Wednesday, May 22, 2013

hotel wedding. { frost on flower }

Last weekend I photographed a wedding for a wedding placement service that I work for.  I can't say I love those weddings - I often get little to no information about them, don't meet the couple before hand, and get paid about 30% of what I would if I were working on my own.  Despite that, this wedding went really smoothly and I loved working with the couple.  I try to spend very little time editing these weddings and this wedding, thankfully, needed very little editing.

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I met the couple at their venue in Bloomington.

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I was blown away by the location.  Whenever I'm scheduled for a hotel wedding I'm a little concerned - they can be quite dark and uninteresting.

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This place was obviously different - I believe they refer to this room as the "conservatory".

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I enjoy hearing about the personal touches that people have actually had a hand in making for their weddings.

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After we waiting for the family to assemble (this always takes longer than you plan on), we headed to Centennial Lakes Park in Edina.

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We had just under an hour to take all of the family portraits as well as the couple portraits.  This is another reason I enjoy working more on my own - I help plan this time a lot more efficiently.  But, thankfully, this couple did not have a wedding party and had a relatively small family, so we got through everything at a decent pace.

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It was a sunny and windy day - it was a lot more difficult to find good lighting for the larger family shots, especially since we were in a hurry. But we found some great spots for the couple.

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You have to be creative when both people are wearing white and there aren't many clean things to sit on.  :)

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Everyone kept talking about this hair piece, so I made sure to get a couple of extra photos of it.

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The couple requested some photos on this little balcony.  We were both so happy to see that the flowers are bloomed - the seasons this year have been a little kooky.

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I met them back up at the top and we were about to head back to our cars, as we were a couple of minutes over our cut off time, but I couldn't pass up this great spot.

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So we grabbed a few more photos before moving on.

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Back at the venue, the guests were starting to be seated.

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A few final touches before the ceremony began.

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I love when there is live music. This dou was really great.

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Dinner place settings were already in place in the back of the conservatory for ease of set up.  This venue ran things very smoothly.

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Only around 30 people were invited to the ceremony and the dinner, so people and time management was a breeze.

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Another example of if I would have been in contact with the couple during the planning stages - I couldn't get a great view of their unity candle, since it was basically on a wall rather than a table.  And the couple and officiant were so close to the front of the room that I had to stay on the side of the guests rather than get in and see their faces.

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After the ceremony, everyone joyfully left for the bar area while dinner was set up.

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This is many cases where having two cameras comes in handy - this room is obviously quite different than the conservatory and it required bounced flash.  I had one camera set up for each room so I didn't have to be constantly switching my settings and missing important moments.

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I was amused that the television was on all evening but no one but the bartender was watching.

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Guests were then told to head back to the conservatory for dinner.

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What a happy bunch of guests.  :)

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Dinner looked amazing - again, impressed by the venue.

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I enjoyed this delicious salmon for dinner.  :)

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Kids these days... :P

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The conservatory was then set up for dancing and snacks as more guests arrived.

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The first dance opened the floor for guests to dance.

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I think they practiced.. they were pretty good.  :)

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