Portraiture in a Wedding Dress - Niceville, Fl

Monday was my first wedding-ish shoot in a while. I say wedding-ish because there was no actual wedding :) Jessica has been married for about 10 months or so, but has yet to have her ceremony. To some of you this may be odd, but for us military folk... totally NOT odd. They will be having their actual ceremony wedding bash in May, and though they have a photographer she really wanted to get some shots of just her in her dress. Her husband is out for the week so what better timing than now? Aside from the threats of thunderstorm (stupid weather.com!) we had a LOVELY session, and the weather ended up being perfect. So glad we decided to take our chances :) Jessica is absolutely gorgeous and we had a wonderful time near Boggy Bayou in Niceville... or perhaps it's technically Valparaiso. Seriously, I think she will be stunning on her wedding day! And I have to point out that nothing in photoshop touched her face. She is naturally just that beautiful.



We were on the side of the road and she suggested we get in the middle of the road. Awesome. I love LOVE clients who want to do things like this :) She even wanted to sit on a tree branch and totally would have had we been able to find the right one... maybe another day.



Jessica and her man have the cutest story. She has known him since she was seven years old. Always had a crush on him. However, he is five years older than her so he didn't notice her quite the way she noticed him at first. Sometime around twelve though she got up the courage to throw it out there. Their families were friends and he had left his bag at her grandma's house (or it may have been a cousin, not sure which), and she slipped a picture of her with her phone number in the bag for him to find later. He found it, called her the next day,and the rest is history. How cute is that!?!





I was LOVING the dock and her shoes! So many awesome shots there. And I have to give Brian credit for finding this spot :) We were driving around looking for new locations to shoot at and he randomly found this little loop with all these great photo places. It's a real keeper!

Nichole and Josh's Wedding

I know it has been a couple of weeks, but what can I say? If it does not NEED to be done and I don't do it immediately, it just tends to sit on the back burner until I get sick of seeing it on my to do list. I was in my friend, Nichole's wedding a couple weeks ago in California. It was a beautiful wedding and I am so happy that I was able to be a part of it. She looked amazing and now she has a lovely new name :)



Nichole and I go way back to 6th grade when she was the new girl in school. We sat next to each other in class. One day in class we were all quietly working on some math homework when one of us went to pick up a hair that was sitting on the other's sheet only to realize that it was a pencil marking. This odd incident was quite hysterical from an eleven year old's perspective, and we hit it off from there. A weird way to start a friendship. I know. That's how it happened though ;)





Back to the wedding. It was at Catta Verdera in Lincoln, California. A pretty snazzy venue indeed. I had a wonderful time photographing us girls getting ready, and of course tagged behind the photographer and got some of my own shots of the bride :) I would recognize the photographer, but I cannot for the life of me remember their names... though I did see a couple shots posted on Nichole's Facebook and I must say they did a FABULOUS job! I am so excited to see the rest of their images! The wedding went off without a hitch, minus a few raindrops, or adding a few raindrops. Seriously, the second we stepped outside to begin the ceremony it started to sprinkle. Not a lot, but a little and it started a little harder and we thought we were in for it, but it stayed light and everything was wonderful. I think Nichole may have even been a little relieved because it forced her father and Josh's father to keep their talking under control :) So yes, a few rain drops to seal the deal and we were off for more pictures and the reception. The food. Oh the FOOD. Filet Mignon anyone? I would have taken a picture of it had I not eaten it so quickly.



I love love LOVE their family. Above is her sweet dad and below is her brother both getting teary eyed seeing her ready to be married ;) I can remember her brother driving us to Homecoming once as we were all dressed up and giving us advice on how not to be that ditsy girl smacking her gum. Not that we needed that advice, but it was said anyway ;)



All us bridesmaids. Her two sisters and a dear friend of hers. Yes I am totally blurry. At least I got someone in focus right? I am still working on mastering those hand held shots :)



Really though, who does not want this shot from their wedding day? It is a must. Absolutely.



This one too...



It was really a blast being a part of her special day. I really enjoyed spending so much time with her and her family the few days before her wedding.

Monique and Derrick

I had the pleasure of photographing Derrick and Monique's wedding this past Saturday. I was a bit worried on Friday because the forecast for Saturday had rain, but we lucked out! Everything went very smoothly and they looked wonderful! I LOVE Monique's dress. Very beautiful and unique. The shot above is one of my favorites just because of Derrick's face. It makes me smile every time. I promise photo shoots with me are not as painful as that face makes it seem :)



Monique is absolutely stunning here, despite the fact that she was pretty cold. It was sprinkling a bit, but we were safe under the trees. We finished just in time for it to start raining a little harder.












The happy couple :) I am so glad I was able to document their wedding for them!

Ryo & Kahori

Alright, I know I have been slacking on the blogage lately, and I don't even have an excuse aside from the fact that I am avoiding everything electronic whenever I can. However, everyone needs to hear about this super cool Japanese wedding that I got to go to last Saturday :) Above are my friends Ryo and Kahori. Karhori's parents are my neighbors and they are seriously THE nicest people ever. I can't really explain it, but let me just say that they have made our stay here in Japan wonderful and my experience of living out in town awesome!

First, the day started with me taking a taxi to the wedding site with Yuuna (kahori's sister). We all waited in this room for everyone to arrive. They served hot water with salt and Sakura blossoms. It was oddly tasty and very cool looking. Although I must say if you drink it when it is no longer roasting hot the salt will kinda get to ya :)

Ryo and Kahori also waited with us in the room. I thought that was odd, but that is cause in America we do things quite differently... their Japanese wedding outfits were super cool!

Here is post ceremony. The ceremony was IN that shrine behind the family there. I will likely never have the opportunity to set foot in a shrine again. It was really cool. Sadly, no cameras were allowed, but I was soaking it up in hopes to never forget a thing. I felt like I was in a discovery channel show on Japanese weddings. It was very traditional. Someone playing the flute (I think) and a drum pounding (which I could see the reflection of in a glass and it just looked cool). This man singing something like you would hear in... I don't know what... an old cathedral or something. Then a lady doing some dance with some bells that looked kinda like Thai Chi. Sake for them. Sake for us. Clapping, bowing... it was COOL. And check out Mr. Cameraman below. I think that was a medium format (the rest of the time though he was using a Canon 5D).
Oh this guy... he was my favorite. He held this awesome umbrella over Ryo and Kahori as they walked and it looked SO stinkin' cool. If only I was able to get a pic of that. I was too far in the back though, and here he obviously did not hold it open :(

Kahori, surrounded by family and friends. She looked beautiful!
These girls made me laugh. They were so giggly and funny. All in her face dancing around chatting and making a big fuss over her. It was hilarious!

Me with them of course :) I feel like I look like Julie in these pictures... scary!
Cake cutting was the #1 thing they did. Kinda backwards for us Americans, but that's cool. I like different.
No smashing in the face. And after they fed each other the parents came and fed them. Ryo somehow always was fed a ridiculously huge bite though :)
The food... oh the food! It was AMAZING. 5 course meal. Best Ever. This was course #1. #2 was soup which I did not photograph, but was absolutely amazing!
Course #3 was fish and rice and I did not photograph that either but it looked and tasted equally amazing as the #4 course of steak!
#5... dessert. So great! I LOVE Kiwi. All of it was really really tasty.
They went around and lit the candles at all the tables and got a picture with all of us. The candles were super cool and sparkly for the first 30 seconds or so that they were lit.
See!?!
The light in this room was AMAZING! We had a view of the ocean and the whole wall was straight windows. A photographer's dream!
Love the light. LOVE it!
This is Christina. She grew up with them from about age 5-15. Her dad was Navy and at 15 she moved to Hawaii and so her gift to them was to perform this hula dance. She was also AMAZING. I have never seen a hula dance performed before, but it was really awesome. Very sweet and actually emotional. I looked over at Kahori and she was dabbing her eyes. It was really beautiful.
I don't know why, but I am pretty sure this is my favorite shot. They are just there. I think they thought I was just checking my settings (probably cause that is what I told them :) and definitely weren't ready for the shot and I LOVE it!
Me again... looking like Julie
The family! They all looked fantastic! Love the kimonos!
Shin (the father) is an awesome artist. He makes the coolest stuff out of wood and this is my absolute favorite sign I have ever seen (and I have been to a lot of weddings!).
He made this little display too. Very cute! Overall, it was a really awesome experience and I am so happy that I was able to be a part of it. Not only that I was able to go, but that they invited me! I felt quite special as it was not an enormous wedding. It was weird cause I didn't know what people were saying, but the girls I sat with did speak English so that was nice. Though, I hope I did not offend the groom's mom when she came to pour me beer and I had NO idea what she was saying and probably did not respond as I was "supposed to". I didn't know that the parents were coming around to pour beer. Had Shin and Hiromi come to my table first I may have caught on, but at the moment, I didn't even realize that it was Ryo's mom! I was looking for help from my Japanese English speakers, but they were in a conversation... All was fine though. The best word to describe the whole wedding... ELEGANT. Everything was perfectly elegant. A great experience indeed!