You may now kiss the Bride

I've been photographing weddings since the early 70's. It's how I started my professional career. That and portraits of family and friends. This is about weddings and some funny and not so funny things that have happened. It all started when a friend of my brother Jim's said I could make some money with my camera. I was intrigued. How? Well he said take your camera round to all the photo studios in town and ask if they have any extra weddings . Studios back then in Detroit,
maybe they still do this I don't know, would book more weddings than they could shoot. Then they would rely on freelancers to do them for a set fee. That's where I would come in the picture. I found I could make $75 -100 a wedding! That was a lot of money back in those days where minimum wage was like $1.35/hr. I was making more money for a nights work than some of my friends were making in a whole week! At hard labor! I was hooked.
I have photographed hundreds of wedding over the years. My friends would always say -how can you stand it, all the pressure, dealing with the bride from hell or the mother from hell -and I would always say-I don't know but I love doing them. Photographing a wedding is like a performance. You are in charge really. They never realized it but I tried to work it so the whole wedding revolved around the photography. The more I was able to do this the smoother everything would go.
Some interesting episodes included the minister giving a sermon by starting out ( complete with ghoul lighting from below in a darkened chapel no less) a quote from Psalm 23 "yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death". What!! I looked around at the other people in the chapel and they were looking back at me just as surprized.
I did a biker wedding once. Nice people. The bride and groom were dressed in a tux and gown but everyone else had their leather and denim going on. Including all the guests. I sat in the church behind one guy with a huge wrench sticking out of his back pocket. I guess you never know when you might break down on your Harley. I watched a bride in her wedding gown putting nail polish on before the wedding. I can remember thinking, as a guy even, this is not going to end happily. And sure enough no sooner did I think that she spilled the entire bottle of polish down the center of her gown! She said "I can't believe I just did that". A bridesmaid came in and saw it and said "That's not going to come out". Duh , ya think!
I can't tell you how many times I've seen grooms pass out at the altar. Never once a bride . Some bridesmaids though and groomsmen. Once a couple wrote their own vows and when it came time for the groom to speak-nothing. We waited and waited -nothing. He just stood there. Eventually they led him off to the side sat him down spoke something to him he shook his head yes then got back up apologized to the congregation and read his lines perfectly. Cold feet maybe?
Speaking of which once in farm country everyone was at the church and I'm taking pictures of the wedding party beforehand. When I say I would like to photograph the groom they say that he wasn't there yet. Ok so we wait. And wait and wait and wait. This is not looking good at all. The bride has locked herself in a room and won't come out and the guests are getting antsy. No groom -still. After a couple hours in walks the grooms father and announces that the groom ain't coming he's on his way to Florida. I thought they were going to jump him. Well you can still have a party he said . All the food's at the hall so let's go. I didn't. I collected my fee and went home. A lesson learned. The groom may not show up but the photographer always gets paid.
I've photographed some weddings in beautiful locations. Like the really old church on Old Mission Point near Traverse City. And a quaint old church in Maine. By the way Maine really looks like it does in the movies. There not making that quaintness up.
I've been driven in golf carts around a golf course to get the picture the groom just had to have. Hanging on to dear life with one hand and my equipment with the other. The women let me in to the dressing room to take pictures of the bride getting ready and then lift their dresses up in front of me to adjust their underwear. I can't tell you how many times that has happened. I don't get it. It's always oh it's just the photographer he can come in and they're half dressed. Maybe it's like being a doctor. I don't know.
The best I saved for last. I was finishing up at the reception packing my equipment away and noticed a commotion at the door. It was a bunch of rowdy guys walking in. Motorcycle guys. Not the nice ones. The chains, mohawks, the dirty leather jackets and the nasty looks. I thought well I'm out of here and walked by them. Well the next time I saw the bride and groom they told me I missed all the excitement. The bikers poured a pitcher of beer over the bride's mother's head a riot broke out and the police had to be called in! You may now kiss the bride--
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