A bad day in the office

The date is June 18th 2021 at 6:30am its wet and chilly outside. The sound of metal poles colliding overlaps the chirping of birds in this beautiful garden. My colleague (Mike) and I have travelled to the central part of Kenya to shoot a wedding after a 6month drought caused by covid, we are super excited we planned how we are to spend the money a month earlier.

Watching the events team bolt to erect tents as the 8:00am guest arrival time nears I tell Mike to prepare the equipment as I go for the wedding dress so we can take photos of it hanging on the beautiful trees. 

The bride hands me a garment bag with the wedding dress and I walk back to the garden as I overhear her brag about the imported dress to her bridesmaids which cost her a fortune. Mike has already setup the equipment he helps me with the dress which must have weighed 50 pounds. I unzip the garment bag and the top half of the dress springs out landing on the wet ground...

Kids playing around witness the event and suddenly freeze. The breast section of the dress had Swarovski crystals now we are staring at chocolate marbles. We have messed up. Mike quickly takes off his soak, wets and gives it to me to wipe off the mad, I try but my hand is shaking. The soak is only spreading the brown on white so I rush back indoors to ask for a clean wet cloth and I get the bride all suspicious.

She’s getting her hair done she can’t get out to confirm her suspicions instead she directs one of the bridesmaids to give me her heels and the rings for photos too. I walk back to the garden with the shoes and rings but no wet cloth, Mike stares at me like a suicide bomber approaching with a detonator.

After a back n forth with my colleague we give the dress a 10minute ruthless scrub. We fall short of the original white and end up with cream, better right? we convince ourselves it doesn’t look that bad. Maybe the women inside will have a better solution. We only take two pictures and bundle it back into the garment bag in a hurry to take it back inside. By now am so impressed with the kids for not giving us away even though in my mind I know there’s going to be fireworks when she sees it.

Back in the garden we take our time with the shoes, pictures from different angles then the rings on the flowerbed. I try something I saw the previous night scrolling through YouTube, hanging the rings around flower branches and as I pull back for a shot, one of the rings falls into the thick flowerbed and disappears…

Its 7:00am the temperature is about 10 degrees outside and we look like we’ve been working out since 4am. We’ve uprooted a couple of flowers in search and now we’re not sure if we’ve buried the ring or misplaced it further.

A bridesmaid comes calling, we have to take breakfast and be ready to shoot the bride as she puts on her dress and sit for make-up.  We look very worried making an effort to smile until she decides to take the shoes and ask for the rings…

Mike responds after a suspicious silence; “we still have to take more shots after breakfast”. luckily, she doesn’t insist. We weigh our options as we follow her to the house. The event venue is more than 100 kilometers from the nearest town where they could buy a substitute ring incase the original disappears for good, almost 2hour drive. Maybe we should just abandon ship and disappear when the bride and her maids are dressing up. 

We are seated on the dining table having a quick one and we can’t help but hear the conversations by the bridal team, the plans for the big day we might just have ruined. It gets more uncomfortable when the bride starts to talk highly of my professionalism after checking out my reel which convinced her to hire me. She seems calm but there’s something in her voice that says she’s not one to cross.

Its 7:30am, the bridal team escort the bride to her room, now its only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. Should we take this opportunity to disappear? As we silently wait to hear screams a group of kids come running into the house calling out the bride “look what we found” it’s the ring.

Sigh of relief. We promise the Kids candy after the wedding, take the ring and send them away before they make it worse for us. We feel much better, we convince ourselves even if the bride erupts on seeing her dress, at least the wedding will still happen.

We await…

8:00am ululations coming from the bride’s room, the suddenness makes my heart race. After the long wait they come out singing, we exchange looks with Mike, no complain? she’s in the dress and the breast is still cream.

As we take pictures, I act stupid and ask about the stain. “some make-up got to it” we exchange looks with Mike. that reply gets me back to the mood I was in before the job began.

The event proceeds as planned just like any other wedding until we get to the reception.

Like all the African weddings in Africa, the reception has a lot of dancing, covering the event you need to be more aggressive to capture breathtaking moments and there I was, motivated.

The music is singing loud and wine is flowing red. The newly weds lead the dance followed by the bridal team and the guests they go around the cake lost in the moment.

I track the newlyweds taking shots as I move back to pave way for their moving train, they keep getting close before I can frame a good shot so I decide on long strides back and I slip and fall on the cake.