Bend Wedding Photography: Samantha and Rob and Rock Springs Ranch

An unexpected portfolio wedding

Samantha and Rob's wedding at Rock Springs Ranch was unexpectedly fun. They're the classic example of creating a fun wedding with being fun themselves and being surrounded with great friends and family. It always starts with the couple. They're surrounded with fun people. Put them together in a beautiful environment with a celebration of love and happiness with some good music and a few beers: fun happens.

The reason why this was unexpectedly fun was I never worked with Samantha and Rob. Her dad called me, signed me up, had me send them the pictures. Before and after the wedding I never interacted with them. It's the only wedding this has ever happened. I never knew if they enjoyed the pictures, printed any, or shared any online. They didn't really want any portraits of themselves. I really had to cajole them into doing just a couple portraits. My feeling is maybe people don't want portraits in the beginning, but might be wanting them after a few years. So I always try for a couple portraits. The Profoto light really puts the portraits into a different level and it might be the only time people can have them done like this.

I loved this wedding. It was a portfolio wedding I shared as a complete wedding online on one of my old websites before changing to the new way of doing weddings and emphasizing prints and albums. The new system of doing weddings would insure they had prints and I would see firsthand if they enjoyed the pictures. These pictures live on in my new Bend Wedding Photographers website and now the blog.

Perhaps I loved it because seeing them with their friends, remembering the story of how they met, and knowing they loved going out dancing and having a good time reminded me of my life in San Francisco with friends. That personal connection and understanding of personalities overcame the fact that I never knew them before or after their wedding.

I hope they've continued this happiness and stayed knowing these people. If they or any of their friends ever see this post I would love to know how they're doing.

The final cut on this wedding was over 500 photos. Cutting it down to 25 for the example of what would be on the wall for couples to enjoy was a tough edit. Here they are to give an example of what they would've seen.