California Coastal Wedding: Brittany and Garrett

What better way to sound off the wedding season than with a beach wedding shot down by Pismo in Cayucos with the lovely Jean family? Things didn't exactly go as planned, but they never do. We had a closed pier with a crane on it, wind chill that sent women's hair everywhere, my flash didn't agree with the situation, and I'll leave out who was tardy (you know who you are), but as always, to people said "I do," and that's all that really mattered. 

Shot under the Cayucos Pier.

 I was so excited about this pier when I looked up the location on Google Maps. The pier in Cayucos would have been great to shoot on! It was closed. Not only was it closed but it had a big, ugly crane on it. You can see it starting to creep into the frame at the end, so you couldn't even shoot the entire pier from a distance. Really bummed but we got some great shots down below.

Details, they're the first things that slip from the memory and therefore the most important to capture.

Had to put a bridesmaid to work as a light stand to capture this. She did an excellent job.

The girls all looked great in these as opposed to the traditional heels. 

As you can tell by our veil and dresses in this shot, it was a liiiitle breezy that day, but we made due. The nice thing about weddings is that you tend to look past things like the chill and the hair whipping about into people's faces because the emotion commands the scene.

I really need to start shooting these details with my cellphone so that you can see what the scene looks like before I light it and pick the perfect angle. 

Midday is not always the best time for dance photos, but with the right lighting shot from just the right angle, we can make it look a wee bit more dramatic.

And now for the big reveal, all of the reception photos were taken at a local park. You can see more on our Facebook page. It's all in how you shoot it.

The ceremony site. 

A kiss during the first dance. On our facebook page you can see some of these shots in color and see how amazing they look with the flash popping off in the background.

As always, thank you for stopping by. This was a long day far away from home but I'm so glad that I got to be there. It's always a gamble shooting at the beach. Wind, crazy hair, cold, harsh sun, no sun, cranes inexplicably parked at the ends of piers, but if you simply abandon all your preconceived notions of what you want to shoot and instead focus on the emotion, on the love, you'll come out with amazing photos.

Special Announcement: I've teamed up with Aaron Draper and some other photographers to do a series of critiques. The aim is to give photographers meaningful feedback on their work. Check it out and submit. New critiques every week. http://www.professionalphotocritique.org/

Discounts: Everyone in the wedding party is entitled to a $200 discount for their wedding day.

You can see more from this wedding on our Facebook page here.

If you'd like to find out more about our photography, look us up at www.daveandmel.com

Want to see some editing videos that show a bit of how David works his magic? https://www.youtube.com/user/DefiningDave

More stuff for photographers here: http://www.professionalphotocritique.org/

And if you want to see cute pictures of our kids along with sneak peeks of what we're working on including all of David's little sketches, follow David on Instagram at: http://instagram.com/dnoceti