I am really excited to be a part of the BABC Charity Wedding Gown Sale, coming up this weekend at the Sheraton Raleigh hotel at 421 South Salisbury Street in downtown Raleigh. Ladies, if you haven't found the perfect dress yet, please come out this weekend -- the dress may be waiting for you downtown!

 

Brides Against Breast Cancer is a major fund-raising event for the Making Memories Foundation, an organization whose mission is to bring some joy into the lives of women who are losing their fight against breast cancer.  Some of the gowns for sale have been donated by brides, but more than half of the gowns are donated by designers and bridal shops and have never been worn. Gown prices begin at $99; Couture Collection gowns are 35% to 75% off retail prices!

 

Friday night's VIP event features a Mother/Daughter dinner and fashion show. I'll be photographing the gown sale on Saturday and Sunday. I am literally beside myself with excitement to be a part of this -- I'm imagining it will be like getting to photograph an episode of "Say Yes to the Dress," a show with which I'm completely obsessed. (Yep, that's me you hear screaming, "$10,000 for a dress??? Are you kidding me??)

 

I'm donating my time and images to the organization and I'm really hoping some Sweet Life brides decide to head downtown this weekend to attend the sale. If you go and you find the dress, email me a copy of the receipt and I will add a $150 print credit to your package! I hope to see you there!

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!

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ceremony begins as Kim and her dad make their way from the house and onto the drive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

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!

"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 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erin has a very photogenic laugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.)

 

 

 

 

FAV-O-RITE.

 

 

 

 

I'm like a bloodhound; if there's graffiti on a college campus, I will find it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Erin and Tom, June 12th will be here before you know it! We can't wait to share your wedding day with you!