This is one of my favorite questions to get asked. Okay, beautiful couple, beautiful wedding day. Grand ballroom. Everything is going swimmingly. We’re doing ballroom shots with photography. The photography team tells my couple to back up a little more and get closer to their sweetheart table so they can take in all the glorious ambience. So they do. They back up closer and closer, and as they look lovely, I smell a horrifying smell. The back of her dress is on fire. Yes, it is. Whole train on fire. When they backed up, my couple, my couple backed up right into the candles in front of their sweetheart table that were not placed in the appropriately sized container. Votive. Candles and a long train are not friends. I had to stomp on her dress, jumping up and down, getting the flames out. I did damage control as much as possible. I had to stitch over her train in a small panel to make sure that the burnt portions were covered for the remainder of photography. And then while they finished photos, I went through every square inch of the remaining venue space to make sure that all of the other candles were not the same kind of misused height. If you think that’s nuts, it’s not the only time it’s happened. Different couple, different wedding. Still, beautiful day. A new photography team is taking a picture of the couple in front of a grand staircase by their steaming chart and their welcome area. Beautiful details. They go in for a dip. He holds her. He dips her, and she goes up like a lightning bug. When they dip her. Her train went into candles again, not in the correctly hided container this time. We just had to bustle her. There was nothing else I can do, nothing to stitch and cover. Candles need to be in the right sized home, well underneath the top rim. Otherwise you could do this, too. So craziest day is also lesson learned. Check your candles, check your heights. Maybe have a fire extinguisher around there.

Revolvers wrestling and a squirrel chase. That is pretty much what sums up the most wild wedding I’ve experienced. I’m a wedding photographer based in Montana, and early on in my career I photographed this wedding. It was like 12 miles back in the woods. Driving out, there no cell phone service. I’m like, is this where I get murder? Maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, bride shows up late from hair and makeup. It had gone too long. It’s like an hour before the ceremony, everything’s just a whirlwind. We like rush to the ceremony site, we’re 15 minutes late. I meet the groom at the altar. I’d never met this couple before. And the ceremony starts and things are going pretty normal. And it gets to the point where the preacher says, all right, speak now or forever hold your peace. Does anyone have any reason why this couple shouldn’t get married? He pulls out a revolver and just starts eyeing the crowd down. Dude’s got a cowboy hat, camo vest. What in the hell did I just get myself into? He puts his gun away, ceremony goes on from that. It’s pretty sweet. Like the couple’s crying, they’re very in love. They go back down the aisle, there’s a receiving line. And when you see a couple smiling and crying and laughing and in love, you’re like, that’s nice. But the groom, he just goes fuck crying like a fucking bitch. And just turns off his emotions stone cold. The rest of the seasoning, life day goes on. 9000 degree day, just sweltering heat. And for the next like 6 hours, everyone is just getting precedingly more and more smashed. Yeah, near the end of the day I’m packing up, think there’s nothing more for me to take a picture of here. I’ve taken everyone’s picture and at this point I hear everyone hooting and hollering. I look over in this giant bear of a man and this little 19 year old kid are just wrestling and beating the crap out of each other. Everyone’s gathered around, they’re laughing. I go up to the bride after taking a couple of pictures, of course. I mean, this is portfolio grade stuff. And I’m like, hey, is everyone okay? And she goes, yeah, this is normal. It wouldn’t be a family event if wrestling wasn’t involved. A little later in the night, the bride and all her bridesmaids are running around and I go up to her and I’m like, what are you guys running around for? Looks like you’re looking for something. She goes, oh, we saw a squirrel. We saw a squirrel. It’s like, yeah, we played a game growing up where if you catch it, you keep it. Okay, well, if you ever caught one before. And the bride looks at me with a twinkle in her eye and she says, I caught one once. And she runs off into the woods. Yeah, that’s the wildest wedding I’ve ever been a part of.