I had a wedding I was going to photograph that was all over the Chicagoland area. Wedding party getting ready in Chicago and Oak Park, wedding in Chicago, formals in Mundelein, some informal pictures in Mount Prospect, and finally the reception in Des Plaines. If you’re not from the Chicago area, that is a LOT of driving. Not only that: I was working with a second photographer that I had never worked with before. My friend Mary Glabowicz , who is a wonderful wedding photographer,gave me the name of a photographer she had been working with, Mark Silgalis.
We were running a little behind at the bride’s house when I got a text from Mark that they were already wondering when we were going to get to the church. We did get there a little late with the bride but the ceremony went off without a hitch. Originally, I wasn’t going to have Mark join me for the formals but I thought I’d see if he could get some other shots while I was shooting the wedding party. Good decision on my part to bring him along. My GPS gave me bad directions and I was half an hour late to the formals.
Mark was already there and didn’t miss beat. He started shooting while hearing a thunderstorm move in. He took a bunch of shots that the bride ended up using in her album. I got there just before the sky opened up. The whole wedding party was crowded into a tiny but open structure trying to avoid the rain. Mark, trying to block the rain with his body so members of the wedding party wouldn’t get wet, got soaked to the bone. So wet, a simple change of shirt wouldn’t cut it. I sent him home to change and meet us at the reception. He told me later that when he took the diffusion domes off of his flashes he poured a cup of water out of each of them. (The flashes still worked fine. I guess that’s why we buy the good stuff.) I kept shooting and took advantage of the beautiful post-storm light.
Mark made it to the reception on time and started shooting detail of the tables and candids during the cocktail hour. We covered the reception very thoroughly and were happy to see that it was a very fun group of people at the celebration. All in all, the bride and groom were very happy with the memories delivered in their wedding album.
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