Immediately after the ceremony, the bridal party ensconced themselves in an empty room within of the gazebo and waited for the guests to head for the reception. Next on the schedule were family photos. While we waited, I captured a few images of the Newlyweds.
For this image, I used only the ambient side light coming from the window because of the warm, intimate feel the light bestowed.
I used my Gary Fong dome diffuser over the flash for this quick shot of Maegan and the Boyz.
Family photos done, the bridal party remained for a few more photos.
I stayed glued to the bride and groom and photographed them as they took the stairs down to the reception area.
This is one of my favorite images. For this photo, I used only the ambient light and bumped up the camera’s ISO to 1000. Shutter was 1/40 and the aperture was f4 on my 5D Mark III. I then used a vignette-spotlight preset from OnOne’s Perfect Effects plug in to brighten the area around the couple. No, that preset did not create that yellow spotlight – the yellow light was already there. The preset simply created a brighter area around Josh & Megan while lightly vignetting the rest of the image.
For the remainder of the reception, I focused mainly on getting candid shots and those little accents (like the table setting) that flesh out the character of the reception.
Fixing the bride’s bustle so she could dance and move around with a little more ease.
The bride and groom dancing in the bokeh’d background with focus on the table setting.
The awesome band.
The next dance after the First Dance was especially for the bride’s daughter. The song was “Aint No Mountain High Enough”.
Hava Nagila!
While I of course captured the prerequisite images of the First Dance, the father-daughter dance, the mother-son dance, the toasts, and the cake (and cake cutting), I knew the bride and groom would want lots of photos of their guests having fun and the two of them having fun alongside their guests, as you can see from the photos above.
Reception photos can be problematic because receptions – as a rule – are low-light affairs. Flash is usually called for. I, on the other hand, don’t like using flash as much as using the available light. For the reception, though, the only real light came from the candles and lit lanterns on the tables and a large, drape of material embedded with lights. So, I used both flash and ambient light, with ISOs anywhere from 2000 to 6400. Yes, I had to use a noise reduction plug-in (although at times I used Lightroom’s noise reduction sliders instead of my plug-in software – Lightroom’s noise reduction is not too bad, actually).
My feet were hurting (damned those beautiful patent leather shoes) so I was sitting at one of the tables, happily snapping away at the bride’s daughter who was happily swirling about the dance floor with her dress billowing around her. She turned to me and blew me a kiss.
I am guilty of taking quite a few photos of the bride’s 6-year old daughter. She was a fun (and funny) little girl who enjoyed herself every bit as much as the adults.
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Where The Trails Take You Photography 
beautiful beautiful pics! I specially love the ones fo the little girl and the one of the bride and groom kissing on the stairs.