Real Weddings- Old School
In 2007 Lifetime Images proudly celebrates our tenth anniversary. It's an accomplishment we're proud of, and yet it wouldn't be possible without the support of our clients. There have been over 600 weddings, and so many good times, and so many good stories.
Long before wedding photographers had blogs, we wrote stories about weddings we attended. Much more than "Oh she was so pretty, and he was so nice" we dished out what really happened at these weddings. Below is a smattering of different weddings that have somehow gained notoriety over the years. So, enjoy in some of Lifetime Images past great moments, as we look forward to the next ten years!
Old School Lifetime Images Weddings
There was something we've heard from brides over the years is that they really enjoyed looking at past weddings and reading about the bride and grooms wedding day. These weddings are a part of our company's heritage and we are still very proud of the images. Yes, the dresses may be out of date, and fashions do change, and our entire staff has grown as photographers over the years but a good photo will stand the test of time. The stories that accompany the images suggest that these people meant more to us than a paycheck.
One thing that needs to be mentioned, most of these images are scanned from original prints. The image quality isn't as good as what you're used to seeing from us, sorry. We hope you understand.
Jen & Andy- January 2003- These two never kissed until the alter, or anything else for that matter. They were engaged for three years! It's a remarkable story. We actually previewed this wedding and talked about the big kiss for months before the big day. We got e-mails from people who didn't know this couple, but were looking forward to the big kiss. The day of the event a strange thing happened, fear. What if we didn't get the shot? We've only told everybody in the universe about this magic moment. One minute before the big kiss, the second photographer who was shooting with me tells me her camera was out of batteries. Did we get the shot? Check it out!
Brian & Bekka - April 2004-How old was this bride again, was she old enough to get married? By the way, the image on the left, what are they doing? It's during the ceremony? Is he washing her feet? As a matter of fact he is. I've been to hundreds of Christian ceremonies, this was the only time I've ever seen this performed. I've heard of a US Senator doing this with his staff before, so it's not that rare. Hey, if you can't get enough of these two kids, we have a large demo album of their wedding, it's a Leather Craftsman, you can see an image of the album in the price list. We went out of our way to try and make the very most expensive demo album we could possibly think of for this wedding. Yeah, it wasn't cheap. It was either make this album or we could have sent our kids to summer camp. It was a very noisy summer that year having the kids around.
Brook & Troy- June 2002-If you cry easily and are at work, please don't view this! Okay, we've warned you. There are two compelling memories about this wedding. I can recall back in July of 2001 when I strolled into my then fulltime job and gave my two week notice. It was a dream of mine to have a fulltime career in wedding photography. Of course two months later September 11th happened and I was wondering if I made a wise choice. I received a call in January of the next year from a very sad Brook, who at that time was a stagehand on Broadway, while Troy was a Broadway dancer. She called to say that the September 11th attacks had forced them to loose their jobs as nobody was attending Broadway. All their wedding money they had saved was used to keep them alive. They returned to California sometime later, broke. The wedding was called off. But, then, out of the blue a rich relative paid for the entire wedding, they felt it was important for this day to happen.
The other thing that I vividly recalled was the chaos the professional wedding photography industry was in at the time. There was the old school traditional wedding photographers who had dominated the industry for decades, and a new force of photographers known as photojournalists. They were all about capturing images of events as they happened. At this wedding their was a moment where Brook's mom just broke down in tears and her family gathered around her and hugged her while she endured a painful moment. I recall thinking that I was crossing the line by shooting, it was intruding in their lives. I did it anyway, and the image is at best "Okay" but it did awaken my quest to want to become good at shooting this style of photography.
Bryan & Pam- September 2000- A wedding where everybody was like family. Only, my family isn't this good looking. When I did this wedding I was a bit star struck by Pam and Bryan. I recall looking back at this couple a few years later wondering if I would be as impressed with the couple. Ironically, Pam's baby brother called me to do his wedding. It was five years later, and by this point they were both parents. I've been fortunate to meet celebrities at weddings and in my personal life, and though you aren't supposed to stare at them, you can feel their presence in the room. I can't put into words exactly how it works, but whenever Pam and Bryan enter the room, it's somewhere between celebrities and royalty. They are such charismatic people that you can't help but love em!
Chuck & Aimee- August 1999- I was only doing wedding photography for a few years when this wedding came along. It seems to me that I recalled two things happening around this time frame, half the brides wanted to get married in 1999 because they didn't want to wait until the next century to get married, and the other half wanted to get married in 2000 because they wanted to see all those zeros on their wedding date. So, I was getting booked like I never seen before. This guy Chuck calls me up and says that he was a photographer himself and wanted me to photograph his wedding. The date he had in mind, I was already booked. No big deal, he changed his wedding date to accommodate my schedule! It's a very nice wedding, nice colors. Amiee had a tattoo and I was kinda shocked to see one on her, she said she went through this rebel stage for about a week when she was 18. Chuck was a high school counselor, if you look up the definition of 'Thankless Job' in the dictionary it says "See high school counselor." Chuck had an interest in wedding photography , so I took him to a wedding. Which just happened to be a 110 degree day in Riverside! When he got in his truck to go home that night he said that his job was better and had no more interest in being a wedding photographer. I photographed Amiee's sister's wedding a couple of years later. The last I heard about this couple, Aimee was involved in the Fullerton Train Crash, and though she wasn't badly hurt, people sitting near her did get badly hurt or died. They changed their life, moved further into the Inland Empire and worked closer to home.
Gavin & Nancy - June 2001- Well, I didn't write a lot about this couple on their main page. So, why not? Did we have a bad experience? No, not at all. They were a wonderful couple. They had a small wedding held at a nursery in a town called Somis. It was kinda a short day other than the two hour car ride their and back. I did like how they photographed, and I used their images for my business cards for the next couple of years. I'm still found of the image above. It looks like the stuff we are shooting now.
Trevor & Trang- October 1999- Trevor was an American born Chinese fellow who married Trang, a Vietnamese woman. I remember standing next to him during the tea ceremony and remember the look on his face, like he didn't exactly understand what was going on, but faked it anyways. In the picture above, we managed to get into heaven for about 20 minutes to do some photography.
Tonya and Jeff-June 1999- There is a good reason why this is the last wedding I am choosing to put up on this site. This wedding is approaching ten years old, and still I think about it from time to time. I am putting this wedding up for some of my newer clients who will be shocked and amazed to hear about what Jeff and Tonya have to do with them. It had something to do with around 1998, my little photography business was about a year old. For most of the 1990's I worked in industrial sales. There was a time when I ended up talking to a guy during a sales call who wanted me to come work for him. It was this device that hooked up to a microscope and to small video cameras. It was sold mostly to schools and crime labs. After I started working for this company, well, let's just say it was a struggling little company. It didn't take long to realize that this wasn't a good fit. I quit the job and had this large print of my daughter in the back of my truck that was in their from the day before when I cleaned out my office. At this time the photography business was too new, I had a new home and two very young children. I had to go find a new job. I was buying wood at Home Depot and pulled the print of my daughter out and had it upside down. It caught the eye of a lady who had a daughter getting married. It's seven in the morning, I'm unshaven, I still had bed head and the lady asks "Do you have a card." I said "Well, ah... no." She told me about her daughter and wrote my phone number down from a sign on the back of my truck (I don't use signs anymore, but this one time it worked). As she drove off I thought to myself "Wow, I made a really bad impression on that woman."
Her daughter did call, and not only did I do her wedding, but that of a few bridesmaids as well. From this I got Christina Munoz (who I just so happened to see at a park recently, big hugs) and then this gal named Andrea Diaz. From there the chain has blossomed, I have had about four weddings in 2007 from this chain. They are people who are simply happy with their photography and pass my name on to their friends. Thought they have no idea who Jeff and Tonya are, I can say without a doubt that this one wedding led to around 50 more weddings. I owe these guys a big thanks!