08-08-08...

Friday night, I had the honor of helping Joe Heiliger cover a big wedding that he had booked. He was expecting 250-300 people to be present at the wedding and asked me to come along to be sure that he had enough coverage. His assistant Laura and I covered all the details and the extra stuff going on so that Joe could focus primarily on the bride and groom.
The evening started at Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball, TX. It is a beautiful church and an awesome host for a wedding! I had to tease Joe though that he'd "better love me a lot" for all that I was doing for him for this wedding - to shoot from the balcony, I had to climb a really tall ladder. I don't do heights, not even a little. But I put my fear of heights aside and faced this ladder, a ladder that went straight up. Normal ladders have at least a 30-45degree angle, right? Not this one. Straight up. Carrying all my gear, I faced it like a real trooper though.

The reception followed a few minutes away at Northwest Forest's "Settlement House". The guests were invited to participate in a photo booth throughout the evening. I've heard about this concept previously but never actually seen one at a wedding. I have to admit, it was a pretty cool concept. During the wedding, the guests are given a 5x7 print with 4 wallet-sized images on it. After the wedding, the bride and groom are then presented with a video of all of the guests during their time in the booth. How cool!

Joe and I took some time with the bride and groom to do a few portraits before the reception started. Near the "Settlement House", Northwest Forest has a replica of the Alamo. We used it to stage the portraits, first with the bridal party and then with just the bride and groom. The bride, from what I gathered, didn't care so much about the "Alamo" as she cared for the doors on the front of the building, so I tried to pull that out in some of the images. The bride had a very definite idea of what images she wanted and that made our jobs easier!

Thank you, Joe, for the opportunity to be there with you! As always, it was a pleasure to work with you, creating images to capture memories for this couple that will last a lifetime!