Aaron and me on our wedding day. Photo by Benja Iglesis.

Remember the story about my wedding cupcake snafu? How it went from bad to amazing, all without my knowledge. You know, the thing that taught me that things won’t go according to plan, but if you sit back and let the cards fall where they may, you may end up happier with the results than the original plan? Well, this next wedding snafu when from bad to worse and I was painfully and fully aware of the bad-ness the entire time. This time the situation did not miraculously sort itself out, thereby making me happier. This time, three years later, I am still upset by the ruined wedding plan. BUT! … it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

My mom hired the wedding photographer. He wasn’t my first choice, he wasn’t even my second or third, but my wonderful parents were footing the bill, so really, my mother had final say. And, as I suspected, he was AWFUL. Long story short: he treated my weird and wacky Maui wedding like a traditional wedding, put us through all the same tired poses, not even trying to learn our names, and for some reason telling us NOT to smile over and over again. He just didn’t get “us.” He became so unbearable that I actually ended up firing him. Nothing too dramatic, I just had my Day-Of coordinator tell him, “thank you for time, you can leave now” after all the formals were taken.

Me and my secret backup photographer, Benja.

Thankfully, I had implemented a back-up: my good buddy, a wedding guest who just happened to be an amazing professional photographer, mades sure to bring his camera. So we instituted Plan B and he took over — both, partying it up AND capturing all the moments beautifully.

When I got home, and got the photos from the professional we hired, I lost it. The photos were crap, my parents had wasted good money on this guy and got NOTHING to show for it except for a grumpy bride and groom, and whatever the hell is going on in THIS photo:

Seriously, what the hell IS that!? It looks like I’m trying to take food out of Aaron’s mouth, baby bird-style. I assure you, there was no transfer of partially chewed up food during the portrait session, no matter what you see before you. I think when the photographer was trying to get the sun to “burst between our lips” something went weird with the special effects. Thankfully, that photographer friend I mentioned was hanging around and snapped an amazing photo of us at nearly that same moment.

And then it hit me. Instead of wallowing in this bad experience, I should DO something about it. So I took my photography hobby, that mainly focused on shooting musicians and live music shows, and expanded it to include weddings. I would make sure that, as much as I could help it, NO other offbeat brides looking for a photographer would have a bad experience. And so, I shot my first wedding and it was terrifying and exciting and FUN! Those clients became good friends of mine. (I went on to shoot their maternity session a year later. Awww.) And then another wedding and another wedding — having a blast the whole time and collecting the most amazing group of friends and clients.

Me shooting a wedding.

I went from a hobby photographer who said that she’d NEVER do weddings, to shooting weddings on a professional level and loving it. And all because I had a horrible wedding day experience.

Yup, three years later I do still have a lot of crappy wedding photos and some painful portrait session memories, but I also have my own freaking business. So, would I change anything? Even though I want to say, “YES! I want tons of amazing wedding photos like I had planned! I want my family to have not wasted money!” The answer is actually NO, I wouldn’t change a thing, because I like where I am today all because of that ruined wedding plan.