Tip of the day: Photography gimmicks are everywhere, from heavy vignette to faded, bleeding color vintage. Sure, these are cute and trendy, but do you really want your wedding pictures to look faded and distressed? You don't want your grandkids thinking you were married fifty to a hundred years before you actually were. Stick with classic, good photography with decent contrast and accurate color - you'll want to remember your wedding as it was, not as it was heavily edited. If you are having a vintage themed wedding, and have your heart set on photographs styled for an earlier era, get some engagement photos done that way and display them at your wedding. Keep your actual wedding photos clean and classic - clean and classic is always chic.

A quick tip, for brides to be and photographers alike

Weddings are fast paced, full of diverse lighting situations, and filled with unexpected wonderful moments. Sometimes, there just isn't time for a photographer to get the right exposure, and they take the shot anyway. If your photographer isn't shooting in RAW, but uses jpeg format instead, you could lose out on those pictures. Ask your photographer to shoot your wedding in RAW for greater ability for them to bring back those quick shots - a good editor can fix everything from nearly black underexposure to crazy yellow lighting.

Two weddings

I had the privilege of photographing some awesome people in love this summer.

First up, a deaf bride and her aspiring interpreter groom.  I don't know ASL, more than some key words like "beautiful", "sorry", "hungry", "toilet" and "bear", (I'm sorry, beautiful, but the hungry bear is in the toilet ) but that did not detract at all from the love shared that day.  Why?  Because, as a photographer, I get to see all the small changes in expression, the light in someone's eyes, the subtle touches, the nervous flutters.  You know that saying that a picture is worth a thousand words?  Yeah.  I'm in one of the few professions that gets to show the world something beautiful, and doesn't have to ruin it with a lot of talking.  On to the pictures:

 One of two or three crackers she was able to keep down that morning.

 The bouquet.  It smelled amazing, like cinnamon bark and sunshine.

 Maid of honor, the bride's sister

 And the bride's brother!

 Mom and dad escort her down the stairs

 These yellow roses picked up the color of the bouquet, and made a lovely frame

 enormous floral showpiece over the wedding arch!  I believe this later graced the bride's table

 gettin' pretty.

 So much tulle!

 nervous flutters

 Another bridesmaid, also deaf

 I love this shot...it's so Cinderella

 This was her 30th pair of shoes.  Since she was on her 24th at the bridal shower only a couple weeks before...

 Cathedral length veil... love how the drape of this echoes the furled rose petals

 I love this photo, I hate that the doorway was so dark it made it grainy!

 Awesome candelabra, right?

 Maid of honor is 5'2"...best man was about 6'3" or 6'4".

 First look.  A millisecond before it was a complete jaw drop.

 Blonde hair, sunlight, and sunflowers...a perfect combination

 He does.

 She does, too.

 The pastor learned "I now pronounce you man and wife" in ASL just for this wedding...totally sweet.

 Dad and daughter...the song choice and the sweetness between them made pretty much everyone tear up

 A twirl to finish

"Don't you dare!"



The second wedding I was actually in...like, maid of honor in.  So I didn't get a lot of pictures of the actual wedding, or any formal shots at all, since I was front and center in that action.  It was one of my best friend's weddings, though, so I really enjoyed being forced to put down the camera and be swept completely up in the moment.

The bride cried.  The groom cried.  I cried.  It was a great event.

Once my maid of honor duties were done, and before they officially began, though, I got some great shots.  Let me share them with you:

 Me and another bridesmaid put these bouquets together.  We loved the iridescent blue leaves, and the bride's favorite is sunflowers.

 Mom and daughter.  Love the elegance of those earrings

 These were taken in the groom's sister's childhood bedroom

 If it had been a larger room, or I had a wider angle on my camera, you would have seen her dad doing the same thing.

 Dad putting on her necklace, a silver chain with a silver wishbone on it.

 Love the material of this veil.  Also homemade by yours truly.

 Dad and daughter

 Mom and son

 Groom's dad and the bride

 "May I cut in?"

 "What am I supposed to do?"

 A big finish

 Their first dance

 Gotta love those ruby slippers.  They picked up the red in his uniform.

 Such a sweet moment

 This is as far as the dip went, the groom didn't want to drop her.

 A tradition in the groom's family.  "Gee honey, does this frosting smell funny?"  She was a good sport

 Oh my...

 Fierce competition

The bridesmaid that caught the bouquet was the garter-catcher's girlfriend.  She ended up rolling on the ground with the groom's sister (and accidentally stepping on my dress and pulling the whole thing down) in order to be next in line to marry.  The groom's sister got some petals, but the whole bouquet went to this lucky lady.




Summer is certainly wedding season!