to put it right back up. When we were done with toasts, they were in those seats that are like tufted cushy. So I feel like you kind of sink down a little bit lower in those. They weren't super low. They were, sometimes it's like awkwardly low. They weren't super low, but it was just enough that like the flowers would be cutting them off. So I do like to move those for speeches, and then they're up against a stone wall. So like I couldn't really. Get like a kind of the hair light that I wanted. So they were a little, little bit from lit, a little bit from the side, and I, I did different settings with the lights just to get some options. We had a couple of kids there that's the same. I don't need kids there the whole time. There was one little girl who liked to do cartwheels and she had a stuffed unicorn and she, anytime there was room on the dance floor, she was doing cartwheels and it's like, okay, I'll. I'll take 12 pictures, but then it's like, I, I don't wanna keep taking that picture all night long. So then I'm like, intentionally like not taking her picture 'cause you want to get the other guests. So that view hasn't changed on kids. Um, there were like babies at the church. Luckily I didn't see babies at the reception. The DJ was a lot in his defense. The couple seemed to enjoy him. The guests seemed to enjoy him. I don't like when they narrate. I don't like when they step by step. Tell people to eat your salads, enjoy your salads, sit down like they, when it's really just play by. Play as if you're blind and you need someone to explain everything that's happening because you can't see it with your own eyeballs. When everyone would give their toast, he would tell them to hug and it's like, I. Find after a toast when they don't hug, it's always like, oh, you should have probably hugged them, but I'm never gonna tell someone to hug somebody else. Like if they don't, they don't, it's okay. But like most of the time, I think they're gonna do that naturally on their own. So it's just weird to me when a grown adult is telling someone to hug. Like, I don't know that he knows these people. Maybe he knows the bride or the green or the bride and groom, but like I know he doesn't know everybody that's there. So to have someone. That you don't know. Telling you to hugg a relative is just like, I don't know. It's not for me. And the bedazzled microphone is a little bit much, I guess it gives wedding, but it was a bit much for me. And then they did the game with the holding up the shoes, the quiz, and then, but again, he is like, we're gonna play a fun game. You guys eat your dinner while we play this game. And it was just like, Ugh. Not my thing. They did a great job dancing. They were like on the dance floor. They were having fun. They were. Together, like enough, um, there's kind of nothing worse than when the bride and groom split and are never together during the reception. So I'm hoping that we have enough really good candid, fun dancing photos to make up for not as many couples portraits as I would have liked. Plus, I feel like those are just more natural. They went right into the cake cutting. They did cake cutting, I think before they ate, which is fine 'cause then it's off the list. Elyse was nice enough to check in with the venue about the Sparkler exit because you know, I'm not going to organize that. And I, they didn't have like a coordinator, an outside coordinator. The venue didn't seem to have like one main point person, so Elyse did a great job of finding someone who said, if it's drizzling, we'll still do the Sparkler exit, but if it's a downpour, we won't do it. And they said, we normally do it out in the driveway. And I'm like, okay. So then we go to. Go outside and there is a guy dragging a metal trash can, telling us where we're gonna do it. He takes us up and he says he's gonna line everybody up underneath the wooden area. So literally it's like sparklers under the wooden roof area. So narrow and people were lined up like, um. On both sides. And I looked at Elyse and I was like, we can't walk through here. And then Elyse was doing a really nice job of getting people on one side. And I think one of the people from the venue got annoyed because I heard her bitching to another employee about like, well, apparently she knows what she wants or something. And I was being nice. And then night I said something to them about like, when you guys do this here, do you normally have like people on both sides? And they're like, we've only done it under here once. And I was like, okay. Which made sense because this did not look like a feasible plan. So there was like, they ended up walking like a U shape, and so the first part and the third part, you could have people wide enough, they were on bricks. It was fine. But then like the middle section was literally a pathway that was like three feet wide. So you've got a bride and groom walking, but then people standing there who have been drinking all night, holding sparklers. Over your heads. And so that's why there was no way you could have had people on both sides. So Elyse was great. She had like, um, it's not a stick light tube light so that she could like illuminate them. We walked in front of 'em. I just did it once we, hopefully it's good. Uh, we were trying to slow them down 'cause they were like walking right up close to us. I think at the end there's good at good photos, you're able to. See the sparklers and then we actually had them go back out, um, and did like another kind of quick portrait there. I hate a sparkler exit. Like this was just crazy that everyone's standing underneath this wooden structure. Like it was so like you could touch it, the sparkler were touching and I was like, and I know like you're gonna have to hold it there to catch it thing on fire. Like I get that, but at the same time I'm like already not psyched about having sparks landing on our heads. But I think it was fine. And they only went through once. Literally at the end, the last two people were standing inside the venue with the sparklers and sparks were landing on the carpet. And I was like, oh my God, were inside with sparklers. They were happy. Got another few pictures of them, but yeah, not, I mean the reception ended at nine. I think they were having an after party. I wasn't invited to it. And that's okay with me. Uh, they did tip us at the house like early on in the day, which was really nice. I remember to give Elyse her tip when we were at the church. I remember the cards back from Elyse, so that was good. I don't think we forgot anything there. I what else did the DJ had a camera, a mirror. I believe it was a mirrorless camera. Um. It was a Lumix. He had a Lumix camera with a flash, loved taking selfies. Um, there was a portion of the evening when we were getting like, people dancing and he was like standing in front of me. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but then he was doing like spin the bottle with the microphone. I don't know. I just, for a wedding, I like when there's just. A DJ playing good songs or a good band. I don't like, maybe there's a difference between like an mc and a dj. Like maybe when you book a DJ, you can specify like the level of MCing that's going to happen. I would like MCing on the lower end, but again, I think some people like it. The flowers were very pretty. The flowers were grown. And harvested by the students of the school where the bride and groom met The groom. I don't know if she still teaches there. The Groom teaches special needs a high school students, so they have like a farm that they plant these seeds and everything. So it was really sweet. They were talking about how students found out that. The flowers were going to their teachers' wedding. So they were really excited. So that was super sweet. The flowers were beautiful. Um, they were probably some flowers that you wouldn't always see at a wedding. The head of the dad's bout near the Oculus, fell off. So we used another pinotage and then it fell off right before pictures at the church. I was able to pin it back in there. So I think it lasted through those. We did have at the church, the grooms family. Thinking that they weren't getting pictured, not thinking like it happens more frequently than it should. Where I say in the beginning, like, we're gonna start with the brides family. We'll go through our list and then we'll move over to the groom's family. And I don't think it takes that much to figure out like, oh, it looks like they're doing her side of the family, and then it'll be our turn. But. People must think in the moment that it should be like her parents. His parents, her immediate family, his immediate family, her siblings, his I, they must think that because they, people tend to get like kind of bent outta shape when they feel like, oh, they're only taking pictures of her family, and it's like, I'm not. I'm not gonna not take your picture. Like I'm not gonna leave and not take your picture. But it's surprising to me how many people, you can see them like getting annoyed or they start to make comments. We worked through our list. There was one person who wasn't on the list, and I always hate when that happens because then I'm not sure if they were, normally they're left off by accident. Maybe someone thought that they couldn't come to the wedding or there was just an oversight. But then what happens is. The couple tries to overcompensate 'cause they feel bad that someone wasn't on the list. So then I'm trying to figure out when I should be adding them into the list. But I don't wanna overs, suggest and start putting Xavier in every photo just because they left his name off. So now we feel bad. So we're just putting him in everything or they didn't want him in a lot. And so, but there was like one person that was left off, so I had to keep like making sure he was included when he was supposed to be included. We only added a couple. Of pictures at the church that weren't on the original list. I mentioned earlier too about the bridesmaid who had left me and I hope I didn't overshoot, but if you overshoot dancing, it's easy enough to cu them down 'cause it's out. They're like, oh, dancing good or garbage. So we'll see. And I'm five minutes from home. I love that. I'm gonna be home before 10:00 PM. All right. It's a couple days after the wedding downloaded everything. We took 7,500 photos between the two of us. I had a little over 4,500. Elyse had just under 29 50, so, um, I think it was a pretty average. I was at like 300 and some an hour and Elyse was at like 200 and some an hour. So it was right in line with what I would normally shoot. Calling wasn't terrible. I'm getting better at calling. I went through on Sunday because I figured I would just slam an energy drink and then just spend a few hours going through it rather than like starting and stopping, starting and stopping. So I feel like it took me about five hours, maybe it was four. So I would say between four and five and. I really did like one strong pass and I just did yes, no, yes, no, and really just went start to finish. 'cause sometimes I'll get like hung up in a certain area, like at the church where there's just so many photos and I'll like pop down to a different section and work on that. And then I'll hit like a section in there that has. A big chunk, so I'll go back up and then I just feel like I'm moving around too much. So I think I'm really gonna try to just stick to like working straight through it. I also cull chronologically. I know some people find they're more effective when they cu backwards. But I have been preferring to call chronologically and I also really just went with the yes no. A lot of times I'll do like a yes maybe definite kind of thing and maybe 'cause I was cull for Haley. I knew I just wanted to like cull to a point where I was giving her. A healthy number of selects where I wasn't eliminating too many, like I still want her to have editor's choice. That probably made it a little bit easier for me because I was like, all right, I don't have to call this down to like exactly what I would want to to deliver in the gallery. So I ended up delivering her 2,500, 2,563 images. I feel like it's pretty tight when it comes to. Like the prep and like the details. I feel like I was able to call them down and then like even like a few of the other like family house detail things, like that's kind of tightened up for her, so there isn't too much there. And then there'll just be a few areas where she's just gonna have, you know, a good selection to choose from. I'm assuming that's gonna be what she prefers so that she can really like what she's delivering. I didn't wanna like. Make too many selections on her behalf. I'm happier than I thought I would be. And I feel like that's probably typically the case, and I guess that's better to be happier when you go go through the photos than to be all hyped and then disappointed. I think the bride prep and the groom prep are very indicative of them. And again, being at their houses helped the groom prep, they were playing disc golf, so Elyse did a great job of getting a bunch of like just fun photos of these guys. Out in the yard playing disc golf. She got some good group shots that incorporate whatever the apparatus is called, like the the chain net with them on the other side and them all throwing frisbees. So it's just like really indicative of their personalities. So I feel like that's good. I feel like sometimes that's where you can end up with it feeling a little stiffer generic when you're in like a hotel space or something. But I feel like, again, their personalities really were able. To kind of shine through in the photos. Um, I think Elyse did a really nice job ceremony. Photos, I'm happy with. I wanna say I'm happier with these ceremony photos than I typically am. These two were. Really expressive and kind of like laughing a little bit and having fun. And you could just see like the joy, they didn't seem nervous. Um, and I just feel like we got a good amount of expressions. Uh, typically I feel like with an hour long church ceremony, everyone, the bride and groom typically ends up being like, pretty stoic or like, you just kind of get like maybe some smiles and things, but like you, you get really excited when you have the. Really, like genuine moments kind of peek through. And maybe these guys were, the way they were positioned was, they were in like seated in the two chairs, but they had their kind of back to all of the guests. So maybe they didn't feel like everybody was staring at them, so they were able to like, relax. Um, that's just me guessing, but I really feel like we got some really sweet, candid moments of them just enjoying each other and having a, a nice time at the ceremony. Elyse's photos are good. She was, I mean, on top of it, I feel she shot ISO 1600. I feel like it could have been a little bit higher. She was shooting whatever it is, 28 to 70, 24 to 70, the Canon version, and then the 70 to 200. So I think the lowest that goes down is to 2.8. I was shooting 35 and 85, so I could go down to 1.2, although I feel like I didn't go down that low. I try to keep it up a little bit higher, just so I'm not missing focus on anybody. Mine were definitely brighter than hers. Um, yeah, I'm at like 2000. She's at 1600, so I'm at 2001 0.812 50th. She's at 1 200 1602 0.8. So. I also want to be careful with the heavier lenses. I tend to try not to go below two 50th. I could probably do one 200th. As I mentioned, we were super tight on time for portraits. I was pleasantly surprised. I think I was just, I. Looking at the back of the camera kind of throws me off. Like I love the fact that I can see right away, like if exposure's good, that kind of thing. But I feel like I forget that I'm not looking at like a full blown high res image on a monitor. I'm looking at this tiny little viewfinder and I'm like just kind of like questioning sometimes. The quality. And then when I see it on screen, I'm like, oh, it's great. Like it's really good. So I have to remember that because sometimes I'm like checking in, I'm like, okay, that'll work. And then like, but just not being super psyched on it. And then when I see it, I'm like, okay, the lighting looked better when I saw them on the monitor. Then when I was like peeking at the back, you know, my concern was that they were gonna be super orange in this orange barn, but those came out better than I thought they did when I was taking them. Elyse did a great job at getting the details because again, we got to the venue at 3 59. I didn't even see Elyse at first. I parked, ran my stuff and dropped off my bags, ran back to the bridal suite, and then I just started taking pictures. She had shot there before. Um, so by the time I made it over to the reception space at 4 45, she was setting up our lights. Um, I checked in, she said she. She was like, oh, I, I got some of the details kind of thing later on when I asked her. But she did a great job. She got all the details, so we've got all the details before things were kind of decimated and picked over. Um, I, I also have like, I got some of the same stuff too, but it was just nice to know that like she did capture it because that time period just felt a little like, oh God, like rushed for portraits, didn't get to shoot the details. So knowing that she got it. We're well-rounded. It's good. She did a good job with the moments. We probably have an excessive amount of first dance photos. I overshoot that and I overshoot it because it's hard. It's very difficult to get like both faces. In the shot. So I'm trying to get like the emotion and if you can get both faces, so I'm overshooting it knowing full well I'm gonna call out a bunch of 'em. The hands are important. Just getting, you know, if you can get their new spouse in the background looking on, that's important. I think Elyse did a nice job getting guest reactions. I hope Haley's happy with the lighting. We had the Harlow lights, but then I was using my flash. I don't, I felt like maybe the Harlow lights weren't bright enough in there. I just, as the associate shooter, knowing that I'm the lead, I just, I needed to shoot with like what I was comfortable with. And I did do a lot of different settings. I think we have some good options for speeches. We've got a little bit of like some different lighting that Hailey can select from. We've got reactions. Yeah, and then we've got plenty of reception, dancing photos. The dance floor as I mentioned, is a little bit tough 'cause it's a long suit. It's kind of feels like two dance floors. I ended up keeping Elyse there the whole time. Hailey said I could let her go, like if I felt like we were starting to get redundant shots. But I was happy keeping her. We covered the dance floor and then she was a huge help with the Sparkler exit. I wanna look at the Sparkler exit I the Sparkler photos. Sparkler exit. So what we did for those was ambient, and then Elyse held like a tube wand light to illuminate them. That way when they walked through, we had some light on them. I didn't have a super slow shutter speed. I. I was one two 50th, but with this goofy venue, we had like the big, the wooden ceiling, and then there were like cafe lights and the sparklers, and I think the cafe lights kind of worked in our favor because they kind of blend in and it's just more like background lights. So it kind of looks like there are more sparklers than there really are. All in all, I'm happy with it. I think we had some challenges and I feel like we did great. I feel like I'm really happy. I, I'm hoping Hailey's super happy. I think the couple should be very happy. I would say moving forward, I pr, I know Hailey's okay with pushing the ISO. So looking back, I probably could have taken a peek at Elyse's camera and told her to bump up the ISOA little bit more. I did get. Two Prism FX lenses, lens filters. Hailey had used them different brand, Kent Faith, maybe last week. She used them for a bride that really loved the film look, and so she had like a golden filter. Hailey used them a lot of the day and really loved them. So I got from Prism, prism FX lenses, the. Nostalgia filter and the dream filter, one of those just creates like a soften softening effect. The other one is like the same thing, but also is like a golden tint to it. I put it on for a couple of shots in the church, and then during the reception I put it on. For a few shots and I took it off. I just, I don't know that that's the right thing for reception and flash. I think I just like sharper photos during the reception. Like I'm cool with like a blurry background, but I feel like I want the people sharp or a little bit of motion blur. But I don't know, for some reason I just, I think for me, the biggest thing is. I didn't want it to soften it too much and you can't undo it. Like the lens is there, it's gonna be focused, but then to put a filter on it, that's like really gonna soften that. I didn't want it to be too much where it was like, wow, we don't have enough like safe shots. So I'll experiment. I think it's something that as a second shooter, I would be able to like. Focus and be like, all right, I'm gonna have it on one lens. My other camera body won't, and just kind of like experiment a little bit. But I think when I'm in the zone as an associate photographer focus, like I just didn't feel good, like experimenting too much. But I can see where in a different setting I would be, and especially I think outdoors. I feel like it reminded me of the Glen Ford wedding we had and we had. There were, were there three of us? It was me. Is it Elyse? Or I think it was El Elyse for that. I don't think it was Emily shooting film in Medium format and like they came out really nice, but I feel like you can work with that and that environment, like it just looks like really dreamy and ethereal and it worked with like the look of everything and I just felt like in this orange barn. It wasn't the time I think we're gonna have overall though, really good dancing shots. I think we're gonna have a good gallery. I just got a message from her. She is downloading everything. Now. The other thing I wanna do, especially associate shooting, I think I could do a better job of like pre-selecting some suggestions for sneak peeks as I'm culling. Also, I have my camera set so that when I'm. Going through doing a playback, I can swipe up to assign an image, four stars or swipe down to market for deletion. I have to start doing that a little bit more. It's going to be helpful for me when it's my own client to have some of those, um, sneak peeks already selected, and I think it'll be good associate shooting. Going through yesterday and culling, my goal was just to cull in the yeses and I didn't wanna get hung up 'cause it like crossed my mind and I was like, I could. And then I was like, no, I just wanna like do a solid pass and not get hung up. But then when I was done I was kind of like, ugh, I kind of wish I had. Kind of start a few of these for her. Um, and I feel like eight isn't gonna be helpful. Like I, I would've liked to like, give her like a nice chunk. So I think I can do that moving forward if I'm just a little bit more mindful of it. And also I love the marking them like in the field, not in the field. I guess you don't really call it that when you're shooting a wedding during the day. As I'm going back and looking at stuff like in the moment when you're like, oh my God, that's a great one. Just being able to like star it. Um, and also the possible for deletion, I think that's great. 'cause then you can just do it a quick filter and delete those, um, before you even start calling. And I think that's, I mean, that's my. My recap, I think I felt a little bit more jammed up for that like three 30 to five window, which just felt a little bit rushed. I hope they're happy. They were happy when we left. I hope. I hope everybody's happy. Elisa and I were happy. So that that's, that's where we are. We got everything she had asked for and more. We'll see what they say. Alright, so Hailey was texting me as she was going through the photos and. Really good feedback. She really liked the getting ready angles that we had. Haley really liked the one image that included the bride's name that was like a little mirror cut out outside of her childhood bedroom door. She really liked the framing of the bride getting into her dress. She got dressed in her childhood bedroom and then afterwards I moved her out onto the landing where there was even better light. But, um, the. Candid images of her getting dressed in her childhood bedroom came out nicely. Additionally, Hailey said that the pictures from the ceremony were perfection, which made me super happy. Obviously, we talked about the gorgeous flowers. She liked the couple's portraits. Um, the one that I was like a little bit worried about, she liked those. I did get good feedback. Um, I didn't even realize when I was doing the family portraits in the church, I had switched. From my 35 to my 24 to 70, and I think I did that like just to be safe, but I didn't, I don't even really remember doing it. So some of those photos where normally I would've just like backed up with a 35, I, um, went down to like a 25. And so. Haley prefers 35 for that. She said only she would even notice it, but it's good feedback for moving forward. And then I had an F stop of 3.5, so I think she would rather that be like 4.0. So I will keep that in mind. And I feel like by default, normally I leave the 35 on. I don't know if I was just concerned that we were gonna get some big groupings and then be like swapping out lenses. That was good feedback. She really liked the framing and the composition of some of the first dance photos. So I had done some that were like tighter, and then I did a few where it was wide and the lighting was really pretty because you had like the arches of the barn with them dancing and the full wedding party and everybody was pretty symmetrical. So I feel like it was framed and composed nicely. She really liked it and her feedback on the lighting was, lighting is a fire. So that made me happy because I was concerned with that. So. All good feedback. Um, happy to hear it. So far, she seems happy. I'm still excited to see what she ends up posting for sneak peeks online. So thanks so much. If you guys are still listening, I appreciate it. You made it all the way through this episode. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe and feel free to leave an honest review. Thanks so much. See you next time. Thanks for listening to a second helping. Please like