A Medieval Wedding

Ahhh memories! I shot Sean and Becky’s wedding the week before COVID-19 shut everything down. In fact, I was hearing about the rise in the virus and remember getting nervous that the government would impose a shut down of activities. Of course, that did happen, but it Sean and Becky beat out the order by a few days, thankfully. Their wedding was a medieval spectacular and was definitely one of the most fun weddings I had ever been to.

Sean and Becky had their wedding ceremony take place way out in Rumsey, Ca. Never heard of it? Well, neither had I. It’s about an hour out of Sacramento going northwest. The location was at a campground with a gorgeous view of a tall stone ledge and a little river. This was a genius location to have their wedding at as they didn’t have to worry about bothering anyone with sound and brought all their own liquor - saving a TON of money in that department.

Check out their wedding cake! The cake was made to look like a castle tower. The two figures at the top are meant to represent the happy couple working together as a team. Sean actually made the monster that you see in the photo! This cake is SO THEM and was wonderful to photograph.

Sean and Becky hired me to do both photography and video. They also opted for a second shooter to accompany for more angles and shots. I had the talented Brian Gee of Brian GG Photography along with me to capture all the angles I wasn’t able to physically be at. It’s always awesome having Brian around. He’s assisted me in at a number of weddings now and I feel like we have a great flow in how we work together. I would highly recommend opting for Brian as a second shooter at the weddings I do!

In terms of gear, wedding shoots are where I bring EVERYTHING to the table. There are those who shoot just a 50mm, or a 35mm and an 85mm. I just couldn’t do that. I feel that it makes all the photos look too similar. Ultra-wide lenses give a look that is miles different than a telephoto zoom lens - and I like to provide my clients with the most varied amount of looks possible. Everything you can think of is with me - a macro lens, wide-zoom, standard zoom, telephoto, and fast primes of varying focal lengths!

Sean and Becky had a number of surprises in store for their guests during the day and it was up to me and Brian to catch it all. One of the most surprising moments is when the officiant demonstrated how to kiss the wife before the first kiss happened! This moment had the people in attendance in stitches! Of course, all of this was captured in both photo and video form.

I’m not a huge fan of taking group photos. I suppose it’s because I find having group after group after group of people come up and taking a shot isn’t very exciting or artistic. But these photos are extremely important to my clients - and I understand this. These shots provide the couple with all the important photos of who was at their wedding. Though I may not personally find them too fun to do, I treat taking them very seriously and I want the couples to get the best group photos possible. The photo above was actually taken with an ultra-wide lens. This lens not only was able to capture the entire large group, but got a lot of the surrounding area in as well.

At night I had to pull out the fast prime lenses to get clean, crisp, and clear photographs. It was VERY dark in the tent. I thought about using flash, but the backgrounds lost a lot of character with the flash. Thankfully, my secret weapon - the Canon 50mm 1.2 - came to the rescue and performed outstandingly. For you camera nerds out there, this lens can focus at up to -6 EV. That is INSANE. This lens virtually allows you to see in the dark and product the best and sharpest images possible. It’s a lens I’m extremely happy to have in my bag.

Here’s another image captured with the Canon 50mm 1.2. Notice that it was able to freeze the fast moving action while still being bright enough (with a little help from some of my portable lighting) to be very clean. This image would have turned out very differently with flash employed - and not in a good way.

Sean and Becky’s wedding was amazing and one that I will always remember for its unique characteristics. It’s also the wedding that I’ll remember as the one right before COVID-19. Though things are still uncertain, and opening up very slowly, I am still available to shoot! Message me and we’ll book the date!