So this is it. With this post, the sun will set on my 2010 wedding season. If you follow my blog at all, you’ve probably noticed that my second to last wedding of the year was in Mexico. Well, about 4 days after I returned back to the USA from that wedding, I had to repack and head to Mexico again. Rough, I know. This time it was for some good friends of mine, Randi and Scott, who got married at The Royal in Playa Del Carmen.
I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. When Scott and Randi got engaged last year, Scott initially asked me to stand up in their wedding. And of course, I said yes – especially when they said it was going to be in Mexico. After doing some research however, they were not at all happy with the photographer package that was presented with their overall wedding package. Side note: for any prospective brides looking to book a destination wedding, you should really think about taking a photographer with you. Not only do you receive more (quality and value) but it’s not as expensive as you may think. You’ll get more for your money and I think you’ll be happier with the finished product. And… I love to travel. Anyway, after realizing this, Scott decided that I am far better at taking photographs of weddings than I am standing there bearing witness to the ceremony. And I’m glad he did.
One thing about taking your own photographer with you is that you’re not limited to 2 hours of coverage on your wedding day. And one thing about doing a destination wedding is that instead of doing a rehearsal dinner, you can do something fun like a sunset cruise on a private catamaran. As you can probably guess, Randi and Scott chose to do the latter and I was able to be a part of it. We set sail about an hour before sunset and all was well until we hit the open water. The Gulf of Mexico during this time was extremely beautiful but to say the waters were rough would be an understatement. As you could expect, 65 people from the Midwest didn’t exactly have their sea legs under them which resulted on more than a few people feeling a little woozy. Sensing that people were going to start (or already have) losing their dinners, the captain decided to drop an anchor and let us get in the water. The best part? The only way in was about a 15ft leap off the boat into the warm water. I can’t say I’ve ever been a part of a wedding that included a leap of faith into the Gulf of Mexico at night.
As far as the wedding day went, we couldn’t have expected it to be any better. Well, except for delaying the ceremony 45 minutes because the harp was stuck in traffic. Honestly. Otherwise it was perfect. A special moment for me during the day was at the reception. You could say that for the most part, Scott, Randi, and I have the same tastes in music. And knowing Scott as well as I do, I knew he wouldn’t let his wedding day go by without playing a song from one of the bands that we listen to. As time went on, I was wondering if it would happen but eventually I had to wait until the second to last song of the night to hear one of my favorite songs of all time. For the last (semi) slow song of the night, they decided to play ‘Colly Strings’ by Manchester Orchestra (take a listen here). It was such a great ending to really good night and week.
Like always, I had a really hard time picking my favorite photographs from the wedding. I’m really proud of these pictures for a number of reasons but mostly because I was finally able to do something for Scott who has always been very supportive in my ambition to pursue photography. There hasn’t been too many people that have checked out every blog post, every facebook post, or looked at every picture but I know Scott is one of them and I’m really happy that I was able to document such a special day in his life. So thank you.
Make sure you click the link at the bottom of the post to check out all 1000+ pictures.
So without any further ado, here was my second week in Mexico:
The Wedding Day.
