Jena and Jeremy’s wedding was a very special one for us. We knew how important this day was for them, as well as the images we would capture. The photos would be a huge help in getting Jena through the few months while Jeremy is away. Jeremy is a 1st Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, an Osprey pilot to be specific. A month and 8 days after their wedding, Jeremy would leave to serve on a crisis response deployment in Europe. The wedding was on December 19th of 2015, and Jeremy is currently still away on deployment, and will be away until August. There is also a chance of an extension, anywhere from 1-3 months. Knowing this before hand, Sandi and I put a lot of pressure on ourselves to capture some incredible images for both of them to get them through their time away from each other.

Speaking with Jena on her wedding day, you could see how special this day meant to her, and not once did she complain about Jeremy having to leave shortly after their wedding. Speaking with Jeremy, I was able to see how much he cared about protecting the lives of people he didn’t even know. Having gotten to know Jena prior to their wedding, she made it very clear that even though she knew it would come quick and would be an extremely difficult time in their marriage, it would strengthen them as husband and wife. In her own words, “I could never do what he does, knowing the possibility of sacrificing his life for others. He’s the reason I can get through these tough days alone”.

The wedding itself was our last of the 2015 wedding season, and it was honestly one of the funnest. All of the groomsmen were in the military, whether it be the Marines or the Navy, and it was our first time getting to capture some of the military style celebrations. It was one hell of a party and by the end of the night, at Auletto Caterers, it was the perfect ending to an amazing year.

I made the decision last year to really beef up my image file backup and storage setup. After meeting the folks at G-Technology last year in Las Vegas at WPPI, the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International show, I fell in love with their products. After doing a lot of research and speaking with tons of other photogs, I decided to invest in extremely well made and reliable G-Technology product line. Both JD and I invested in dual 12TB G-Tech Studio Thunderbolt Storage Systems, which allows for automation, taking as much human error out of the equation that we can.

[Jay’s Interview with G-Technology at WPPI]

The advantage to using the G-Tech drives is the automation of backing up all our files, using RAID1, from one internal drive to the other. We each added the 2nd Studio to completely mirror the 1st, backing it up in case something catastrophic was to happen (knock on wood) and the entire 1st Studio fails. This makes a total of two G-tech Studios mirroring each other, each with two drives, making a total of 4 identical drives. Surprisingly, with 4 separate drives, we are only left with a total of 6TB of usable storage. Plenty, for the way we use them.

The dual G-Technology Studio drives hold a single year of Twisted Oaks Studio wedding images. At the beginning of 2016, we moved all of the 2015 weddings onto smaller and cheaper drives that are kept safely in a fireproof safe offsite. We also keep the current weddings backed up this way, keeping a full copy of the Studio drives on a 4TB Western Digital drive which gets locked in the same fireproof safe. Each time we shoot a wedding, we add the images to the Studio drives as well as the smaller WD drives. Once each wedding is edited and the images are delivered to our clients, we add a 3rd level of protection, online protection. We use Cloudspot to host our client’s image galleries, where they will stay forever.

We also use some of the G-Tech mobile external drives which allow us to backup files in the fly or during the wedding day. The ev ATC mobile drive is my favorite mobile drive I’ve ever used, and it usually goes everywhere with me.

Whenever Sandi and I meet with potential wedding clients, we explain why we like to build relationships with our clients. We explain that want to get to know them, and the better we know them, the better we will be able to tell their story. We always explain that we like our clients to look at us more like friends attending their wedding rather than wedding photographers. On a chilly day in late November, with just a few weddings left for the 2015 wedding season, Sandi and I had the privilege of attending Ali and Nick’s wedding. From the moment we arrived, til the moment late in the evening when we were asked to hang out afterwards for a few drinks, we never felt like hired wedding photographers. Ali and Nick, along with all of their family and friends, looked at us like friends… who just happened to bring their cameras to take some shots of the day 🙂

Prior to Ali and Nick stopping over our house a couple years ago for their consultation, we had never met them. Through emails, phone calls, and their engagement shoot, which we had a lot of fun on, we all got to know each other better. Because of the relationship we built, Sandi and I were able to tell their story with the images we captured that day in such a special way. The two of them are amazing people as individuals, even more amazing as a couple. They have a close group of friends who love them like family, and all have awesome personalities that made the wedding one of the best of the year for us. Ali and Nick’s Brigalias wedding reminded us why we fell in love with wedding photography to begin with, and why we try to get to know all our clients. We’re excited to see what the future holds for these two and hopefully get to capture more memories for them down the road as they build their family together.