Here’s another venue collage from a fabulous wedding I shot on Jekyll Island – part of Georgia’s Golden Isles. Crane Cottage is part of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel . Crane Cottage is an Italian Renaissance style building and has a gorgeous formal sunken garden, an inner courtyard, and a beautiful upper terrace and fountain.
It was such a pleasure to do a short, on location headshot session with Marcel after we finished the Karate school photos.
Many couples include their favorite regional or cultural foods when planning their reception menus. I’ve been to a reception that hosted a low country seafood boil (in Savannah), a New Orleans high society bash catered by the Restaurant August, an Indian wedding that had some of the most amazing food I’ve ever eaten (and where I tasted my first salted lassi), a Southern wedding where favorites like hush-puppies and fried tomatoes and pecan pralines were served, and a Texas wedding that featured smoked barbecue.
Custom cocktails are more and more popular as well. Instead of having an open bar, many couples are designing and serving one or two signature drinks at their receptions. Appletinis and Cosmos were the drink of choice at one wedding where the colors were green and pink. A southern (spiked) lemonade was served in mason jart at a Deep South themed wedding. Champagne cocktails with a perfect raspberry in the glass were served at a brunch reception.
In my experiences over nearly 15 years of photographing weddings, I have come to believe that the single most important detail of a wedding reception is the food. (Music is the second.) People won’t remember what flowers you had on the table. They won’t remember the color of the linens. They won’t remember what specific song you first danced to. They’ll remember the food – whether it was good or bad and if there was enough of it.
Whether you have a sit-down dinner or a buffet; whether you have plated appetisers; whether you have an open bar, served signature cocktails, or beer and wine; whether you have a simple dessert offering or a full meal; having tasty and well prepared food tells your guests you appreciate them!
I love these new cards from Moo.com. These cute little cards have become my new standard business card, not to mention what I use for promotions, wedding gallery announcements, little bitty note cards, and anything else I can think of.
I just had to share images of my latest batch that came in today!
A lot of times I get asked how I got into photography or why I’m a photographer. One of the things that really influences me is history … especially family history. Some of my most cherished possessions are the family photos that were willed to me when my parents died. I have photos dating back to the late 1800s, both of my father’s and my mother’s family. But some of my most cherished are those of my grandmother (my mother’s mother) who was a true 1920′s flapper. She danced on the stage in San Francisco in 1929, and was a model for the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1930s.
I hope that someday some woman will look back on photos I’ve taken the way I look back on these of my grandmother and feel the same connection. It’s what motivates me as a photographer.
The building across the street from my office is being repainted this month. As I was walking to lunch today I was really struck by the contrast of the unpainted side, the painted white beams, and the blue blue blue winter sky. Just for fun.
I’m not really one for a lot of Photoshop work or fancy special effects. When we edit images, I prefer that they be clean, crisp, and bright, but not overly processed. I’m all about subtle effects for retouching and skin smoothing (no one wants plastic skin!).
By the same token, our album designs are clean and classic. We don’t tend to have a lot of overlapping images, fades, colors, lines, and so forth.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to play around now and then. Every once in a while I find an effect or an action that I think might be kind of fun in an album design or for a special offering. This is one of them. The action itself is from PanosFX and is one of the 30 or so free actions that they offer.
It’s fun, huh? I don’t know that I’d use it all the time, but I can see it as an opening page in one of our couple’s albums. Just to play!
First of all, yes I did have to look up the proper spelling of boutonnieres! When I worked in a flower shop, we simply called them “bouts” (pronounced “boots”), which is much easier to write and say. Regardless of how you say or spell the word, I think in some ways boutonnieres are even more interesting than bouquets. A bout represents the entire “feel” of the bride’s bouquet, in a tiny, pinnable, floral package. They create a beautiful splash of color against the plain black of a grooms tux. I am really in awe of florists who can create good boutonnieres. (Oh, and sometimes, some grooms prefer an homage to their favorite athlete – and a pocket square instead!)
Another image from a recent headshots session. I’m really enjoying these. And while you’re here, check out my new profile on Model Mayhem as well!
