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At the end of the night, Helen and Dave mentioned something in their speech that really resonated with me. Well, it was Dave speaking on behalf of the two of them as Helen has a history of breaking down midway through - which you would never guess form the same-day edit. Back to their speech, Dave said that he loved how we became their friends very quickly, that we captured all the raw emotions, and that we kept them that way -raw. It is that connection that we have with our couples that really allows us to get inside and see things that are often shut off for most of the world.

Helen and Dave's wedding couldn't have been a more fitting day for the comments he made. Their morning was in two words, pure pandemonium. As much as we plan, prepare, organize, and storyboard, weddings are unpredictable beasts that take on a life of their own. While I don't think our bodies could hold up to shooting weddings like this every week, it certainly is refreshing to have so much going on that you simply can't cover it all. When that happens, nearly all the planning goes out the window and it becomes a very instinctual art. At one point in the day we had a band, Dave, and about 50 family members dancing in Helen's driveway while she was thirty feet away, just inside the door about to put her dress on. As it started to pour (both the rain and Helen's tears), the dancing just got more intense.

As much as we want to always have the perfect lens choice and angle for every shot, it is days like this that even the 30 seconds of thought it takes to work through that is time you don't have. It is a different way of shooting and it is certainly a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed.

The irony of the whole situation was that after all of these intense events, everyone rushed to the church to make it on time. As things started to settle down, a confusion set in as nobody could find the priest. He ended up arriving about 40 minutes late, and as difficult as it must have been for Helen and Dave to sit and wait to be married, I think everybody appreciated the calm after the storm.

With that Dave + Helen…

dave + helen // pure pandemonium from stillmotion on Vimeo.