One question that I’m asked quite often is “what was your favorite wedding?” In actuality, I don’t have a favorite, per se. We’re easy to get along with people and nearly every client that we take on is one that we feel matches our personalities and style of photography, so we end up with great pictures and good times.

One aspect that I try to stress upon everyone that we work with is that successful photography has little to do with the photographer and far more to do with how much trust a client imparts in a photographer and how well we all work together.

A client that likes and trusts their photographer and a photographer that likes their client will make beautiful art together. If your brow is furrowed with concern, it’s going to show and that’s not how any of us wish to remember our special day.

Get to know your photographer. That increase in comfort and that trust and respect is going to show in every picture.

But I digress. I don’t have a favorite wedding or a favorite client and probably couldn’t even narrow the list down to a hundred with a gun to my head (ooh a pun!), but I have ones that stick out in my mind as being incredibly exceptional or unique.

Jessie and Merrylee are two beautiful clients that we worked with recently and we shot (no pun intended) a good portion of their wedding photography at *gasp* a GUN RANGE.

Yes, this is one of the most extraordinary wedding sessions I have ever had the pleasure of photographing.

Prior to this day, I had never seen a gun fired in my life, let alone a machine gun, a shotgun, a silenced pistol and a very, very tiny pistol. The first time Jessie fired the machine gun, I jumped more out of surprise than fear. And when I saw ‘jumped’ I mean ‘lept three inches in the air and fired off 18 rapid shots of the ceiling….with my camera, not a gun! It was more funny than embarrassing and my partner had a good laugh at me

The newly married couple (and the bride’s mother!) all took turns firing weapons of minor destruction at paper targets, while wearing adorable rainbow colored socks and protection goggles and earmuffs. I love the randomness of it all!

But it goes to show how being fun and creative and coming into a shoot with unique ideas instead of canned poses goes a long way in terms of creating photographic art.

We took so many amazing shots that day, but below is one of my favorites, with a faux bleach bypass effect with saturated red tones (a la the movie Sin City):