Part 4 – Avoiding Downtown Fargo’s Trains

As a wedding photographer, I see a lot of love and beauty during wedding days. However, I also see some strange and crazy things as well!  In this blog series, Adventures of a Wedding Photographer, I am going to share some of the craziest things that have happened to me while photographing weddings. Hopefully these stories will help future brides relax and realize that no wedding day is perfect. You just have to be ready to laugh it off and enjoy your day, no matter how crazy things get!

Avalon – Fargo, ND

There are a lot of moving parts to a wedding day, and sometimes, no matter how well you plan, there are situations that catch us by surprise. In 2015, I was a bridesmaid and the photographer for my brother’s wedding. It was a perfect September day with temperatures in the mid 70’s.  The sky was clear and the breeze was perfect. My brother and sister-in-law planned their ceremony at the Gazebo in Island Park. Their reception was at the old Downtown Avalon location.  (Side note, the Avalon closed their Downtown Fargo location, but still has a gorgeous location perfect for weddings!)

That morning the ladies started early with hair and make-up. We then met the guys at the Avalon to change into our dresses and finish getting ready. Finally, we were off to Island Park for photos! Everything was going smoothly so far that day. Lucky, for us, the Avalon was close to Island Park because there were a lot of trips back and forth that day.  After the photos were done, we left the park and drove back to the Avalon (again!). Being a bridesmaid and a photographer was tough, but thankfully I had a second photographer with me to help out. While I went back to the Avalon with the bridal party, she stayed at the park to photograph guests arriving and the wedding ceremony.

The Train

Back at the Avalon, again, we did some hair touch-ups and ate lunch. No one, especially the bride, wanted to sit in the car for too long at the park. We tried our best to plan the perfect amount of time to drive back for the ceremony. When the time came, we all piled into the cars. My car had the groom, bride, and the best man. Everything was going great until we heard the dreaded train signals. For anyone who doesn’t know Downtown Fargo, there are two sets of train tracks, one on the North end of Downtown and one of the South. The trains come and go all day long, which means sometimes you are lucky and never get stuck behind a train and sometimes you get stuck for a long time.

We were talking and listening to music in the car to help with pre-ceremony nerves when we heard the train signals start to lower. I stopped the car just blocks from Island Park. We barely had a five minute car ride to the ceremony and now we were stuck. All we could do was call someone at the ceremony and let them know we would be late! Half of the bridal party made it on time and the other half sat behind the train and waited. No one had thought about the train, so we just laughed and waited for it to pass!

Thankfully, the train eventually did pass and we arrived at the ceremony just a few minutes late. Everyone was seated and ready to watch a beautiful wedding! The weather was still perfect, and they got married surrounded by all of their loved ones. Most people didn’t even realize we were fashionably late to the ceremony because of the train.

Catch up on this blog series:

Adventures of a Wedding Photographer Part One

Adventures of a Wedding Photographer Part Two 

Adventures of a Wedding Photographer Part Three

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Alecs Kay Photography is a Wedding & Portrait Photographer in Fargo, ND

akpphoto.com