When we were in the Dirty South, we attended the wedding of Jeff’s niece (we’ll call her “J”) to her lovely fiance (we’ll call him “P”)in Maryland. A few weeks before the wedding, Jeff’s mom asked me if I would be so kind as to photograph the wedding, since J wasn’t planning on hiring a photographer. I had to politely decline, because you guys, I am NOT a photographer, and taking the place of someone who, you know, does this for a LIVING was not my idea of a good time. Did I mention that it was only the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF J AND P’S LIFE?!

I then promptly ran out and bought Nikon D60 for Dummies (which I did not pay the Amazon price for), thinking I had six weeks before the wedding – plenty of time to become a professional photographer.

And then, life got in the way and I didn’t even make it halfway through the book. In fact, I don’t think I even touched my camera during those six weeks before we enjoyed the most trying, divorce-inducing travel experience ever (post is in my drafts!). And to be honest, I didn’t even really think about it much – I figured that by then J and P would have hired a photographer, but packed my camera anyway, for some candids.

When we got to the rehearsal, word got around to me that they had hired a friend who was a photographer in New York, and he would be up the day of the wedding. I was off the hook.

The morning of the wedding, I grabbed my camera, hoping to take a few shots of the family all together, when Jeff told me to follow the photographer around and take whatever shots he was taking.

What?

I did NOT follow the PROFESSIONAL AROUND AND STEAL HIS VISION. I did, however, take over 500 pictures that night, most of which I’ve yet to go through, a month later.

Later on that night, somewhere between the shots of tequila and drinking champagne out of the bottle, I was introduced to the photographers from J’Adore Love Photography. I was drunk, making a fool of myself (as were they), and amazingly, I got some pretty good advice. Some of the pictures on their site are amazing, and I hope to one day have the vision or whatever to produce pictures that are of that quality.

The photographers ended up driving us back to the hotel, and somewhere in the midst of all the cheek kisses and “Great meeting you!”’s, I think I promised to email them a portfolio.

Um? I don’t have a portfolio. In fact, what is this portfolio you people speak of?

So, this whole post is my chicken shit way of linking to them, and hoping they have Google Analytics or something and run across this.

/shameless plug

(I also wanted to share my favorite pictures with you guys!)