Wedding day photography on a windy day at the remodeled Ocean Club in Myrtle Beach

This is my first time photographing a wedding at the remodeled Grande Dunes Ocean Club in Myrtle Beach. It always looked nice, but they did make some changes that give a lot more space inside the ballroom and dining area. They completely removed the fireplace which really opens up the area for a larger number of guests and more tables. They also painted everything, put down new carpets, lights and other things. One of the changes I especially noticed, because I do a lot of pictures there, is the new doors at the front. The glass doors really do make a nicer background for shots around the columns. Overall I think the remodel turned out really well and I look forward to photographing more weddings there.

The bride for this wedding said she picked out the longest veil they had when she bought her dress. It was really pretty, but I think she realized a long veil is not always the best idea for the beach. It turned out to be a very windy day as you can see in the pictures below. The veil was constantly flipping around and wrapping around the bride, that is why you see her laughing in some of the pictures below. Thankfully everyone was really easy-going and didn’t let the wind or veil problems bother them. Even with the difficult weather I was able to get a lot of nice shots with the couple on the beach. Something nice about the Ocean Club is the many sheltered areas from the wind. Up around the front columns is almost completely blocked from the wind, so we were able to do a lot of pictures there with no wind problems at all. If the bride requests it for some pictures, I can also do some hair touch-ups to get rid of the flyaways.

Something I was playing around with for the first time was my 24mm Sigma Art f/1.4 lens. I love the Art series of lenses from Sigma, some of these actually blow away what you can get from Nikon or Canon for certain types of primes. It’s fun to have such a wide-angle but still at f1.4. The shot of the Ocean Club behind the pool below was hand-held, I wasn’t even on a tripod for a long exposure. Around f1.4 you can just let in so much light that some pretty amazing hand-held shots are possible, it also came in real handy for shots of the entire group on the dance floor.

I hope you enjoy the pictures below, let me know in the comments if you do.