Wedding at 21 Main Events at North Beach with puppies in place of bouquets!

I met Jenna and Justin at last January’s Wedding Showcase event in Myrtle Beach. We briefly discussed their upcoming wedding on October 2nd in the courtyard at the 21 Main Events at North Beach wedding venue. January was such a short time ago. However, a lot of things have changed since then with Covid. I will be at the Wedding Showcase again next year, I’m sure things will be slightly different with social distancing and masks, but I hope many people come and have a good time.

The bride loved some of my previous pictures from 21 Main Events and asked if I used a drone for some of the overhead ceremony shots. I explained that a balcony in the main restaurant overlooks the wedding courtyard. I have a small extra charge if someone wants a second photographer for the wedding. For most smaller weddings, this isn’t necessary, but for something like this, when I need to get shots from a balcony location, I recommend it. My wife came as my second shooter for this wedding, so she could stay on the balcony during the ceremony and get some great overhead shots. She even got some nice group shots from the balcony after the ceremony.

Puppies for adoption

As the wedding got closer, Jenna told me they had teamed up with the Humane Society of North Myrtle Beach to bring puppies available for adoption. My wife and I love dogs, so we were excited about the puppies. The bride and bridal party planned to carry the puppies down the aisle in the place of wedding bouquets. Jenna and Justin did a first look with each other before the ceremony. Since the puppies couldn’t stay too long, this gave me a chance to get some great pictures of the bride, groom, and wedding party holding and playing with the puppies.

One of the little black puppies seemed to take a liking to me. He came over and climbed on my shoe and cried when I had to leave him. I knew it would be hard to resist adopting one of the puppies, but we adopted a Labrador puppy a couple of years ago, and she is a big crazy dog now. I also have a toy poodle that is about 13 years old now. We can’t handle another dog, at least for now. But I hope my pictures will help the Humane Society adopt out some puppies.

I love one of the pictures below with the bride holding the white and beige puppy close to her face. This was an adorable and calm dog, and they said he had already been claimed for adoption. We also took a considerable risk putting all the puppies on the bride’s dress for a picture. Thankfully there were no accidents, and we got a cute shot.

Sunset at the gazebo and on the beach

After the ceremony, we went down to the gazebo with the wedding party for some pictures before sunset. As long as no cars or people are in the background, the gazebo, with the palm trees and sunset behind it, is beautiful. There is also a lovely beach area behind the North Beach Towers, with a marshy inlet where water flows out to the ocean. I got some beautiful pictures, with the bride and groom standing before the sunset, just as the sun fell below the tree line.

I was working again with Eyecon Entertainment during the reception. He has indoor sparkler equipment that can shoot sparks behind the dance floor. I love pictures of Jenna and Justin dancing with the sparklers firing in the background. I also loved some nighttime images of them, in the courtyard, with the lights hanging in the background. I set up a flash behind them to give some background separation.

The large group picture on the dance floor below was too wide to capture with the lens I currently had on my camera. So, I did a quick three-shot panorama of the dance floor. It’s impressive how good Lightroom’s panorama features can be. It seamlessly combined the three pictures, even with the group’s movement between each shot.

I hope you enjoy the pictures below. Please let me know if you are having a wedding at 21 Main Events at North Beach, and I would happily give you some tips or discuss things further.