Today is completely dedicated to recovery from yesterday’s big wedding shoot (14 hours of running around holding heavy equipment) and backing up all 18.5GBs or so of photos from three cameras. My own backup system for photography includes DVDs, external drives, and meticulous labelling, which takes literally hours but gives me complete peace of mind that nothing is lost. I also do incremental backups to save my edits. Shooting is the fast part — post-processing takes days (weeks if you include having a full-time job and a social life) and I would cry if I lost all my editing.

Before I continue, I need to give a big shout out to Chris dela Fuente [Chris’s Flickr photo stream] of Pixel3 Photography, who assisted me yesterday and without whom I would not have a full capture of the day that was Lauren and Peter’s wedding because I couldn’t be in two places at once! I assigned Chris the shooting of the groomsmen, and put him in charge of shooting long with the 70-200mm at the church while I shot wide with the 17-35mm. I loved working with Chris and I’m excited to show you our collaborative efforts for yesterday’s nuptials. [Update: some of Chris’s photos from the day can be found here. I’ll be processing some of his, too, which you can find in my set of the day.]

While I do all the boring backup stuff, I’ll give you a tiny preview of the pre-wedding activities in reverse order. (Click on the pics to view fuller descriptions, notes, and comments in Flickr.)

SATURDAY MORNING:

All the bridal prep took place in a hotel room, including hair and makeup, so I spent Saturday morning shooting the ladies. Let the merrymaking begin! [Bigger]

Bridal party? We’ll show you a bridal party!

I don’t think it’s possible to have more fun with a bridal party in a hotel room before a wedding than we had. I was laughing so hard I nearly fell off the bed!

FRIDAY NIGHT:

Taken at the wedding rehearsal Friday night with the rented Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR that I just picked up an hour or so before. WOW, that lens is sharp — I’m on the balcony at the back of the church, and this is handheld! [Bigger]

It’s a good thing I rented the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens for the weekend. (I also rented the 17-35mm f/2.8, which shot this photo.) I went to the wedding rehearsal on Friday night to talk to the minister and he relegated the photography to the balcony or the back of the church ONLY. No flash, nor could I move forward from the back row of the congregation except for one photo of the signing of the registry.

(The 70-200mm f/2.8 is amazing, by the way. I don’t want to give it back. I already knew the 17-35mm f/2.8 is great because I borrowed one a few weeks ago to shoot Fancy and Rod’s wedding in Vancouver.)

Lots more photos to come after I finish backing them all up!