Hi all, well, yep, i have been very quiet these past few days - since Thursday night to be exact, as a storm took out our telephone and internet access! I have just now had it all re-connected only to receive 689 emails!!! BUT, I am back with avengeance!
GFM - well, BAD news guys and gals! After all of my efforts last week, booking of airfares, taking up of very generous offers from PDML'ers etc, my stupid sister (who you will soon find I don't like very much), has gone and decided to get married to the guy she's been shagging for the past 4 weeks (yep, you read that correctly!), and guess what day it is? 5 June 2004!! To her credit, she HAS known the guy for most of her life, but the actual relationship only began in earnest FOUR WEEKS AGO!! So, of course, I am in big trouble for not wanting to shoot the "blessed event" in favour of going to GFM, and so I have had to cancel my trip for fear of retribution from my very overbearing mother who doesn't want anything to interfere with her little princesse's "special day". (Yes, you do detect sarcasm and cynicism there, long story, not relevent to this list). So, in exchange for an international trip, yummy pizza, a squishy (but probably hilarious) road trip, the ultimate in learning opportunities, and the company of 20-30 very cool people, I get to spend the day taking photos of a person who I don't like very much while being yelled at by a mother who doesn't like me very much... On a brighter note, I may be able to enable my self with a certain digital slr very soon, - in fact might do it just to spite them all, and giver her her wedding pics on cd (she doesn't own a computer! lol)... So, again, thankyou all for your wonderful offers of accomodations, transport and good-times, and I will try to organise it DEFINITELY for 2005, and owing to the advance notice, may even be able to extend the trip to the UK/Ireland, as I had originally wanted. Ok, so I did the MOTHER of all weddings this weekend - picture this for a scene... Tanya drives 3 hours to wedding location, through torrential rain, and silt covered and flooding roads (BARELY made it through - 1 metre high water at one point). Tanya arrives at wedding location to find one very overweight bride (she wasn't anywhere near as big when I met her a year ago) and 2 very overweight bridesmaids - the weight thing isn't an issue, and please no one be offended, but they were all squeezed into STRAPLESS dresses, about 4 sizes too small and were "spilling" out everywhere, iykwim? Tanya also finds a groom with NO TEETH!!! (Actually, he had ONE tooth which was BLACK), who had a massive hangover and spent the entire day threatening to vomit and burping through the whole ceremony (btw, he DID vomit later on, thankfully not whilst my camera was pointed at him - I have a bit of a thing about vomit and I would have ended up joining him had I seen/heard it)... Ok, so as well, as their charming attire, the bridesmaids accessoriesed with TATOOS - real ones, down their arms and one even had a big set of blue/black angel wings in the middle of her BACK!!! It gets worse... It was a double wedding - two sisters getting married at the same time. Well, the other photographer got the "good" couple - young, obviously in love, and willing to have a great time. The other photographer is also very well known and very GOOD at what he does, so I felt intimidated right from the start (on a brighter note, I learnt alot from him though). My couple wouldn't even do a bridal waltz pic cause they just wanted "to get p*ssed" (their words, not mine)!! (I just KNOW that they will blame me for the absence of this pic when the proofs come back). To make it even more fun - my couple had a 2 year old and one year old TWINS! I defy anyone to do a professional job of bridal makeup when the bride is holding two wriggling babies on her lap who keep grabbing at the mascara wand as you try to apply it! Then, it was time for the family pics.... Well, I had to "share" family members due to the double wedding and both brides having the same parents etc. I am sure that I missed many shots that I "should" have taken due to this constant "swapping" of people backwards and forwards! AND the groom wouldn't even kiss or touch the bride!! Yep, got some REALLY romantic shots....NOT!! On a brighter note, I DID get some cool black and white candids of the little twins, BUT they had the junior bridesmaids dressed in hot pink and white, (complete with eighties style puffy sleeves, and big toilet-doll skirts) with the bridesmaids dressed in burgandy and gold! Not a great colour combination for photos let me tell you!! On top of all this, this weekend was my 10 year high school reunion, which yep, I WAS THE ORGANISER of! SOMEHOW, clever me, ended up booking it on the same weekend as the wedding that I had to do a 6 our round trip for, so here was I, having missed the reunion luncheon on Saturday afternoon, driving back at cracking speed, from the wedding, at 10pm at night with some vain hope of catching the closing minutes of the reunion dinner! Lucky for me, my friends were very nice and held off for my arrival, then asking me to cut the cake to thank me for my organisational efforts! They then presented me with a bunch of flowers and a lovely necklace to say thanks for organising the weekend etc. (Mind you, I had to race home and change out of my horse poo covered/mud covered clothes - oh, forgot to say that the location pics for the wedding were in horse stables that had been flooded by the torrential rain, and that the bride had just "decided" to use half way through the day!) The breakfast the following morning (Sunday) went really well, as I was able to organise it all myself, and we had a lovely time. I DID sleep 12 straight hours Sunday and last night though to recover from the weekend's ordeal! I'll have to post the wedding pics when they come back, even if just to show you guys what NOT to when photographing a wedding! Ok, I must go and feed my kids some brekkie! But, just wanted to let you all know that I am around and recovering from a HUGE weekend... tan.
