Traveling

I have been blessed with a fantastic job that allows me to travel around the world photographing weddings. As I am packing today for Riveria Maya, Mexico, I wanted to blog a little bit about traveling since I have been fortunate enough to be traveling so often the last several months.

There is no real outline to this blog, just some random thoughts and tips for anyone that might be traveling in the future.

In roughly the last year I have photographed a wedding or vacationed to: Las Vegas, Nevada, Puerto Rico, Aruba, The Bahamas, I am heading to Riveria Maya Cancun Mexico tomorrow, and Las Vegas again on Sunday, also will be photographing a wedding in Aspen Colorado in March, and lastly will be shooting in Cabo San Lucas Mexico in May.

Here are a handful of my travel Tips:

-Print out any itinerary you may have with flight numbers, boarding times, and lay overs, also hotels, shuttle/transportation, and highlight anything that is important like phone numbers or addresses for your taxi or bus driver.

-Most of the time I think the two hour rule before traveling is bogus, however being a little less stressed by having to sit at your gate for an hour and a half is better than being stressed and having to run to your plane. I have seen people sleeping on their chairs waiting to board the plane, and I have also been in the jetway waiting to board and a couple people come into the jetway panting like they just ran a mile.

-So to ease the stress of being late, show up a few hours early and get to your gate and relax

-When you go through a security check point at an airport, wear slip on shoes, or sandals obviously if it's warm enough, but know that you have to take off your shoes, and if you have a baggy sweatshirt or jacket of any type you have to take that off as well.

Obviously take off any watches, empty your pockets of everything, and its funny because some people that I see go through, they forget to take off their watch and empty their pockets..It saves time if you go to the checkpoint READY.

So, have your shoes off before you get to the line, have your sweatshirt or jacket off, don't wear a belt unless you need to, and if you do wear one, take that off before you get to the line, have your laptop out of its case.

-This one is crucial...DO NOT ARGUE WITH TSA...YOU WILL NOT WIN. I see people trying to argue with TSA members all the time, YOU ARE REDICULOUS-DO NOT ARGUE YOU WILL NOT WIN THAT ARGUEMENT.

-Bring an ipod with a movie on it and some good music to listen to or watch on your flight, if you dont have the ability to pass out on every flight like I do, bring your ipod or MP3 player.

**ANOTHER BIG ONE** BRING A SET OF MEMORY FOAM EAR PLUGS they are under $2 at Target or Wal-Mart. Plan for the worst of having to sit next to a newborn or infant child that is crying, screaming, yelling the whole flight..You will sleep much better not being able to hear them. EAR PLUGS

-If you get motion sickness like my lovely wife, or just want to pass out and sleep for your entire flight....Take 5-7 shots of Tequila just before you board your plane..NO IM JUST KIDDING...Get some tylenol PM or dramamine and take two of them 15 minutes before take off, you will sleep through take off and wake up at landing :) Trust me, I've tried it.

-Lastly, I think traveling for the most part is NOT stressful for me, I love traveling. Going through security, customs, having all of my camera equipment searched, to be is not a big deal, give the airport employees a break ,they are doing their job to keep everyone safe. Take a load off, relax, be early, be prepared, and keep in mind that your plane isn't going anywhere without you, unless you are 10 minutes late for departure.

Off to Mexico for 4 days, then Vegas for 3, then coming home to finish packing and cleaning and my wife and I are moving to Hudson Wisconsin March 1st. Have a great week everyone, stay tuned for Mollie + Jesse - The Riveria Maya, Mexico Wedding and Trash the Dress.

Thanks for stopping by.

Casey + Dan - The Engagement

Casey and I go back to 6th grade, meeting at Sugar Creek Bible camp....That was forever ago. Casey went to Logan and I went to Holmen, and we always would see eachother through mutual friends at football games, or the good ol High Roller dances, but we kept in touch throughout the years and she has been keeping up with my photography on facebook. When that day came with Dan got down to one knee, I got a call :)

Casey and Dan came over to my place to talk details about their dream wedding day coming up so fast, this June at the Waterfront in La Crosse. They both wanted kind of a winter type engagement session and today could NOT have been a better day. My truck said 50 degrees and it was PERFECT day to photograph this wonderful couple.

You can almost hear Dan's laugh in the picture above.

Casey and Dan met for the first time playing cards at some friends house, so they brought a deck of cards for a portrait of how they met. Great idea to tell your story!
I had so much fun today photographing this couple, they were so in love, fun to be around, and FULL of laughs. Congrats to Casey and Dan on your engagement and I am so excited to be a part of your special day June 18, 2011!

Thanks for stopping by.

Craig + Shaenna - The Puerto Rico Wedding

Well here I am, back to Puerto Rico for the second time in less than two months for another amazing wedding. It was a completely different experience this time around for Craig and Shaenna’s big day, I've photographed weddings with guests counts from 150,225, 320, and even up to 600. Including me there was a total of twelve (12) people in Puerto Rico for Craig and Shaenna's special day. Their wedding was on the south eastern part of the Island at a little resort called Caribe Playa Beach Resort just south east of the small town Patillas. There was maybe 25 rooms at the resort and all of them were literally 10 yards away from the ocean.

They got married on Saturday, and was I down there Thursday to Monday. As the day started for me around 3PM, I grabbed Shaenna's dress for a couple quick shots of it, as she was relaxing before she got into it and started to do make up and last minute touch ups.

After her sister April, also maid of honor and her mom helped her into the dress, we went around the resort for a portrait session of just Shaenna.

The ceremony was at 5PM on the beach right next to the ocean infront of the resort, Craig's sister was the one preciding the ceremony and did a fantastic job. She did such a great job that we even had a couple winged friends watching from their piers catching some sun.

Shaenna's sister April was her maid of honor, and Craig's long time childhood friend Chad was his best man. I bunked with Chad, super great guy. We ate a lot of oreos, duritos watched some sportscenter and probably drank two cases of water in the couple days I was down there. AND thanks for not snoring Chad!

After the wedding we did the posed pictures of the entire group of 11, some individual family portraits, and then I took them down the beach a little ways for a session of just the two of them on their wedding day. Check out the video on the beach, the breeze was amazing.

Beach Video of Craig and Shaenna

After their session, dinner time. We had a fantastic meal of Chicken and Talapia which I heard both were AMAZING, ofcourse I had chicken, and then OBVIOUSLY had some wedding cake.

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Sunday - Trash the Dress

During the day, their whole group went to some gardens a couple hours away, and I relaxed on the beach until about 4PM when they got back and got ready for a short trash the dress session before the Superbowl.

For some people that don't know anything about Puerto Rico, I have heard from the natives there that in Puerto Rico there are more cars than people, not a lot of people follow any rules on the roads, they don't use blinkers, they don't move over for cop cars or ambulances and there are A LOT of motorcycles and mopeds. This last shot of the night was probably all three of our favorites. This road had a canopy over it of trees and made for a beautiful shot of it naturally framing Craig and Shaenna. However, as I just mentioned, more cars than people, this road was BUSY, BUSY, BUSY. We got the shot after two tries of having people honking at us and waiting for a gap from both ways of traffic to get it so there wasn't any breaklights or headlights in the shot.

Now, time for the superbowl, we all crowded into Chad and my hotel room because we had the biggest TV.....21 inches big! Had some pop and duritos and watched the big game. The only bummer was we didn't get to see much of the new commercials because every other commerical was in spanish, but in the end... SUPER BOWL 45 CHAMPS - GREEN BAY PACKERS

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Monday - Our trip back up to Old San Juan

This was probably one of the most fun adventures in a car I have had in a long time. To start the story I want you to go back up to the top image of the entire Island, and know that the airport is someplace around the letter D on the northern part of the Island. On the way in on Thursday, Craig asked me if I got car sick because the road we were going to go on was crazy curvy for about 20 miles after we got off one of the main highways. I was fine, but it seemed like it never ended. NO one wanted to go back that way because of how crazy the road was at 10-15 mph around the corners, so we found a new route back to San Juan which was to go West from the resort for 20 minutes or so to reach a main highway that goes straight North back up to San Juan.

Well.......as we left, we were on the right track on the green line below, and the green route was the original route we were supposed to take back to San Juan, around the mountain....Our navigator Chad with the map and our amazing driver Craig for some reason had some communication problems along with the GPS not knowing any good roads.... we took a wrong turn and took the route lined in RED, up the mountain..... and down the mountain... As you can see how crazy this road was. We thought we couldn't have found a worse road from our trip down to the resort, but we found a road worse... It was about 10 times worse and I am not lying, it was horrible.

We made it to San Juan safely and went to an old Fort which gaurded the city and was built in the early 1800's. It was amazing to see, and to look over Old San Juan. After we left the fort, we walked downtown Old San Juan and ate at a little restuarant before they took me back to the airport around 3Pm.

I had an amazing trip to Puerto Rico to photograph Craig + Shaenna - The Wedding. It was a pleasure getting to know their family and closest friends that made the trip. Staying up late sitting by the ocean talking with Chad and Craig, being able to watch the Superbowl, eating good food, and even wrestling Shaenna's Dad for an extra piece of wedding cake, I had such a great time.

Thanks to Craig and Shaenna for inviting me to be a part of your family for 5 days and allowing me to capture your special day. Congrats to the newly weds and to their families on your new editions to your family.

Craig and Shaenna's images will be posted on my website within three weeks to view and purchase. www.JaredLeeLLC.com - click on Order Images.

Thanks for stopping by.