Almost wedding disaster but not quite

Rescued

Let me first start by telling you what happened or almost happened at the wedding I was doing on friday… We had been quite lucky all day with the weather as the forecast had been rain and wind, but when we were doing our photoshoot in a park nearby the sun actually started shining and the photos had come out lovely. I had shot loads of pictures and was on my third memory card when it happened…. They had just been married in church and I shot some quick photos of the couple leaving the church and getting back in their car. At which point I ran to my car, getting my carkey out of my pocket in the meantime and going back to the venue where the reception would be held, which was a 15 minute drive from the church.

By the time I got there; I – out of habit – checked my right pocket where I always keep the full memory cards in a separate little pouch…. And my pocket was empty!! Completely empty! I frantically searched my other pocket.. nothing. I then made a complete chaos checking my camera bag, nothing either.. At that point I started to panick thinking ‘o my god, don’t tell me I have to go in and tell the couple that I lost ALL (including the ceremony at the city hall, the photoshoot, the preparations etc.) the photos!!’ I had breath slowly and start thinking ‘Ok, what could have possibly happened…’ I then realized that I had kept my carkeys in the same spot as the memory cards and the only possibly explanation was that I must have lost them from my pocket at the moment I took out my carkey at the church.

So I had to drive back to the church which was another 15 minutes and all the while thinking how I would ruin the couples day if I had to go back in and tell them. I called Tom on the way as I had to talk to someone to keep myself sane… I couldn’t call the couple, so they must have wondered where the hell I was… It was night by that time as this all happened after 8.30 pm and it had started raining by now. So when I got back at the church all the streets where dark and deserted. I first parked my car and left the lights on so I could see something, but at the parking spot there was no memory card to be found…

So again, breath slowly and think logically…. (which was rather hard at that point in time!) I started retracing my steps after I had come out of the church. The sidewalk was littered with autumn leaves, making the search more difficult too, but at one point I saw a faint glitter in the dark. The little pouch had a keyring to it and thank god, I found them! I would have dropped on my knees and thank the lord if it hadn’t been so wet and cold…

That really was the closest I have ever come to a major major disaster!! I then had to drive back to the venue and decided not to tell the couple anything at all. Well, I told them I had lost the key to my house at the church and that I had to drive back to find the keys. I was only half an hour late all in all, so I missed part of the reception but better that then having lost all photos…

At every wedding I always get stories from the guests about other disasters that have happened to other photographers. Harddrive crashes, lenses that don’t work, photographers that have run out of batteries completely, photographers that had a smear on their lens meaning that all photos had a large spot on them, photos that came out all blurry… well, you name it and it has happened to someone. The thing that people do NOT want to hear at that point is the fact that it CAN happen… Ofcourse you always try to prevent it and I make double backups at the same time I download all photos to my computer, I always have loads of batteries with me plus an additional camera body in case one fails, I check my lenses regularly to see if they are still clean etc. etc. but a 100% proof is something that is almost impossible to give. Case in point my almost disaster of last week…..