I can’t believe it’s already been a week since we shot both photography and videography for Alyssa and Joe’s big day. Time is really going by fast this year! It all started back in December when Alyssa inquired with us. They had just gotten engaged and were looking to plan a wedding for this year. There weren’t too many dates available but Clark’s Landing in Point Pleasant, New Jersey was available for Mother’s Day. They fell in love with the venue and loved how it had a pier on the water with beautiful views. Alyssa and Joe had mentioned to us that one of the most important shots for them was both of them on the pier with the sun setting.
The night before the wedding day, Laura and I got all of our gear cleaned, charged up, and organized. Before every wedding day, I go through all our cameras and lenses and make sure to wipe everything down so there’s no dust or smudges on the glass and looking in tip top shape. I go through all of our memory cards and make sure everything is cleared out. And, of course, I charge up our batteries. For video alone, we normally go through around three batteries per camera on wedding days. We are definitely stocked up on batteries. Even still, we usually bring battery chargers with us so we can charge up just incase.
On the wedding day, we met up with my friend Will in the lobby of the Double Tree hotel in Eatontown. Will is a friend of ours who has a wedding photography company of his own at willcapturephotography.com and he helps us shoot weddings when are capturing both photography and videography.
We met up with both Alyssa and Joe. They were getting ready in rooms that were right across from each other at the hotel. It made it super easy to bounce back and forth and make sure we captured everything we needed to.
After getting ready at the hotel, everybody started moving over to Clark’s Landing. This is also where we had the first look. Laura and I are big fans of doing a first look, as it typically allows us more time to get all the couple shots, along with family and bridal party photos so everybody can enjoy cocktail hour and relax after the ceremony. The staff at Clark’s Landing was super helpful and were always three steps ahead of us (in a good way). They were always ready to support us at a moment’s notice. Of all the venues we have shot at, they were definitely the most supportive. When it came time for the reception, they even gave the vendors a table in the main ballroom and asked us what we’d like to eat, down to how we wanted our steaks cooked.
The day was mostly overcast and raining. As we shot photos of Alyssa and Joe and continued with family and bridal party pictures, I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be able to capture one of their biggest requests; the pier at sunset. It was during speeches after first dances at the reception, where the Clark’s Landing staff came up to us and said we had about a ten minute window where the sun was going to peek out of the clouds. They said once the last speech was done, we were going to run out of there and get down to the pier.
After the last speech, we did just that. The sun had just started coming out and cast a beautiful glow over the pier and the water. The rain was coming down pretty hard, but none of us cared. The view was too good to pass up.
We ended the night with some cake and an ice cream bar that Joe was super excited about. We even got some photos of him and Alyssa working the ice cream bar. They were such an amazing couple to work with and we are currently hard at work going through the huge amount of photos we took and editing together all of the video taken throughout the day. We can’t wait to show them all the memories of their day together and with family and friends!
