travel on the cheap

holy cows, guys!

i've been booking travel for some out of town weddings i have this summer (one in columbus, one in indianapolis). i live fewer than 10 miles from portsmouth, so...

www.skybus.com is my new best friend! i do not feel guilty asking someone to drive me 20 mins to the airport. and my roundtrip ticket to columbus in may was only $106!

so...my friend suggested that for the indianapolis trip, i should fly skybus again and then take megabus. (dot com) i was a little skeptical, because budget airlines are a hassle, and then to take a 3 hour bus ride after flying...blugh. worth the money i'd save? so...i pretended to make a reservation, and then megabus told me that my fare would be $2.50. ROUNDTRIP.

dudes. that. is. AWESOME!

Nick & Katie

I went to college with Nick. We were in the same literature class, and I was always impressed and mildly intimidated by how successfully cerebral he was. I say successful, because I'm sure you've met intellectual people that just kind of...weren't quite right. They were either obnoxiously pretentious, or completely inaccessible, but not in an appealing, mysterious way. Anyway...he was cool.

Then we were both youth sponsors at the same youth group. That church was awesome...they took care of their youth sponsors, thusly, Nick and I found ourselves members of a group given our professors' full blessing to take an entire week off classes to accompany some high schoolers down to Florida. We were driving buddies. And neither of us had driven a 15 passenger van before. So, given our level of experience, the powers that were determined we were clearly the most suited to drive one of the two (of 3 or 4) vans with trailors on the back. Nick and I did not concur. It was very unnerving, but...we made it to Florida and back sans incident.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that Nick found his girl. And she's great. And they asked me to come to Indiana to photograph their wedding. When he told me they were having a HOG ROAST reception on a FARM...I practically started salivating. Oh the possibilities! (One major disappointment...the hog was not in...photogenic...condition when I arrived. Unless you consider shredded pork in big white coolers photogenic.)


they got married at St. Matthew's Church in South Bend.





I'd done a family session the evening before with some other college friends, and we discovered an amazing location just a few minutes drive from the church. Nick and Katie were up for a detour for the entire wedding party.


yeah, they're giving me "blue steele", "magnum", and "le tigre". (The one groomsmen had never seen Zoolander! I thought it was kind of a requirement for all guys who were in college around the time it came out, but...I was wrong.)




Nick's nephews were really shy...none of my normal "get kids to smile" strategies were working, so...I asked them to make farting noises. I mean, they're young boys, right? GUARANTEED to make them giggle. The little one in the middle wasn't having any of it. He just kept staring right through me. Finally he busted out with this:

and it cracks me up, because he's still so SERIOUS about it!


Nick and I have sort of kept in touch since college...so I saw photos of him and Katie on his blog, and they were always wearing sunglasses. So I begged him to bring them on their wedding day.


there were lots of kids at the wedding...they had a giant trampoline and even set up a slip'n'slide for them. Brilliant. This is Nick's niece, and I'm not sure, but I think it's possible she's the cutest little girl who's ever lived.


um. I love this. so much.




this is my friend Sam. It was nice to take a few minutes and sit down with my iced tea and catch up. He drooled over my awesome lens.








I REALLLLLY wanted to get them up on that tractor, so I could hardly contain my glee when Nick expressed the same desire.


my favorite!


The amazing Carol, who opened her home/land to them and worked UNCEASINGLY behind the scenes to make sure everything went smoothly. They were so lucky to have her. She'd recently gotten married and said she didn't have any nice photos of the two of them, so I made sure I grabbed a couple.


(I should probably take photos of me w/ the bride and groom at some point BEFORE the end of the day...Let me tell you...after 6 hours outside in 90-ish degree weather...laying on the ground, climbing around tractors and the like, my hair is...well, it's remarkable that it doesn't look worse, let's just say that. :-D)

Nick and Katie, I had SO much fun. Thanks again from bringing me out to join the party. I pray an amazing and blessed marriage for you two.

(The rest of my favorites are here.)

accountability

so, I need some help! My to-do list is so unbelievably long...and that includes SIX weddings I need to post here. My goal is to post one wedding per day for the rest of the week...if I don't do it, harass me! gwynethcolleenphotography [at] yahoo [dot] com.

I had an amazing time in Indiana, and the 7.7.07 photos are...well, they're a treat. Definitely worth the wait. I've done a LOT of traveling; I love to travel. I started when I was still in high school, and my first few overseas trips I packed in my dad's seabag that he used to take on submarine trips. They're like giant green canvas tubes that are sewn up at one end...not really strategic for compartmentalizing things for easy access. After a couple years of that, I switched to a regular duffel bag. The year I lived in New Zealand, I figured I was technically "backpacking", so I bought a nice internal frame pack. At least it had pockets. I never once used a rolling suitcase...figured since I was doing the travel-on-a-budget, explore the unseen corners of the world type of travel, I should sort of "rough it" a bit.

I'm over that.

If rolling suitcases=air conditioned rooms with fluffy pillows and fruity mixed drinks out on the terrace...I'm soooo ready to be that kind of traveler. With an occasional side trip to the open air markets for street food. Being a photographer means that I cannot go anywhere without at least 5 bags hanging off of my two shoulders. People regularly ask me, "can I help you with that?" I always laugh, wave them off and say, "I do this every weekend!" And I do, but my shoulders/neck/back are starting to gently suggest, "you know, it wouldn't kill you to let them take the laptop."

All that to say--I may be looking for my first rolling suitcase this week. Once I can stand up straight again. And stay tuned for updates. I've got a lot of them up my sleeve.