Horror Stories?

[joshua_malahy]

I am a newbie to the wedding business and have yet to have a really bad experience...not much

experience at all really! Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to hear the horror stories of

some of you seasoned veterans.

[nicola inglis]

he he, no one willing to share?

[lb-]

client fell off his balcony and died.

 

During the event.

 

really quite horrible.

[david_bain1]

In the midst of taking formals in the foyer of an expensive Edinburgh hotel my Mecablitz started to smoke . . .

 

To make it worse I'd left my backup at home and had a half hour round trip to scrounge another. Thankfully the B and G laughed it off and they're still happily married thirty years later!

[jeffery_pool]

not at all pertaining to a wedding;

 

once i convinced a beautiful girl that I was a decent photographer.

took horrible photos of her and met her tonight and promised to make it up to her. keep diggin that hole deeper, never know when to stop

[nstock]

Garden wedding at a National Historic site. VATS (Vehicle Anti Theft System) quit on the car (it would not recognize EITHER key) and car would not start.

 

Had to hitch a ride to the Reception (and NO the B&G would NOT let me ride in the Limo) and had to get the car towed.

 

It all worked out and the pictures were very nice. If there had no been two of us working I have no idea how this would have worked out.

 

We believe in having backups along but a back up car along is not the norm!

[nicola inglis]

Yeah, what else should you back up?!

 

I once split my trousers right before the ceremony (which was an hour and a half long, thank goodness) and had to send my second shooter into town for another pair of pants or a pack of safety pins, whatever they got to first!

 

And you always think it couldn't happen to you, right? Wrong!

[fotografz]

Dead client is a hard act to follow : -(

 

Many flubs and disasters but nothing to come even close to that.

 

Dropped a $20,000. MF digital camera down a flight of marble steps.

 

Drove almost 2 hours to a wedding only to discover all my CF cards were still at home.

(Leica M and drug store film saved the day)

 

Arrived at a wedding with one battery for the digital camera. The back-ups still in the

charger at home. Leica M to the rescue again.

 

Worst general calamity for me has been the need to drag around gear aptly named Canon

that weighs a much as a Volkswagen. Can't wait for the digital M

[savagesax]

Bestman was crossing the street and a car hit him, broke his leg and still made it back for the toast!

[david_schilling___chicago_]

A studio that I occassionally shoot for had two photographers, each with their own backup camera body. Three out of the four had a problem which left one photographer shooting the wedding while the other photographer scrambled for yet another body from the studio owner.

<p>

At some weddings it seems that nobody has a really good time unless the cops show up at least once or twice. Two weeks ago I fell into the Kankakee River.....But I saved the camera and it was at the end of the day after I had gotten all the shots. My first thought after the groomsmen help to push my butt back on the dock was that this would make a pretty good P-net story and we all had a good laugh.

[laurenm]

Joshua, if you do a pn search there is also a fun thread about people's first weddings.

[al_kaplan1]

Marc, you're still going to need charged batteries for the digital M you're dreaming about unless they do something sensible like use AAA alkaline cells. That drugstore film isn't half bad actually. Now that some people are complaining about the overly punchy colors and blown highlights of digital capture drugstore film can look downright professional ;-) At four 24 exp. rolls for $5.99 (ISO 200 on sale)it makes film Leicas look pretty economical.

[fotografz]

The film Leicas aren't going anywhere Al. If I have to fill my 2nd fridge to the hilt with Tri-X I

will. Digital B&W doesn't work for me.

 

Even though I do convert digital to B&W, it pales in comparison to B&W film. Scanned on a

good scanner, B&W film has even more dynamic range than color film which in turn has more

than digital does. Horses for courses.

[joshua_malahy]

I appreciate all of the crazy stories...maybe now I'll be a litle more prepared for the

unexpected...but a client fell of the balcony? That really is horrible. Lauren, I have

read some of the threads about first weddings...good stuff. I've been reading PN for a

while now, and the knowledge I've gained is better than just about any book I've read

on the subject! I've only done a couple of weddings for friends with small budgets

(with a couple more coming up). I haven't been paid...just done them as favors...but

now I have the bug! :)

[bdp]

Since I started out in '88 with video, these apply to that end of the wedding business.

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Had an uncle of the bride die at the reception about 15 minutes after the DJ started (he was an EMT also) the first dance set after dinner.

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While shooting a large circle of people dancing, one of the guests, apparently thinking he was a gymnast, started doing back flips across the floor and nailed my partner shooting video, nearly knocking him out since he was looking at the b/g and not the gymnast. The worst part of that one, other guests thought it the the videographers fault.

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Had the cake collapse during dinner, fortunately, I shot it in detail just as I got to the reception location.

<BR><BR>

Had several Grooms pass out on the altar, a few groomsmen, and one bridesmaid, made a mad dash down the isle to get seated before she had a seizure. She felt if coming on and tried to make it to the seat first.

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Had the groom taken away in handcuffs after punching out his father-in-law. No, I'm not making this up.

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Last one I can think of off the top of my head. Shot the event, the b/g go on their honeymoon, come back, she calls not wanting the video, they broke up on the hmoon after he admitted he was gay. WHILE on the hmoon!

<BR><BR>

That's all I can think of right now, getting ready to leave for a shoot, hopefully, uneventful.

<BR><BR>

Bob

[kelly_flanigan1]

Having to hold the brides sister's kid for a second, and having him throw-up/barf on you. Having an entire bad batch of 620 Kodak color rollfilms with bad flanges, so they come off while in the camera, and the bottom edge is fogged. Using the barfed on suit as a film changing bag! Having flakey spare spare flash cords! :)

[jim_gifford]

Not as photographer but as a wedding and event DJ in the bad old days of vinyl 45s and LPs, I packed up, drove 45 minutes to work a company party, unpacked hundreds of pounds of crated records, the big awkward speakers, the mixer, cables, headphones...

 

No amplifiers.

 

Left 'em at home (??!!) because they were not in their usual spot with all the rest of the gear. Stupid of me... and very embarrassing. I do not whistle, sing or dance well enough to cover that sort of mistake.

 

Had to get started 90 minutes late. The client was understanding but even doing the job for free isn't enough to make up for that sort of fundamental, boneheaded mistake.

 

I do photography as a hobby. I've shot a family wedding and I've had some work published in trade magazines and newspapers where I was an editor... but I am happy not to be trying to make a living from behind a camera. I get to think of camera time as FUN time.

 

Be well,

[picturesque]

Here's one of the old posts. There are several.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009yk5

 

So far, the worst thing for me, besides getting some gear stolen, is when the groom got hit in the head with a golf club, the ambulence came, and later, there was a fistfight and the police came. I've also had failing gear, smoking flashes, fainting wedding party members, collapsing grandparents, forgotten batteries and memory cards, falling cakes, etc. All part of the job.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

Last wedding I went to straighten the brides dress for a portrait, she turned round and the large dress hit the leg of my tripod sending the whole thing cartwheeling down a incline. The 5D was fine, the 24-70L's hood hadn't even gone squint, but the 580ex snapped in two. Annoying as the repair is more expensive than I had hoped and it is taking far too long (I've got a loaner, having backup is no use if you don't have backup for the backup!)

[marcsaint]

At one wedding the grooms mother choked on something and had to have the Heimlich maneuver applied-- got taken to hospital in ambulance.

 

At another wedding, I lost the bride and groom. Back in the 70's I was working for a studio in Hartford that offered very inexpensive wedding packages ($75!!). This was my bride's third wedding and, after shooting the wedding, I was told to follow "the people in that car over there" to the reception at a VFW hall.

 

They drove home.

 

No gas station or fire station knew where there was a VFW hall in the area. Gave up after an hour or two of looking. Now I'm equipped with maps to everything.

[steve_levine]

I started out assisting several seasons of weddings with a "master" shooter, and ended up shooting for the local low budget king. And as one might imagine, it was with the latter shooter that most of the "horror" appeared.

 

 

One of my first weddings for this man was in someone's backyard. It was 95 degrees and humid, and they had a huge tent that was like a sauna. The bride and groom both hailed from Jamaica, and the yard was decorated with a Caribbean flavor. Including "island" music at dangerously loud levels.

 

 

The wedding was supposed to start at 1:00 pm. The minister didn't show untill 4:15 pm ! The (1:00) ceremony went off at around 5:00 !

 

 

During the long lay over the groom and his groom's men, spent the time wisely smoking dope and drinking "Red Stripe Beer", non-stop for 4 hours. When it was time for photos, their eyes were tiny reddened slits !

 

 

 

Meanwhile I ate my contingency "power bar", 3 hours earlier, and was now getting hungry. So I had big plate of some sort of (bacteria laden)goat meat, that had been salted beyond recognition. And an hour later, suffice to say my lower intestinal tract became seriously distressed.

 

 

This was about as horrible a wedding as one could hope for.

 

I learn quick. I never leave the house without at least 2 power bars, and a piece of fruit. And if the food ever looks suspect, I pass. I have also carried "pink pills" and ear plugs to every wedding since !

[lisa_berry___northampton_m]

the first wedding I did by myself, I was borrowing lights from one of the groomsmen. I

was so nervous to have everyone looking at me for the formals that I clutzily knocked

them over and broke them in front of the whole family. and then proceeded to lock my

keys in the car.

[jennie farnsworth]

On our way to a wedding, we were rear-ended at a stop light by a teenager going at least 60 miles an hour. Although the kid totaled our car, I wouldn't really consider it a horror story; we were only 30 minutes late for the pre-ceremony photographs, there were no injuries, and not a scratch on our equipment (oddly enough, we had packed everything into the back seat that day, instead of the usual trunk location). The rest of the day went off without a hitch and the photographs turned out great. Pretty amazing, really. Someone was looking out for us that day...

 

Jen

[mbyrne]

I did a wedding a couple of years ago where the bride was a bit on the heavier side, not huge

just a little extra. Her dress was also a bit tight on her, I noticed this early on in the day. The

ceremony goes great, formal go off without a hitch, dinner, cake cutting and all that happen.

Then she starts drinking a lot and dancing a lot. Her dress rips down the side from her

armpit to past her waist. Dress pretty much goes down, no bra and was exposed for a couple

of seconds. She took it great though, laughed. She had some street clothes in the car and

wore those for the rest of the night.