2018 has been a crazy year with last minute wedding bookings and starting off the new school semester by flying to Mexico to shoot Amanda & Maxime’s wedding. In total, I had 3 weddings to shoot in September while also starting the second semester of Photography School.  

This was going to be my first destination wedding. My sister offered to be my trusty assistant so we flew out together. Our bags were packed with tons of cameras and lenses. The batteries alone weighed over a kilo! I needed backups and then backups for my backups for everything because I knew there would be no thing nearby if any equipment stopped working.I was pleasantly surprised to find out that photographers travelling to shoot a destination wedding get an extra 10 kg of carry-on allowance for their equipment on Sunwing Airlines. The flight went swimmingly. They did question me at security as to why I was bringing so many umbrellas though.

We landed at Cancun Airport and had a private bus waiting for the whole group. The resort was a short 15 minute drive from the airport which meant less time sitting on the bus and more time sipping gin & tonics at the beach. Royalton Riviera is the fanciest resort I have ever been to. The food was amazing. Their Mexican restaurant served the best tacos I have ever had. The resort also had a gelato and coffee shop where you could get iced cappuccinos. There’s also a steakhouse and a Caribbean restaurant.

Max and Amanda had the craziest group of friends. It made for some very silly memories during the week and some great group photos. The wedding day was a rough 10 hours of shooting.

Unfortunately, it rained before the ceremony so everything was moved indoors. The rain had stopped just in time for us to go out on the beach after the ceremony to take all the family photos and group photos. We had just enough time for some intimate shots of the newly weds before the sun set. There was a quick 15 minute break to set up the lights at the reception before dinner and speeches. The rest of the evening was a blur.

Luckily, I was able to sneak out with the bride and groom during the party for some intimate backlit night shots of them. I finally got back to the hotel room around midnight and spent the next 2 hours backing up everything until 2 am. One copy in the room safe and one copy that stayed with me at all times! What can I say, I’m a little paranoid and take no risk when it comes to my clients’ photos.

Being a photographer truly means getting to live out your dreams and I cannot thank these two enough for trusting me on their special day and flying me to Mexico to celebrate with them.