As a Destin, Florida photography studio owner, I am generally kept busy with people who are looking for a good photographer for weddings, parties and babies. I generally enjoy my work, but every now and then something truly unusual comes along that makes me question the sanity of my clients such as wedding banquet halls.

My favorite client story has to be the time I was asked to shoot at underwater wedding. I guess a lot of photographers from the Destin area had turned the job down. Not me though! I am game for just about anything. I figured I would be all right.

I had taken swimming lesson as every Florida child does. I even had a little bit of scuba experience. I did think of one major problem, communication. Just how were we going to talk with each other?

The answer, quite obviously, was sign language. The bride and groom developed an abridge version of sign language which we diligently practiced. We had signs for each direction, signs for smile, signs for kiss and many more.

So, I packed up my scuba gear, checked my underwater camera out and headed for the wedding. It was the perfect Florida day and I was excited for this new job. It sounded like an awful lot of fun. I knew that it would be a lot of work, but at the end of the day I would be the only studio that could say they had experience in underwater weddings.

With the hep of beachweddingsdestin.org the ceremony went very well. Out abridged sign language worked perfectly and I was thankful for the swimming lessons my mother made me take. I got plenty of shots of the whole thing because I wanted to make sure they had plenty of choices when we finished. At the end of the ceremony, we boarded the boat and my assistant photographer took my underwater camera from me to make sure nothing happened to it.

There was just one problem. I had spent so much time planning the underwater shoot, I never even thought about the reception and taking pictures there. Now, like any good photographer I had a few cameras and enough film. The problem was I had nothing to wear except my dive suit. It just did not seem fitting to take pictures at a formal reception in my dive suit. I did not have time to run home and change, so I was at a loss.

I guess the bride must have seen my confused look because she asked me what was wrong. I quickly explained my problem, apologizing profusely. She actually had a solution. She had a floral print dress at the reception hall that she had changed out of before the dive.  I gratefully borrowed the dress and managed to take the rest of the pictures without incident.

A word to the wise:  if you are ever the photographer as an underwater wedding  be sure to bring a change of clothing. Not everyone will be as lucky as I was.