Renault Winery Resort and Golf Wedding Photographer

Thank you Shannon and Charley for taking the time to answer all my wedding photographer questions.

What was your most anticipated part of the day?

Shannon: Our ceremony. My brother was our officiant so I was very anxious to see what he had written for our ceremony. He killed it by the way, it was amazing!

Charley: seeing Shannon walk down the aisle. There is something so magical about seeing your partner do “that walk”
Did anything unexpected happen? What was the outcome?

So during our rehearsal Charley was stung by a wasp. We continued on like nothing was really wrong but after fifteen minutes his whole face started to swell. Turns out Charley is allergic and we had no idea! So he was taken in am ambulance to the emergency room the night before our wedding. He missed our whole rehearsal dinner. The nurses were very kind and tried everything in their power to reduce the swelling on his face so he’d be looking his best for our wedding day. Charley was released late that night with instructions and medications. The next morning Charley felt great!! We got so lucky all the swelling was gone and he was feeling so much better.

What ended up being your favorite part of the day?

Shannon: getting to see everyone who came to celebrate our love. We had people from all over come and the fact they came to celebrate US is an indescribable feeling.
Charley: I don’t think I can pick a favorite part. The whole thing was so incredible from our first look down to our afterparty in a speakeasy.

What advice would you give to future couples for their wedding? Don’t take things too seriously and try to have fun. Small details you think are important now are definitely not.
I also tried to have a Plan B for a lot of things so that when something did go wrong I was already prepared with an alternative option. It helped keep me calm knowing that even Plan B I had picked so I’d still be OK with what ever it was.

Were you nervous? How did you squash the nerves?

Shannon: Omg Yes! I cry when people sing Happy Birthday to me so I was terrified of having literally everyone’s eyes on me. I had a friend sit on Charley’s family side of the ceremony and at one point I locked eyes with her before solely focusing on Charley. Just that brief moment was enough for me to collect myself and power through.

Charley: YES! My health scare the night before just really rattled me. But I had an Epi-pen in my pocket and just focused on Shannon. Knowing that I waited so long for her to walk down the aisle and seeing that she wasn’t panicking kept me in check.

What was the biggest surprise on your wedding day?

Shannon: the weather! We were gifted the most incredible weather!! Who would have thought that early November would have a 78 degree day! Even the clouds were the coolest patterns and colors so it just made the atmosphere feel so much more romantic.

Charley: Honestly the biggest surprise was how smoothly everything went. There are so many variables and places for things to go tragically wrong but our venue ran like a well oiled machine keeping everything going in the right direction. Our vendors were amazing and went above and beyond for us.

What was your wedding inspiration? We just knew we didn’t want white. We love color, especially fall colors so those really carried us through a lot of our decor and details. Anyone who knows Charley and I also knows we love Halloween, skeletons, etc so to have a couple of skeleton elements such as on our invitation was amazing.

What song did you walk down the aisle to?

An acoustic mashup of The Anthem by Good Charlotte, I’m Just a Kid by Simple Plan and Dear Maria by All Time Low

What song played for your first dance?

I See the Light – Mandy Moore (Tangled Soundtrack)

Tell me about some of your favorite wedding details and how you came up with them!

We have fur children so we incorporated our pets almost everywhere we could. We had prints made of all of them (two dogs and three cats) and framed. We scattered them around the venue so they filled in empty spaces and every time you looked in another direction you saw another pet. All three cats even got to be our signature cocktails. We did donuts for favors for our guests so we even had donut shaped dog treats made so people could bring home a “doggy bag” for their furry friends as well.

Any advice for those couples planning their wedding now? Do not feel obligated to follow tradition! We did a lot of things that were not considered traditional and it just helped make the day feel more like us. Let your personalities shine through in all the details and it will make everything feel so much better. Don’t do something just because its “tradition.” We axed the garter toss and the bouquet toss immediately. We also did group entrances for our wedding party instead of individual or in couples. Do thing things because you want to, not because you feel forced to.

How did you feel at the end of the day? So unbelievably loved! No one ever tells you how incredible that feeling is knowing everyone is there to celebrate you and love you

What are you most looking forward to as a married couple?

Shannon: being united as a team forever. Charley is now my forever teammate and partner in things and I cant wait to see what life throws at us especially knowing he’s by my side.
Charley: just continuing to share and experience life together. No one can predict what’s next but I am excited to do anything and everything in life with Shannon

What did you like most about working with Unforgettable Expressions Wedding Photographer?

We loved how easy and relaxed working with Unforgettable Expressions was. From our very first phone call meeting we loved that our personalities matched. Meeting for our engagement pictures was a bit anxious but that’s normal when you meet someone for the first time but Andrew did a great job as giving us direction and having fun with us which in turn helped us relax for better photos. We left there that day so happy and excited. Between the engagement shoot and wedding day his communication was on point. Whenever we had a question he always had a prompt response. Wedding day came and it was still just as much fun. Being heavily photographed was part of what made us nervous but working with this team easily helped squash those nerves. Charley, me and even the whole wedding party just continuously laughed through our photo session. Andrew was also very flexible as we forgot to add things to our shot list but he had no problem making them happen for us.

Renault Winery Resort and Golf Wedding Photographer