In the middle of the busy summer wedding season, I boarded a plane for San Francisco, set to photograph a simple wedding at the San Francisco city hall (which is on my Photography Bucket List). However, just a few days before I left, the couple had decided to call off the wedding. I was really looking forward to shooting at the city hall and I had already booked my flight, so in the end, I decided to go and try to make the best out of the situation.
On the day the wedding was supposed to take place, I headed to city hall anyway. I figured that many couples get married here everyday, maybe one of them won’t have a photographer and I could offer my services. This sounds easy but at the same time, I felt very awkward about it. It felt way worse than doing cold calling when I first started in photography. In the end, after some hesitation, I told myself that the worst that can happen is they’d say “no”. The first couple I approached did just that. Oh well, their loss ;) Then I decided to head to the registration office where each couple has to go and waited around. Finally I approached another couple, explained my story and they said yes! Perhaps what I got out of the most from this trip wasn’t the photos themselves, but learning how to make the most out of perhaps what was not an ideal situation.
