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The Hyatt in Dearborn, Michgin is definately a very nice place to have a wedding. Anil & Vu totally went all out and had their ceremony decorated very well. As I said before I shot this for Jonathan Thrasher out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The day started at 8am when we got breakfast. The breakfast at the Dearborn Hyatt isn’t too great of a value. It was rather overpriced but the cook to serve omelets were pretty tasty and their options are quite limited.

So the next day I woke up early and drove to the Dearborn Hyatt. It’s about a 45 minute drive from West Bloomfield, Mi. Jonathan and I had breakfast and then we were off to shooting. The day turned out to be pretty awesome.

This is their ceremony site. Up in the center is a platform where they set a stage fully decorated for their wedding. I’ve never seen a more elaborate and beautiful setup than this. The setup was primarily a stage used for a traditional indian weddings. I’m not sure what it’s called.

Grabbed this mirror shot of Vu getting ready. Rarely do I get to see brides to get ready mainly because I’m a guy and they don’t want them watch them in their scrubbed nature.

This is Vu after the transformation. She looks great!

This is another shot of vu. This is after she saw the ceremony site. She was pretty pleased.

This is their horse trainer. They had a horse take him from the parking lot into the dearborn hyatt.

Here is anil right before mounting the horse. Hes pictured here with his mother. I guess it’s indian wedding tradition for the Groom to ride into the hotel from the parking lot.

This is Anil and Vu tying the knot, literally. They tie a scarf to each other and they walk around in a circle after each different phases. This is toward the end of the phases of this tndian wedding tradition.

This is Anil and we’re doing a portrait that Jonathan preplanned. He was shooting Vu and I shot Anil. We had about 30 minutes to produce portraits. Most of the day was spent changing and taking formals in different outfits. They had three different outfits: indian, vietnamese, and a western one. This photo was shot in front of the elevators of the Dearborn Hyatt.

This is a shot I preconceived. I liked the soft quality of ambient light. With a little flash and made this photo. Remember we had little time but at least we prepped out all the locations.

I previsualized this photo because from scouting out the cake. It was huge and very tall! So I set up my lights right behind them. I did immediately because I wanted to apply what I learned from Bruce Dorn’s recent seminar. He said that he worked with this cinematographer and he would always light the background first. Therefore, I thought that would the first thing I’d do. I didn’t expect the light to flare like that but it was a happy accident. Probably my favorite photo of the day. Either that or the horse photo above.

This is Yanni. I spotted this right by the piano in the Reception hall of the Dearborn Hyatt. Vu likes playing Piano.

I have a lot of reception shots because these guys all really know how to dance. But there were two that I stuck out. This one. i just love her expression and the mystery of Vu (the brides) face and the stark geometric lines everywhere.

I also liked this one the most because by luck his fingers are right where my strobes fired off as well as the vantage point. It’s hard to get good random photos shot from above because I don’t know what I’m aiming at. This photo reminds me of Jesh De Rox. Primarily because he uses that light magenta palette in some of his photos. But you can’t really pin Jesh de rox to one style.

Wow that was a lot of photos! Primarily because I did shoot for that long. I’ve never shot for 13 hours.