The Assistants

As some of you may know, I do not tackle a wedding day alone. Well, tackle sounds very brutish - how about I don't rise to the occasion of a wedding day alone? Yes, that is more like it really is. I have assistants, fabulous assistants.


(Katie hanging out during the ceremony at Heather & Chris's wedding)

One is my sister (who also helps me out here in the studio once a week), one is my best friend and one is my first full-fledged Mthree Studio bride. All are married and so they have been in the very shoes of my couples. Each has their own strengths and abilities, and I love experiencing a wedding day with them. I bring them along to help keep me on track, navigate maps, carry equipment and water, babysit equipment, fetch things, fluff dresses, fix flowers, keep me company on long car rides, and do just about anything that will help us stay on schedule and ensure a fantastic wedding day experience in both reality and in pictures. Sometimes they become the Bride's new best friend and sometimes they are just a fly on the wall. Along the way we have many adventures, which we often recount at the end of a long wedding day over drinks or the long drive home.


(Harmony helping out Lindsay during Bridal Party pictures)

I can think of several wedding days that would have gone much awry from my standpoint without their help and cool heads.
These ladies will do anything to make a day go right. Traipse through fields, carry twenty coats, run to my car a hundred times, rebustle a dress, buckle a shoe, help a staggering drunk groomsman walk... you name it and they have done it.

It is not always a glamourous job. Jamie assisted me with the first wedding I ever shot, more out Hubby's fear of me driving down to Chicago alone than any other reason. She was rewarded with a three-hour drive home in a snowstorm, and yet she keeps coming back for more. Katie followed not long after when I needed someone to assist me for Harmony's wedding and thank goodness it was her - after the ceremony I realized I needed more memory cards and she was cool-headed enough to find them, buy them and return within 30 minutes (now I carry enough memory cards for three weddings). Harmony jumped on board almost by accident on a Trash the Dress shoot and has been a faithful shooting companion for me ever since. It is a job you really have to do because you enjoy it.


(I only have one shot of Jamie this year. She is famous for getting caught in loooong conversations with guests)

As fun as I make it all sound, the job has a lot of down time. Once the dinner is over, I pretty much have things well in hand on my own and they are stuck with the avid sport of people-watching. As a result, they find themselves often hit on, asked to dance and the wallflower conversationalist. But they do get free cake. And, as Harmony puts it, I have more romantic candelit dinners with these three than my own Husband.


(Harmony doing what they do all too often - let me test lighting)

They have saved my hiney more times than I can count, and I hope I've given them many great memories in return. It is a rare profession where you get to enjoy it with your friends and family, and in this regard I know I am extremely lucky.


(Katie had run out of hands, so when I handed her my sunglasses, they went on her head with her own. Fashionable, this one.)

After a long wedding season at the very least, they deserve a virtual round of applause for all the hard work they have put in on behalf of my business. Ladies, I am standing and applauding right now.
Don't fret, I properly took them out to eat at Branded last week, where we drank wonderful cocktails and learned of the goodness that is white truffle potato chips. It was so surreal having all three of them in the same place at the same time, and the evening quickly dissolved into a review of all of our greatest bloopers, gaffs and shocking moments.


(Harmony holding all the purses and jackets during bridal party picture time at Carlyn & Dave's wedding)

I can't even tell you how much I am looking forward to all of 2009 weddings with this crew.

(a special thanks also to Monica Gill and to Hubby who were fill-in assistants this year too)