This post is dedicated to my friend Natalie. I have to thank her for persistently bugging and bugging the living daylights out of me for 3 weeks straight until I agreed to shoot her friend’s wedding, Way back when I was scared out of my mind to shoot a wedding.
Why did I not want to do weddings?
Because I was afraid.
I was afraid of not being able to do it perfectly.

I did not want to be seen trying and failing

I was scared because I didn’t want to have to say “I’m a beginner I am learning, like never done this before and will most definitely miss a lot of important moments.”
My only experience with weddings at that point was as a guest. Halfway through the ceremony I’d always zone off and wonder what kind of food they’d be serving and was tempted to roll around under the chairs with the 2 year olds.
Then she enlisted additional friends to beg me to come shoot the wedding. That didn’t sway my opinion. Nope wasn’t going to do it. Nope, nope, nope. Then in a last ditch effort she said if I would not shoot this wedding she would have to do it and she really didn’t want to have to do it.
That right there changed my perspective. It took away this bar of absolute perfection I was measuring myself against, I know I was not a 5,000.00 wedding photographer. It was now more of helping out a friend. That, I could do! And it also invoked the competitiveness part in me. That part of me that said Challenge Accepted! I will get better wedding photos than you!

Am I proud of that first wedding? Yes, because I tried and failed -quite miserably in a number of photos- but I did it. Am I proud of the camera settings I chose to use? Maybe not but It got me over my fear of weddings and without doing the first wedding I never would’ve gotten to the second one.