theGAUPERSblog » trash the dress / dirt don’t hurt

Wedding Pool Party!

Holly — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:51:15 +0000

Remember Brandon & Angela’s Engagement Session? Remember that epic tree shot?! Ahhh we love these people!

So many people get lost in the wedding jungle of traditions and what you “should do”. Should you jump in the pool with your wedding dress on? Lots of people would say No, put it in a giant tupperware to preserve it’s freshness! It will inevitably get pushed to the dark and mystical place in the back of the refrigerator and never seen again. Why not actually get some use out of the dress, have some fun and do it in front of our cameras. :)

I do understand that not everyone would do this at the end of their actual wedding. However, you can always do a DIRT DON’T HURT shoot with us! Just click on that link for more info about that. If you want to totally trash your dress, well we sure would love to do that! However, we do know that not everyone is so gutsy to completely ruin it but still would love for some more creatively free photos in their dress. It is the best of both worlds really. :)

Anyways, back to the wedding… We were working till 10:30pm that night but decided to stay around a little longer. Then, they come up to us and tell us that the whole wedding party wants to jump in the pool at midnight and wondered if we would stay. I didn’t believe them at first but…ummm…yes, yes we will. It was a loonnng day, but it’s good to go the extra mile sometimes.

There were 19 people in their wedding party. I was prepared for a splash, but didn’t really think about the flooding of the whole floor when all those people jumped it. It was awesome.

I wanted to take some slow motion video of it, but it all happened so fast and I didn’t have time. However, one of the guests got it on video which shows what it was really like in that area…which is dark, haha. Thank goodness Ryan’s a total nerd when it comes to lighting. :) The video is at the very bottom.

Ok everyone listen! It’s on Ryan’s count. 1, standing. 2, bend at the knees. 3, lift off and jump!

Ok look at the guy who is the second person to the right of the bride. His hands are up and he is vertical as he takes off in the left photo. Then, in the right his legs are up and forward. Now, I wonder… how is this guy not dead? If you look at where the edge of the pool is and how his legs are facing forward in the air, how did he not bash his brains in on the side is beyond me! I’m glad nobody got hurt…because that takes the fun out of everything.

I so wish we could have done more with just Brandon and Angela in the pool but the manager was getting really ticked since midnight was closing time for the pool I guess. Either way, I’m really happy with what we got, it was a lot of fun!

I am really excited to get started on their wedding so you should see another post about the more dry part of their wedding day coming soon!

Dirt don’t hurt push! :: (trash the dress)

Ryan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:49:25 +0000

Hey Guys!

We have been trying to work our way into the “Trash the Dress” but to Gauperize it a little bit we are calling it a “dirt don’t hurt” shoot. Mainly because you don’t have to completely trash your dress to have another shoot in it! You can trash it if you want, but the bigger benefit is that we can do whatever and take you wherever and it’s ok if your dress gets a little dirty or dusty.

This could even be a good way for people that didn’t get great bride and groom shots on their actual wedding to have a re-do. Hey we did! See?

We can get some crazy awesome shots when we have the time to do so, which makes us very excited for the possibilities! You can watch a video we put together of a behind the scene look at the session, and at the end they talk a little bit about wheat it’s like. View that video, and the sweet images HERE

We could even just do a regular couples shoot, if you never got engagements, or just want some updated pictures, the same prices would be extended.

So break out the dress (or not) and lets make some magic!! Here’s a little more info about what we offer for that kind of thing:

5 Star:

-2.5 hour session

-10×10 Hinged Album (see album info here)

-Free 8×12 with $250 or more print order

$750

4 Star:

-1.5 hour session

-Free 8×12 with $150 or more print order

$450

Extras: High-Res Disk of all images with printing rights $400

So we really hope we could get you guys out again and have some fun, so let us know if you would be interested! ryan@gauperphoto.com

Bride and Groom RE-dos :: theGAUPERS :: by McVay Vision

Ryan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:47:49 +0000

Soooo I was just writing a post about how we don’t get through a whole wedding without someone telling us, “I wish we could re-do our wedding and have you guys as the photographers!” And then when I said you CAN re-do them, we did! See? At which point I would make that a link to show how we did some bride and groom re-do shots, only to find I never did a post about that! So let me do that now =)

Our good friend Vince of McVay Vision Photography was kind enough to trade us this session for a family session (which we still need to do) And though we aren’t the easiest subjects… OK I am not the easiest, Holly is pretty great. I thought we got some reaaaally fun and cool shots. Have a look!

Starting with probably my favorite picture of us that we have!

This is what we call a happy-smirky … Holly pulls it off beautifully as you can see.

How smokin’ hot is Holly in this image?

After many attempts, I think I did ok =)

Vince said he had a sweet idea, and for some reason I doubted his “McVay Vision” p.s. sorry vince ;)

Alas I was wrong… and it was awesome!

Did I mention it was November when we were doing this thus it was feepin’ freezing! So we retreated to a garage that I happened to make a studio. =)

Vince was feeling left out of all the fun we were having so I give you Vince: The man, the legend, the crazy.

It was a ton of fun, and we think you all could have some fun with us doing the same thing! Thanks to Vince for the great shots, can’t wait to do some family time!!

Hupfer :: {dirt don’t hurt} + questionable video… :)

Holly — Sat, 01 May 2010 21:08:26 +0000

Remember the hupfers? We shot their wedding last August and it was one of the craziest things I have ever experienced. When we planned out this big 3 month trip we knew we wanted to see san francisco and to visit with the hupfers so we planned to stay a few days there and trash her dress.

The shoot I had in mind did not exactly work out. Since we were in China and Hawaii for so long it was kind of hard to find a hair stylist and makeup artist since there was always so much going on. So when we got back I desperately tried to find one but nobody was available. So, I did it myself and since I know nothing about such things really…I think I did a pretty decent job! It was also helpful that I brought along my wig as well. :)

So, we set out to trash the dress and that didn’t happen. Why… You must be thinking.

At their wedding we had at most 10 minutes to do their bride and groom photos. It was frantic and for what we usually deliver, there just wasn’t as many as we would have liked. This is why we really try and keep on schedule for weddings because its so sad when we can’t do all the cool things we like to do. So I figured since we are trashing the dress, we should do some not-so-trash the dress stuff first to make up for what we didn’t get at the wedding.

The not-so-trash part just kept being awesome and we ran out of time. I wanted to do like a 10 hour shoot to get it all done but we were all exhausted and overslept which pushed us back a bit. At the end of the day I didn’t want to do the ideas we had to trash it and not do them right because lack of light and time. I want to do this dress justice so we decided to call it a day. However, WE WILL trash that dress! It’s just going to be on our next visit. By then, we will be able to plan more ahead of time and really do some awesome things. She is willing to just 100% destroy this thing and to be honest, I feel honored that she is letting us be the ones to do it. :) It’s going to be epic and I can’t wait to get back to San Francisco to make it all happen!

From this, I learned some things. Many brides don’t get a ton of photos on their wedding. We sure try and deliver as many and as much variety as we possibly can, but at the same time, your being so careful with the dress and its such a busy day that it’s just a different kind of day. Then, after the wedding, a lot of brides would freak out at the idea of “trashing” their wedding dress. To be honest, steph’s dress really should have been trashed. We dragged it around all day, sat in things, stepped all over it, ect. and got some awesome pictures…without trashing it and without being nervous about destroying it. This is when we came up with the idea of a “Dirt Dont’ Hurt” shoot. All the things done to steph’s dress can be cleaned, and that includes all the mess that was on it from her reception.

So…all other brides past, present and future… If your terrified of the trash the dress idea but want more awesome photos, perhaps you should consider a dirt don’t hurt shoot with us. :) It’s a fun way to get some more use out of your dress, accessorize crazier than you would at your wedding and get your hair and makeup done.

AND… a big thanks to Nic for helping us out with our lights and helping out all day and Soma Sofa for letting us shoot in their AMAZING furniture store!