rain on your wedding day

The morning of my wedding was perfect. Sun shining, a few passing clouds of the puffy white variety... all was well. Nothing to worry about. No rain on my wedding day! The frenzy set in, makeup and hair arrived to doll everyone up then I got into my dress and made my way to the beautiful chapel at Mt. St. Mary's University where our family and friends waited. I made it down the aisle without crying, we said our vows and ran out of the church while guests waved handmade streamers. It was wonderful! Then it was time for photos...

We made it through the family portraits and once everyone left to go to cocktails, it was just me, my new husband and our photographers. Time to get busy and take lots of amazing, natural light shots at all of the locations on campus I had strategically mapped out. Right? Nope. Then the sky got dark, and we watched a rain cloud race towards us. We managed to get two shots outside before it started to pour. I had set aside two whole hours for portraits, making sure to give our photographers lots of time to do their thing. Of course, the only time it rained on my wedding day was during those two hours. We went inside the church, took some standard stuff and then joined our guests at cocktail hour. I wasn't worried, and I didn't stress. I knew I had Mom, and I knew I could still have my sunset portraits. But I still can't believe it to this day. Rain, during only the time set aside for photos, on a wedding photographer's wedding day. Go figure.

I'm a lucky girl. My partner and fellow photographer is my Mom, and I knew I had nothing to worry about. I'd get my great wedding photos... just not on my wedding day. A few weeks later, after the Hubby and I returned from our honeymoon we played dress up again. I stepped back into my dress and did my own hair and makeup, while he got back into his tux and promised to stand still. I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some fresh, gorgeous white hydrangea and tied them to make my bouquet. Then we went to my late Grandfather's old cornfield for a "Newlywed" photo shoot. Mom did beautiful work as usual, and these wedding portraits are my favorite.

Rain on a wedding day can actually be an opportunity to take some amazing wedding photographs, if you have the right photographer. Don't be afraid of rain, but if your big day doesn't go as planned then a Newlywed Session is a way to give you even more portraits to be happy with. Even if your wedding does go as planned and you love your portraits, but you want to do something really unique, artistic, funky, or funny... a Newlywed. Session can be your way to play with photos. If you're willing, we could even go the "Trash the Dress" route.

So consider what a Newlywed Session could do for your collection of wedding photos. For me it allowed me to have sunny, warm, outdoor photos in my wedding dress even though it was dark and rainy on my wedding day. Plus, we had the chance to take the photos in a place that's near and dear to me. Here are some of my favorite shots from that session.

Congrats to our door prize winners at yesterday's shows! We hope you'll enjoy your Newlywed Sessions!

Happy Monday,

A Spanx kind of day

Today is the type of day that calls for Spanx, and heels... yikes! We're getting gussied up and heading over to the I Do Bridal Affair to put our brand new booth display to good use. And yes, we'll be wearing dresses, heels and maybe even lipstick. For wedding photographers it's not too often we wear such unforgiving clothing or unbearable shoes. Don't get us wrong, we always look fashionable and professional when we're working, but 3 inch heels are a no-no when it comes to mobility and quickness. So on bridal show days, when we're forced to put our cameras down, we feel the need to wear those heels that sit in our closet and mock us for having spent so much money on them.

We hope you'll come out and see us! It's not often that we do bridal shows, but we really enjoy them. The atmosphere at these gatherings reminds us of a Vegas casino floor. The energy, excitement, and glow from all the recently engaged women is invigorating. We love it.

If you're planning a wedding in the Southern Maryland area come on by and check it out. Tickets are FREE and they're giving out goodies to registered Brides!




I Do Bridal Affair
Noon to 4pm
American Legion, Harry White Wilmore Post 82
6330 Crain Highway
La Plata, MD 20646




Look at 'em... just snickering at us. Can you hear our poor little feet whimpering?

To all the engaged couples out there... happy planning!

Giveaway Finalists

When we decided 2012 was going to be the year we launched our photography business, we knew three things were going to create a foundation for how we worked. Of course we want to give our couples the best photographs we can possibly produce along with great customer service. That goes without saying, and there was no need to focus on those things because to us they're kind of "duh" aspects to any wedding photographer or photography team. No we needed a way to set ourselves apart, all while exposing our true nature to our potential clients and especially those couples who chose us to be a part of their wedding day. So here are three things we realized were important to us.

1. We will never refer to ourselves as "rock stars". Sorry, but this whole fascination with wedding photographers somehow turning into celebrities drives us crazy. It's one big marketing campaign in the wedding photography industry, and we just can't buy into it. No, we are not rock stars. We're good at what we do, but that shouldn't make us celebrities. In short, we'll always be humble, and we'll never forget how special it is to be invited into the most intimate moments of a wedding day.

2. No matter what, we will show kindness. When we think about the type of person we want our son/grandson to become, simple kindness is the thing that matters most. Don't be a bully, be aware of the needs of others and when possible put theirs before yours, smile at everyone, hold the door for the old man more than a few steps away, say thank you and mean it, and treat people with love even when it may be difficult to do so. Sometimes it's so easy to forget to be kind to people. We never want to forget. So we will always speak warmly, smile often, and remember that life can be tough. There's no sense in making it tougher.

3. The 3rd rule we knew we wanted to build this business on, is the act of giving back. You can call it what you like... blessings, fate, luck, karma. We have a lot of it. No, life isn't perfect, but every night we get to close our eyes with something to say thank you for. So we've decided to make it mandatory for ourselves to give back to charities and organizations who support people who could use some of the good stuff we've got. We're working on adding a huge charity effort to our business model, and we'll be talking about this effort a lot more in the days to come, but today we're starting with a free wedding.

We didn't start our business by spending big bucks on advertising efforts, or fancy business cards. We didn't hire anyone to design our website. We started our efforts by offering a free wedding giveaway. After we announced this giveaway contest, we had a TON of couples enter by sending in their love story. Let's just say we needed a few tissues to get through reading them all. We chose our favorite 3 couples and now it's up to you to support the couple you want to see win a free wedding. After we decided on our finalists, we asked each couple to send in a photo, and a short blurb about who they are and why you should vote for them. Let us introduce them now...

Couple #1: Jessica and Jan

"Jessica is a Chicago/NYC city girl, who adores bikram yoga, manages events for rock stars, and is desperately learning Dutch to speak to her mother-in-law. Jan is a Belgian country boy who, of course, loves french fries, building huge stages for rock stars, and dreams of moving to an island. We’re quite a match. Pick us! And we promise photos full of strange, delightful, adventures."

Couple #2: Kristin and Shawn

"Six years ago, Shawn witnessed the loss of his best friendwhile serving as a Marine in Iraq.  Not long after, he lost both his parents in two tragic, separate circumstances. Despite these hardships, he is a loving brother, godparent, friend, and fiancé to Kristin. They lookforward to spending their lives together!"

Couple #3: Priyanka and Seth

"As college sweethearts about to graduate from McDanielCollege, our greatest choice was to become best friends during our first classtogether.  Almost four years later, we areexcited to become even better friends with every passing day and continuemaking memories as we take this wonderful step into marriage."

Now it's time to cast your vote for the couple you want to see win our Free Wedding Giveaway!

The contest will run for one week, starting today and ending next Saturday, May 5th. Each person can vote just once, so make sure to share this post with everyone you know to give your couple the most support and votes possible. The couple who wins, will receive a completely free day of wedding photography. Pretty cool huh? We think so. And we wish we could do this for everyone who entered, but that would make us a little crazy.

So on the count of 3, go vote!

1.. 2.. 3..

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Good luck everyone!

Vendor Spotlight :: LV Creative Designs

Peonies, hydrangea, garden roses, ranunculus... when it comes to flowers we're snobs. So much so, that when Maggie got married we had hundreds of white hydrangea and yellow garden roses delivered to the venue 3 days early. We had to book an extra hotel room just to have enough space to keep these beautiful buds cool while they opened. We cut hundreds of flowers then stuck them in buckets, trash cans, and bathtubs until we were ready to create our centerpieces. The morning before the big day we set up shop in the reception space with the other vendors and got to work, arranging those fluffy white hydrangeas into perfectly cloud like centerpieces. The morning of the wedding we were up at 6am to wire roses and hand tie 7 bouquets. Were we crazy? Yes. Couldn't we have just hired someone? Yes. Was it worth it to do ourselves, giving us these memories and personal connection to the wedding day? You betcha.

We thought about doing the flowers for our styled shoot ourselves for quite some time, but as we became more and more involved we realized there just wasn't going to be enough time for us to dedicate to the flowers. Throwing something together last minute was not an option, so we enlisted the help of our new friends at LV Creative Designs.

Linda lives locally and was willing to help right away. When she asked for inspiration, we told her the story of our little vintage elopement. We told her we wanted the flowers to be simple, minimal, and look like the had Groom picked them himself from his Mother's garden. We described the flowers as looking "handpicked and hurried", since we wanted the entire look of the shoot to seem thrown together by our Groom. Linda understood where we wanted to go, jumped on board and got to work.

Linda must be able to read minds, because she was able to give us exactly what we wanted based on just a conversation or two. The yellow tulips starting to open, the heavenly white ranunculus with curved stems bending in just the right places, the delightful little craspedia, the delicate lace that tied the bouquet together... so many elements to her work made it exactly right, and perfect for our shoot. She even used twine around the milk jug vase, just like our couple's wedding bands! Linda nailed it. We were so happy with her work, we may never do our own flowers again.

If you're a flower snob too, and you appreciate the art and craft of floral design, you are going to enjoy this post. For some, flowers are somewhere in the middle of their wedding to do list. For us they came in 3rd, only falling behind setting a date and finding a photographer. If you're like us, you're searching high and low for a high quality, reasonable florist for your wedding. Well we found them... learn more about LV Creative Designs here.

Thanks again to Linda for all of her hard work, and for always having such a bright and happy demeanor. It was a true pleasure to work with you.

Vendor Spotlight :: Michelle's Cakes

In one of our all time favorite movies, George Banks describes his daughter's wedding cake as "flour and water" as he tries to control his temper over the cost of said cake. Although a cake may be made from simple ingredients, it is by no means just "flour and water". A wedding cake is a centerpiece. It's a work of art. It's an experience. In fact it's the one element of a wedding day that we get to admire for its beauty and then devour as we attempt to talk with our mouths full about how good it is. So I hate to say it George, Annie's cake is fairly priced, so just write the check.

Can you tell we love cake? Well we do. And when we were designing the details of our styled shoot, we knew we wanted a sugary masterpiece to be its centerpiece. Enter Michelle of Michelle's cakes. This woman has been blowing us away with her tasty treats for a long time. She has been there to create beautiful cakes for several of our personal parties and events, including an adorable one for Maggie's baby shower. Every time we have made very specific requests, Michelle just says "sure, no problem" and effortlessly whips it up. We swear she must have magic cake fairies who live in her bakery. From her incredibly realistic sugar flowers, to the actual dig-in-and-eat it part of the cake, there's nothing quite like a cake from Michelle. Naturally, we begged her to work with us on the shoot, hoping she'd say yes and have the time to do it. Her response? "Yeah, sure! No problem." We may or may not have jumped up and down a little when we hung up the phone. Yay!

We sent her a ton of pictures of different cakes we thought would go with our theme, and discussed this particular shade of yellow until the word "yellow" lost its meaning. Poor Michelle... we must have driven her crazy. But in true Michelle fashion, she just said "yeah we can do that, no problem". The day before the shoot Maggie went to pick up the cake at Michelle's Cakes in Indian Head, MD. When she arrived Michelle told her she had just whipped it up that morning, and it was ready to go home. Holy cow... she just "whipped it up", and in the a.m. no less. Out of the bakery's back room came the most beautiful cake we'd ever seen. The flower looked like it had to be real, but nope... it was all sugar. The ruffled icing was stunning, and it was hard to imagine ever cutting into such a beautiful piece of art. The cake was absolutley perfect for our theme, and it was truly the centerpiece of our table top.

Michelle's Cakes is the bakery to use for your wedding. Hands down, no debating it. So if a wedding is in your future, stop what you're doing, and call Michelle now. You'll thank us later.

Thank you Michelle, for so quickly agreeing to participate in our styled shoot, and for so effortlessly creating a masterpiece we could play with. We must have taken 100 shots of just the cake alone. Oh and if you're wondering what it taste like? Heaven.

Learn more about Michelle's Cakes here.

Thanks again Michelle!

Have a sweet day! (yeah we said it)

Vendor Spotlight :: Favia's Artistry

When we decided to do our first styled shoot, we knew the one thing we couldn't live without was a hair and make up artist to doll up our model. Only problem was, we didn't really know any.

We ran into Monique of Favia's Artistry at a local bridal show a few months ago. We were just passing through but Monique had her business on display. Her booth was packed, and we were impressed with the examples of her work. Right away we noticed she had the ability to make Brides look stunning, but seem as if they're not wearing any make up at all. We also saw that she could turn on the drama and play with colors, making her clients look and feel like they are on the set of a Vogue photo shoot. We knew we needed her business card, so we took one, and got in contact with her right away.

To our delight, she was willing to help us and agreed to make over our model for the shoot. We pored over hundreds of images of vintage hair styles and make up trends from the 40's. In total, we must have sent Monique over 30 examples of what we were looking for. She kindly put up with us, was always quick to respond, and was eager to talk about different ideas. We knew we were in good hands.

As it turns out, we were. In fact, we were in great hands. Monique arrived at Maggie's home the day of the shoot with her Mary Poppins bag of magic. She got started right away, and worked right up until it was time to start shooting. Like us, she's a perfectionist... it felt good knowing she was working towards getting it just right. And she sure did. I mean look at those Victory Rolls! Come on! They're amazing. She's amazing. We couldn't be happier with Monique's work, and the final result that came through in photos.

Favia's Artistry provides beauty, makeup, hair and style design for their clients ranging from Brides and wedding parties, to professional models. Southern Maryland Brides and even those in the Washington, DC should line up for consultations with Monique, and cross their fingers she's available on their wedding date. Knowing you look beautiful, and feeling confident goes a long way on your wedding day, especially in photos. Make sure you have someone as talented as Monique of Favia's Artistry in your corner.

Check out more of Monique's work here.

Here are some images of Monique at work, and of her final product.

The shot below is one of our favorites!

Hello beautiful...

Thanks again to Monique!

And thanks for reading...

Come away with me...

"Come away with me" he said... as he took her hand, dashing from the front porch of her parent's farm house towards the purring engine of their getaway car. "No, wait!" she whispered as she ran back inside, returning moments later wearing her mother's wedding veil, gloves and pearls, with a suitcase in hand.

On a warm spring evening, in no particular year during the 1940's, a boy and girl ran off to get married. With knotted twine for wedding bands, and suitcases packed for nowhere, their elopement may not have been real but it was theirs and it was perfect.

________________________________________________________________


We love wedding photography. We love everything about the unexpected, unplanned (ha!), unscripted course each wedding day takes. The majority of our wedding portfolio is journalistic in nature, as well it should be. So why then are the self proclaimed "photojournalists" doing a completely fake, perfectly arranged styled shoot? Because we're allowed to wear more than one hat.

As much as we love watching someone else's story unfold in front of our cameras, we love to create stories too. We're by no means writers, as you'll clearly find when reading this new blog of ours, but we had such a great time creating these characters, and developing our own little back story as inspiration for this shoot. Simply put... it was fun. And who doesn't like fun? In fact, we plan on doing many more of these editorial style shoots.

Before we show you the photos we want to thank the following individuals who helped make this possible. Without them we'd still only be talking about this little elopement story. We'll be featuring each vendor who supported this styled shoot as the week goes on. So please check back to learn more about these wonderful people.

Hair and Makeup: Favia's Artistry http://www.faviasartistry.com/#home
Florals: LV Creative Designs http://lvcreativedesigns.com/AboutUs.html
Vintage Car; 1949 Packard Sedan: Jack Osborne, Faulkner MD
Cake: Michelle's Cakes http://www.michellescakes.net/
Dress: Vintage 1946
Models: Amanda Shaw, John Mudd


And now... onto the photos.

Can you handle this car?

Cake and Flowers... our favorite things!

Until next time,