Sandra and Pat’s wedding was at Waterworks Grand Pavilion, which is located right behind the Art Museum in Philadelphia. I want to tell the story of their wedding day from my perspective as a photographer. However, before we get to all the amazing moments from the wedding itself, let’s start from the beginning— their day started with two people getting ready for a wedding, along with their closest friends and family members.
I started my day photographing Sandra and her crew of bridesmaids at the Logan Hotel in Philly, which has a window that overlooks the fountain where Pat proposed to Sandra…
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The second photographer was ‘D’, and I knew I could count on her to document the gentlemen getting ready over at Pat’s apartment in Philadelphia while I photographed the bridesmaids. She is a great photographer, and like me she has more than 10 years as a full-time wedding photographer, so IMO that puts her in a different league than probably 90% of the other wedding photographers out there. Her work always looks stunning. I thought a lot about who I wanted to second-shoot this wedding with, and I chose ‘D’ for many reasons, but a biggest reason is that her work fits in perfectly with what I do, and the fact that I could trust her to be the 10-plus-year-full-time professional that she is.
Anyway, while I covered the ladies getting ready with hair and makeup over at the Logan Hotel, D covered Pat and his closest allies relaxing on the roof with some beers and games, before putting on their wedding clothes and heading to the venue.
Everyone was ready to rock, outfits looking sharp and hair on point. We had a planned ‘first look’ and brief photo session on top of the hill behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so we met up there to make a few images.
Sandra & Pat’s wedding day plan was pretty awesome, as this was just the first of three planned bride & groom mini-photoshoots that we had built into their timeline.
After about 15 minutes for the first look and some bride and groom photos up on top of the hill, we headed down to the Waterworks Venue area to get all of the group pictures with family and bridal parties completed before the wedding really got started.
My philosophy for the group shots and formal photos is to just keep it simple— I like to make it quick and painless for everyone involved. I prefer to use one shaded location with a simple background, where we can just get everyone to meet us and work from a list to get through all the different requested group shots quickly and efficiently.
Luckily, Waterworks has this large open shaded area with a simple background that works perfectly for the group photos. Here’s a few fun pictures of their bridesmaids and groomsmen…
Ok, now that we got the first look and group photos checked off our list, it is time relax and experience a wedding. Here’s the setting and all the moments from their wedding ceremony in the Grand Pavilion area at Waterworks.
Everything seemed so perfect! As photographers we just focused on covering all of the important moments and gestures from the ceremony. I loved this moment (below) when Pat spontaneously reached out to Sandra and held her hand during one of the readings.
BOOM! That just happened. Congratulations to the newlyweds, Sandra & Pat!
During cocktail hour, Sandra & Pat wanted to have some downtime and then mingle with guests before investing a few more minutes for bride & groom couple’s photos during ‘golden hour’.
Luckily, the cocktail hour at Waterworks is 90 minutes long, so we had plenty of time. Here’s a few of my favorite looks from their light-&-airy golden-hour portrait session.
We were in a very relaxed and chilled-out ‘creative’ headspace, since all of the group photos were checked off the list and we had plenty of time to make fun, carefree couple’s photos in a beautiful location.
This is the ideal scenario for photography: working with a beautiful couple who are very much in love, in a beautiful location during the best time of the day to take photos.
After our light-and-airy golden-hour photo session, it was time to get to their reception. The details were all in place and the guests were ready to see these two ‘cut some rug’ on the dance floor as Mr. Holywood DJ got the crowd hyped up.
You know that Sandra and Pat had a choreographed dance practiced perfectly and ready to go for us all to enjoy…
What followed was a full blown dance party, their friends and family all joined in and the roof could barely keep a lid on the place.
I thought it was kind of funny to see this little boy collecting flower petals (above) while the party raged around him. Then everything calmed down for a moment and we all listened to a few thoughtful and heartfelt toasts.
Time for their blue-hour photo session with lighting. In my opinion, they were very smart to include this little 15 minute photo session during blue hour in their timeline. I love to make a more dramatic set of images with my lighting stuff after the sun sets.
The funny thing is, during these photo sessions we were actually not alone.
There was a ton of other people enjoying the area as well, and other photographers shooting engagement sessions or working with semi-famous instagram models on semi-professional photo shoots. Below is a pulled back shot which shows the lighting stuff I like to use and how the the scene looked, with all of the other people around.
Time to get back to their wedding reception for a couple of parent dances…
After the parent dances, it was time to pump up the volume and dance. Mr Hollywood DJ lent Pat his handheld smoke canon to get the party started. Their guests were hyped up!
I think that this next part was not planned, it just happened. Sandra got lifted up on a chair and I probably said something like ‘PLEASE be careful with her!’
Everyone had these glow stick thingy’s so I decided to grab one of them and used it for a colorful background on my close-up macro picture of their rings.
The end of the night came and the DJ had to cut the dance party music. Everyone started chanting ‘ONE MORE SONG!’ So he obliged them and put on that one song ‘Don’t stop, believing’ by Journey. Everyone gathered on the dance floor for a sing-a-long. It was a touching moment and a perfect end for their party.
Party on Sandra & Pat, your wedding was amazing!
