Chelsea & Ben

A Sunny Private Country Intimate May Wedding in Paducah Ky

Let is be known that while I am a big fan of large weddings, there’s just something extra special about intimate weddings. Anyone who has had one, either by original intent or due to COVID19 (as was Chelsea & Ben’s case), will tell you that they don’t regret it for one moment. The day seems to flow in a more relaxed fashion, brides & grooms are more able to attend to and enjoy their guests, and the overall cost of the wedding is lower.

Chelsea & Ben’s original wedding date was May 16th but the state of Kentucky was still under strict household members only gathering so they pushed it to when they imagined they be able to have a few households gathering together – June 6th. Thankfully I had that date open and with the moving of the ceremony from the church to the yard of the reception venue, they were able to maintain social distancing for larger groups. COVID19 wasn’t about to ruin their wedding!

The only other hiccup during their wedding day was the heat. Do you remember last Saturday? Hottest day we’ve had yet and likely the hottest day we’ll have until August. That’s no exaggeration. Even with a ceremony start time of 5:30pm, the yard was completely open and with no shade everyone was struggling to keep comfortable. There’s not way anyone could have guessed that we would be high 90 temps all day that day so thankfully, everyone was super flexible and amenable to my suggestion of moving a few things around after the ceremony and inside of keeping everyone outside to begin family portraits, we all headed to the shade under the open barn to begin dinner. Once the sun sat a little more and the heat subsided, we resumed portraits and I was a happier photographer for it – light was much prettier then anyway!

One thing that Chelsea & Ben were missing from their perfect wedding day were their coveted Bride & Groom portraits downtown. That was the original plan when their ceremony was to take place at their home church on Broadway. After rearranging the portraits after the ceremony due to the intense heat, the three of us hatched a scheme to get together for a separate bride & groom portrait session on another date. That way, we didn’t feel the pressure of rushing to get back to their guests, we’d all be refreshed and not drenched in sweat (poor Ben!), but we’d also get to do all of their portraits in our favorite lovely downtown Paducah locations! Win win win!