We'd shot their daughter's wedding three years before. "Dad" is a detective for a small Texas town. "Mom" is a great organiser and really good with people. The mother, was now acting as coordinator for a nephew's wedding. These are really great people and when we arrived at the rehearsal, it was like seeing old friends again.

Unfortunately, we learned that their son in law had walked out on their daughter just a week earlier, which fairly well depreciated the value of THAT wedding video! It got me thinking of a possible marketing ploy - "If your first wedding doesn't last, we'll shoot your second one for half price!". I kept my humor to myself, thankfully - after all, that fob is armed!

I remembered the minister as being very efficient and capable, but rather strict with his rules and a little hard to work with. Well, not this time! I heard that it is his practice to request a burned copy of wedding videos from the family, as he had done with this one. He wasted no time in telling me that ours was the best wedding video he'd ever seen, and in his forty years of officiating, he said he'd seen plenty. Talk about a morale booster!

Well, the lighting was too dim and I was afraid we were going to be having grainy video (hi-def wedding video). I mentioned my concern to the coordinator, who talked to the minister. He introduced me to their lighting/sound guy and told him to do whatever I wanted. Whew! We had wonderful lighting.

Then we walked over to the reception area, where I asked them to light it just like it would be for the reception. Geez! You couldn't even read in that light. The guy then turned on all the switches and it wasn't much better. Oh well, I guessed we'd be bringing out the two twenty watt on-cam lights and putting my fifty watter on the camera jib. But when I mentioned my concern to the lighting guy, he said, "Oh, it takes about five minutes for the lights to warm up, don't worry."

He was right. The light was just fine.

They were having the same couple sing that sang for the last wedding we shot here, and those guys can really sing.

We'd be putting a Shure mic on a stand for the couple singing connected to a Marantz dr with xlr cables, and another one mic/stand & cable for the piano. We'd put a wireless lav on the minister, groom and fob. The sound guy was in the habit of making an mp3 cd of every Sunday service, so we trusted him for the backup audio. We'd be leaving with his cd and the cd that the couple gave them for the prerecorded music.

We arrived a couple hours early on wedding day to shoot the exteriors and some interior setup shots. Fortunately, the rain didn't begin until after I got my exteriors, but the cold wind took some of the joy out of shooting them.

Jean went upstairs to find the bride and bridesmaids and start shooting preps. They were having an extended photo session before the ceremony, but none after, which is why we had to do the preps early and make special preparations to make a hasty repositioning from ceremony to reception.

After getting my setup shots and shooting groomsmen preps, I setup the camera jib in the reception area. The wedding party would be announced, but there was no house sound system for the reception and they'd declined our offer of a Peavy Messenger portable sound system, so I readied a handheld wireless and a receiver and left it by the foot of the camera jib.

I made a quick run to Subway where I picked up sandwiches for Jean and I (and snuck a few cookies). We covered the photo session, then had about half an hour to kill before the ceremony, which I used to coordinate things with the photographer, who was very cooperative.

There were three sets of pews, a center set and one on left and right. We positioned our manned cameras at about the third row on either side of the center set of pews. Jean covers the bride from the right and I cover the groom from the left. Jean tends to stay on either bride closeup, couple or couple with minister about 85% of the time, getting wedding party and guests during the other fifteen percent.

I cover the groom close, couple or couple with minister about 70% of the time, going wide for an angle shot of the entire wedding party, or picking off guests, wedding party close-ups, singers, etc.

I had a static FX1 setup on a cleared pew next to the center aisle, just far enough back to go wide enough to take in the whole scene.

Another static camera, this one a VX2100 (standard widescreen) was setup just behind the thigh-high wall in front of the piano, allowing the tripod to remain hidden while only the camera peeked over, trained at just the right angle to get both fob and mog as tight as I dared without risking them leaving the frame. This camera and the FX1 would also get reaction audio from guests.

The ceremony went without a hitch, other than the flower girl and ring bearer kids being right on the heels of the couple during the recessional, preventing me from getting much of a shot of them. I'd repositioned shortly after the Unity Candle, from left side of the third pew to rear of the church, in order to shoot the recessional.

After the recessional, it was time to make a mad dash to grab the FX1, my camera and tripod (my camera bag was already at the reception room) and get to the reception room where I put the FX1 on the jib and framed it. Just at that time I heard Jean on my Motorola headset telling me that "They're coming and I'm just barely ahead of them."

Jean burst through the door and setup about thirty feet inside with her camera already on her tripod. I was shoulder mounted and dropped to one knee alongside a table to her left. The photographer was to Jean's right. The minister made the announcement just after Jean had tossed aside one receiver and mounted the one receiving his signal.

The couple and wedding party entered and the couple went straight to the cake cutting, but I was oblivious, roaming around shooting guests until I heard Jean crackle over my headset that I was about to miss the cutting. I got there just in time. Thankfully, the photographer had remembered which side she'd agreed to, so our jib and my camera had good angles.

Everything went great and before we knew it, it was exit time. There was no dancing - Baptist wedding!

It took us about half an hour to pack our gear (I "packed" a couple slices of wedding cake as well!) and by six-thirty, we began our five hour drive back home to Oklahoma.

Normally, these drives are monotonous and require consuming several cups of coffee and a bottle of Mountain Dew to stay awake. Sometimes I'll hook up my iPod and listen to lectures - physics, philosophy, psychiatry, just about any subject that starts with "P" it seems, but not this time. We'd barely had time for our conversation to dwindle and had just crossed the Red River back into Oklahoma, when the excitement began.

There was a gas station / liquor store / casino complex on the left side and a road intersected the highway just north of it. Suddenly, from my right I could see that a car wasn't going to stop for the stop sign. Our speed limit was sixty miles per hour at that point and the other driver was probably doing about forty-five.

I honked and swerved from the right lane to the far left, but he still hit us between the rear tire and rear door of our Ford Focus station wagon. Great!

It looked like he was going to run, but changed his mind, perhaps because another car was behind him and had apparently witnessed the accident, so he backed up and parked behind our car which was now on the right shoulder.v

He handed me a hand-written little square of paper saying this was his insurance. It had "Temporary" stamped on it. I wondered why he hadn't offered his drivers license, but didn't want to spook him, as we'd already called the Highway Patrol, which would have to come out of Hugo, Oklahoma, several miles to the north.

But a few minutes later (probably soon after the other car drove off), he changed his mind about waiting and wanted his insurance paper back. I said, "OK, but let me get a picture of it first." But, as I steadied Jean's iPhone and turned on the interior light, he reached in through the passenger side window, thursted his arm in front of Jean's face and grabbed for the paper, just missing, though the smell of alcohol on his breath wasn't missed by anyone.v

I got out the driver's side door, to get him away from my wife, but was still thinking I could reason with this guy, and assured him I was going to give him his insurance paper back, but just wanted a photo copy first.

I didn't get all that out though, because he grabbed for the paper which I held in my right hand. That got my attention, and caused me to miss noticing the right cross punch that landed squarely on my chin.

I'm sixty-three years old, with a serious heart condition. Although I workout, I have only about half the strength and a tenth the endurance I used to have, due to the heart condition. This guy was about twenty years younger and a few inches shorter, but stocky.

Well, I have an iron chin and a thick skull and barely noticed that I'd been punched. But I did notice he'd cocked his right arm back to throw another punch. Without thinking, I threw a left jab and he crumpled to the ground. Gad! That was just a left jab! Talk about a glass jaw!

It took him about fifteen seconds to regain his footing and he put his fists up as if to continue the brawl, but then thought better of it and jumped into his car and took off, nearly running over me in the process.

The Highway Patrol finally got there. They were very helpful. I had a photo of the license plate (if only those iPhones had flash, I'd have had his "mugshot" too!)

Well, they traced the car to a woman who's last name matched the name on the insurance paper. Only a P.O. Box for an address though. They put a BOLO out for the guy ("be on the lookout") but I doubt the case will have a lot of priority.

I may go back, after editing this wedding and another project and doing our taxes, and track him down and get an insurance claim filed as well as getting him arrested for assault.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a mixed-race male, about forty years old, roughly five-nine and 160 pounds or so with a fat lip, who drives a dark blue four-door sedan belonging to a woman with the last name of "Patterson" and lives in the Hugo / Grant Oklahoma area, please send me some info!

And let this remind everyone who drives late on Friday and Saturday nights, to be extra careful!