Shady Wagon Farm: Kim and Tim are married!
Something about this snowy day made me want to revisit the warm and wonderful April wedding of Kim and Tim at Shady Wagon Farm in New Hill, NC. It was such a beautiful day -- blue skies and warm sunshine abounded, bringing hints of summer weather to come. Kim and Tim are two of my favorite people on the entire planet. Plus, it's just so much fun to type (and say) their names: Kim and Tim, Kim and Tim, Kim and Tim. It makes me happy. So enjoy some of my favorite shots from their wedding day.
Geese are the unofficial greeters at Shady Wagon Farm. Good thing they don't bite!
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Kim's hair and make-up was done by Lanni Hatfield from Unforgettable Beauty. I've worked with Lanni on several occasions and she is super-sweet and so talented. If you're looking for a hair stylist and make-up artist for your wedding day (and I highly recommend that you invest in both), you can find everything you need all rolled-up into the one adorable package that is Lanni. She also makes beautiful custom wedding jewelry.
I love this shot of Kim coming down the steps. Her bridesmaids' reactions are great.
The detailing on Kim's gown was so gorgeous...
...and so was she!
The interior of the house is a beautiful location for portraits, filled with color and light. Every photographer's dream.
Meanwhile, the guys were cleaning up nicely downstairs. All the shots of the guys were made by my friend and fellow photographer Rick Ward, while Frank continued to recover from knee surgery. Here, Tim multi-tasks while helping out the ring bearer with his tie.
Then gets a little help with his own.
Cutie-patootie flower girl and ring-bearer made the wedding party complete.
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The ceremony begins as Kim and her dad make their way from the house and onto the drive.
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Rick positioned himself on the other side of the pond and used a telephoto lens to capture this great shot of the lighting of the unity candle.
Rick told the ducks exactly when to swim into view. And they obeyed. That's how good he is.
It's official: Kim and Tim are married!
While we were shooting the family formals, the guests headed off on foot to the barn for the reception. I love this shot of Rick's of the interior of the barn. What a great space: rustic and elegant all at the same time.
The first dance.
I squeezed behind the cake table to get a wide-angle view of the toasts.
This dancing shot of Rick's cracks me up. The lady in the middle is holding a baby bottle as she dances. Something only a mom can get away with!
Gotta love a bubble departure!
Kim and Tim, it was an honor to photograph your wedding! We wish you lots of love, luck and happiness in your lives and know you're going to be so happy together!
Kim and Tim's wedding dream team:
Event Coordinating and Catering: Kenton Jenkins, Xu Catering, 919-451-2192
Floral Design: Greg Kennedy, Brides and Bouquets
Videography: Mark Holland, Ron K. Smith Productions
Music: Joe Bunn DJ Company
Wedding Cake: Lorie Watson, Simply Cakes
Duke Gardens Bridal Portrait: Jessie
How about a little beauty, grace and style to start off your Monday morning? With the wedding behind us, I can finally showcase Jessie's bridal portraits on the blog!
My favorite!
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Jessie chose to wear a veil that has been in T.J.'s family since the early 1900's. It was absolutely beautiful.
Thank you, Jessie, for the privilege of photographing you!
So We Were Just Thinking…about History
"Clients don't see themselves in a historical context anymore.
I want to provide something people can show their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren."
-- photographer Kirk Darling on heirloom portraits
The quote above appeared on the cover of the November '07 issue of Professional Photographer magazine which featured the work of photographer Kirk Darling. I saved that particular issue for over two years because his words struck a chord in me, one that still resonates today, both professionally and personally. Every day, I'm involved in the process of documenting important events in people's lives. I'm acutely aware of what an honor this is. While Frank and I like to have fun when we work, we also take our responsibility as a family's photographic historians very seriously. A wedding photographer we admire said, "I don't work for the bride and groom. I'm working for their children and their grandchildren." I love this. It's a thought that I carry with me when I'm working. A professional photographer must be constantly aware that the images captured on the wedding day or during a portrait session will become a part of family history.
So today, we're thinking about history and asking one specific question: what will be your photographic legacy?
The part of Darling's statement that really caught my attention is his belief that "clients don't see themselves in a historical context anymore." Sadly, I have to agree. I can't remember the last time a potential client said to me, "I want a portrait I can show my children and grandchildren." That sentiment may underlie the reason for seeking out a photographer, but I rarely hear it spoken out loud. In wealthier families, it used to be common to have portraits painted. You think having your picture taken is no fun -- try sitting still for days on end while a portrait artist painted you. Yet it was recognized as a worthwhile undertaking. And I don't think it was done just to have something pretty to hang over the mantle piece. The knowledge was there that while the portrait would be hung in a place of honor and enjoyed in the present, one day, possibly when the subject of the painting was no longer living, that the portrait would become something even more precious...it would become a family heirloom.
Let's focus on that word -- heirloom -- for a moment. A quick Google search brought me this definition: something of great intrinsic value that has been in the possession of a family or culture for many generations. If I asked you to stop what you're doing and make a list of your family's heirlooms, what would be on that list? My list would be soberingly short. I don't possess any furniture, linens, books, or jewelry that I would consider heirlooms that have been handed down to me over the generations. Unless...you count photographs. Photographs I have. But my treasury of family photographs are snap shots, your run-of-the mill studio portraits and my parents' wedding photos. They're certainly not wall portraits. When my children were both nine months old, we had the photographer who documented our wedding do portraits of them in a very classical, traditional style. I clearly remember wanting something that would stand the test of time and be treasured for generations. Their portraits fall into that category of "If your house was on fire, what would you grab first?" importance.
Over the years, the pictures got smaller. We filled our walls with 8x10s and those ubiquitous frames with multi-opening mats, creating collages rather than portraits. Now, most of our images reside online. Not long ago, a drive that stored at least three years of personal photographs crashed. While I am fanatical about backing-up the files of clients, I'd become a slacker where personal family photos were concerned. I always intended to back them up on a portable hard drive and print the best ones. Now those precious images are gone. G-O-N-E. There's no recovering them. It makes me sick every time I think about it. How many of you are in the same boat? Are we all as a society relying on Facebook and fragile computer hard drives to safely house our memories? When was the last time anyone pulled out a wallet to show you a picture? Now we pull out iPhones. The ease with which we can store and share images through electronic media is amazing, convenient, fun...and dangerous. Suppose you see a friend from college you haven't seen in years and you want to show off photos of your kids. You pull out your phone, only to discover the battery is dead. Frustrating, right?
One of the things I love the most about Facebook is the ability to quickly and easily share photos with my friends online. But if I'm just leaving the photos there, never backing them up or printing them, what happens if one day Facebook gets hacked or goes away completely? This week, I challenge each of you to have prints made of your favorite images from the holidays. Put them in a book, hang them on the wall, but get them off of your computer and into a physical form that you can hold in your hands that doesn't depend on a battery to be able to see it. (If you want to be absolutely certain those prints will last, don't print them on a home printer. Go to a professional lab. But more on that in a later post.)
Here's why I want you to do this.
In the photo above, my children are holding a reproduction of a photograph of their great-great-grandmother Hannnah and their great-great-great-grandparents Emma and Albert. I never knew them; my children certainly never will. Photographs of them are all that we have now. Your great-great-great-grandchildren are going to be curious about you. What are you leaving for them to know you by?
-- Elizabeth & Frank
Erin and Tom: Engaged!
Erin and Tom are the kind of couple that, were I a certain type of photographer, I would stalk them in Crate and Barrel as they selected items for their wedding registry, waiting for the perfect moment to ask them if they had a wedding photographer and hand them my card. Not that that happened. But they are so awesome, I would have totally stalked them. I can't wait for their wedding in June. Here are some of my favorite shots from their engagement session.
Hmmm...colorful leaves, a certain shade of blue...could we be in Chapel Hill on the campus of UNC on a Fall afternoon?
Why yes...yes, we could. Erin teaches writing and American Lit to undergrads at UNC while finishing up her Ph.D. Tom lives in Greensboro, but went to UNC for his master's degree in Environmental Science (my, but I have brilliant clients, don't I?). Tom says that from the first moment he saw Erin in a yellow sundress in the Newman Catholic Student Center, he fell in love. This being real life and not Hollywood, things were a bit complicated, since Erin was dating someone else at the time. But as with all things that are meant to be, the path smoothed out and four years later, he proposed.
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Erin has a very photogenic laugh.
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It was heavily overcast, but the rain held off. Erin got brave and changed into a sundress, even though there was a definite bite to the air. The Carolina blue sweather came back out soon. (Look at Tom, gamely putting up with this goofiness. A little goofy never hurt anyone, my cerebral friend.)
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FAV-O-RITE.
I'm like a bloodhound; if there's graffiti on a college campus, I will find it.
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Erin and Tom, June 12th will be here before you know it! We can't wait to share your wedding day with you!
Sara’s Senior Portraits: Raleigh Senior Portrait Photography
I met Sara when she was working for Forever Bridal at one of the bridal shows. She approached our booth and asked if we did Senior Portraits and if so, would I be willing to do hers. Of course I said an enthusiastic yes. It took a while, because as it turns out, today's 17-year-olds are like, super busy, but we finally got together for her portrait session.
(I'd love to think I was this gorgeous, smart, and talented when I was 17...but there are too many of my high school friends on Facebook who can contradict me!)
Love this yummy light. And Sara's sense of style!
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Sara really, really wanted to go inside this old house, but it was super scary and looked like the porch could fall down any minute. So we had to make do by using the outside of the house as a prop.
We headed downtown for the rest of the session. Sara is a talented ice-skater and competed when she was younger. I love for Seniors to express their personality in the session by wearing the clothes they love and including things, like ice skates, that mean the most to them.
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Canvas Sale!
If you've seen the yummy canvases we love to display in our studio and at the bridal shows, great news:
all canvases are 30% off now through January 31st!
(Just 'cause we love our clients!)
Happy 2010!
So We Were Just Thinking…
Welcome to the first in what will be a new feature here on the Pixel Dust blog. So We Were Just Thinking will be a column of sorts (a blogumn? a collog?) where Frank and I can share our experiences as wedding-industry insiders with our readers. We're going to tackle a different subject in each column. I'll go first with my thoughts, then Frank will chime in on the same subject and I can almost guarantee he'll have a different (read: male) perspective. It might not always be photography-related, but it will relate to our experiences as wedding photographers. Kind of a "he-said, she-said" but about all things wedding-ish. What we've learned from other professionals. Things we've seen that made us go "hmmmm...." Maybe something that's burning our chops that week. We thought beginning So We Were Just Thinking at the beginning of 2010 would be just right. Follow us through the year, find out what we find out, and join in the conversation. I'll go first.
Today, we're thinking about: Wedding Planners.
Not the three-ring binder that becomes the constant companion of every bride-to-be and the nemesis of many a groom, but the living, breathing dynamos also known as Event Coordinators. Maybe it's because we just finished the 2010 Wedding Show, but I can't help wondering why more couples don't hire event coordinators. Personally, if I'd just gotten engaged over Christmas and then walked into the Jim Graham building a mere week later to be confronted by the reality of all that had to be thought about, considered, planned and purchased, I might have turned to Frank and said, "Book some tickets baby 'cuz we're getting married in Vegas." Flowers. Linens. Stationery. Transportation. Catering. Venues. Gowns and tuxedos. Wedding cakes and crab cakes. Music and lighting. The honeymoon. And OMG, all those photographers. My blood pressure is going up just thinking about it. How do modern day couples DO this?
Frank: Being a guy, thoughts of the playoffs take up more room in my head than wedding coordinators do. But I gotta tell you, when I am running around a church frantically trying to find the boutonnieres so that they can be pinned on the groom and his guys before the pictures (that's a pretty important detail and believe me -- brides notice if the guys are actually wearing their flowers in the photos) or trying to find Great Aunt Doris who wandered off during the family formals -- I am thinking about how great it would be if there were someone to help figure all of this stuff out. So that I could actually, you know, take pictures.
Elizabeth: Often, one of the first questions I ask couples who come in for a consultation is: Who's your event coordinator? (And I don't mean the lady at the church who's going to tell you when to walk down the aisle.) Most of the time, the response is: "Oh, we're just going to do it ourselves." As if you're not throwing the average person's version of a State Dinner at the White House. Or "my aunt is going to do it." Doesn't your aunt deserve to enjoy your wedding too? Often it's "we can't afford it." I think there's a misconception floating around that event coordinators are just for couples with unlimited resources. I think we have TV shows like The Style Network's "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway" and WE's "Platinum Weddings" to thank for that particular misunderstanding. Whether your budget is $10K or $100K, an event coordinator can mean the difference between actually enjoying your wedding or experiencing repeated melt-downs on your journey to "I do."
Frank: Just having access to the knowledge in a talented coordinator's brain and a little bit of guidance can really go a long way. They don't think the way the rest of us do, which is a good thing.
Elizabeth: I'll be honest: when there's an event coordinator on board, I enjoy my job more. Weddings run smoother, stress levels are lower and smiles come easier. I see people relax and actually have fun on their wedding day. I've shot weddings where the bride is looking at me when it's ten minutes past the time her wedding should have started and her cousin/wedding coordinator still hasn't come to get her yet. That's stress, folks. Half the time, the cousin/wedding coordinator is running around like a chicken with her head cut-off, in tears, because she doesn't know what she's doing, she's worried about letting you down and she KNOWS it's ten minutes past the time you should have walked down the aisle. What are YOU, the bride, likely to remember about that moment? Worry, frustration, anger. Not excitement. Not anticipation. Not joy...on what should be a very joyful day.
Frank: While I love to help in any way I can during a wedding -- anything from showing the guys how to use the button covers and cuff links on the tuxedos to pinning on flowers or showing the ushers which arm they should offer the ladies to walk them down the aisle -- I don't do a great job of time-keeping and crowd-herding because I have a job to do as well. If I'm working as the de facto event coordinator, I'm not able to capture candid moments.
Elizabeth: This is not a blanket endorsement of all event coordinators. Like wedding photographers, there are some good ones, some great ones and some awful ones. And if I'm honest, I have to admit that trying to get our work in front of some coodinators is like trying to get an audience with the Pope. It can be tough to get on their list of trusted vendors. But that selectiveness is something that really works in your favor if you're a client.
Are coordinators for everyone? Possibly not. If you're a super-organized bride who drinks stress for breakfast, you'll probably be fine on your own. And I've worked with a Mother-of-the-Bride or two in my time that I'm pretty sure are super-human. But if you don't have a lot of support on the home front and the thought of coming up with a color scheme or seating arrangement makes you want to hide under a rock...consider recruiting an event coordinator to be a member of your wedding dream-team. This weekend at the Wedding Show, I met some lovely people whose entire purpose in life (well, that's most likely an overstatement, but you get my drift) is to make your wedding day as smooth, as stress-free, as joyful as possible. Like us, most coordinators have packages that allow you to choose the level of investment and involvement you get from them. They know that for many of you, the fun of planning a wedding is in finding ways to make it uniquely you. Don't worry that an event coordinator wants to take over the reins and make it all about her (or him). They, like us, want their clients to be happy. Most will move heaven and earth to make sure that you are.
Happy planning! :)
