Hello, soon to be bride or groom!

Abbey and Steve, Married | Dayton Ohio Wedding Photography

September 22, 2011

Abbey and Steve were married in Dayton … and they put on one AMAZING wedding. I wish I could put into words how much fun I had shooting with them and their family and friends. Here are a few of my faves:

Soooo … a little bit of back story on this one. They planned a really, really awesome first dance and surprised virtually everyone of their friends and family with it. They came out to a Colbie Callait song and then went into Footloose.

Even better, if that were possible. Abbey surprised EVERYONE with a song for Steve – her rendition of Heaven is a Place on Earth. I tried, but the pictures truly do not do these moments justice!

Thanks so much for sharing your wedding day with me! A lifetime of love and happiness to you both!!

And a big thanks to the uber talented and all-round awesome person, Shannon Sano for second shooting with me!

Like these? About 1100 more?

Karlyn and Brian, Married | Granville Ohio Wedding Photography

August 24, 2011

I loved Karlyn and Brian’s wedding. Everything felt so authentic, so “them” but most of all the day felt like a really fun celebration of their love shared with family and friends. And isn’t that exactly what a wedding is all about?

A sudden monsoon unexpectedly relocated their ceremony from the deck into the Bryn du Mansion Fieldhouse … which might’ve been just as well since it was about a 1,000 degrees outside. Here are a few favorites, starting with their beautiful first look

I had never seen this before but LOVED the idea! They wrote letters to each other to read on their fifth anniversary and locked them into this box, along with a bottle of wine!

Thanks so much for sharing in your wedding day, Karlyn and Brian! A lifetime of love and happiness to you both!

Check out hundreds more!

Sarah and Ryan, Married | Cleveland Ohio Wedding Photography

August 23, 2011

Sarah + Ryan = a beautiful, sweet wedding. Picture proof below; a few of my long-overdue favorites.

Thank you both for sharing your wedding day with me.

Check out a few hundred more, or if you’re feeling brave, the entire gallery!

Anne and Andrew, Married. “The Eyes Have It” | Worthington OH Wedding Photography

July 11, 2011

Anne and Andrew are such an extraordinarily sweet, kind and fun couple! I first met them through Trillion and Barrett, who were married last year, and it was difficult to choose amongst so many “favorites” to post because their entire wedding day felt so wonderfully emotional to me. What made photographing them special was that you can see, so very plainly, the love they have for each other in the way they look at each other!

Having looked at hundreds of thousands of photos from thousands of different photographers (including myself) over the years, I feel that the eyes of the subject(s) in any photo are what primarily communicate emotion. Whether the emotion is spontaneous and genuine, or even well “posed” it is this component that, all else being equal, separate a “that’s neat, but meh” photograph from a captivating one. (It’s one reason I really dislike a current trend where the couple hold each other’s hands, side by side and stare blankly at the camera. Any way.)

That aside (sometimes my mind wanders while writing and I just go with it) let’s take a look at a few of my favorites from Anne and Andrew’s wedding day.

One last one – after Anne and Andrew had driven away from the church, I was standing with their family and friends outside and they were wondering aloud where the bride and groom had disappeared off to – they were, after all, only “supposed to be driving around the block.” Turns out, they were starving and had hit up the drive thru. This picture makes me smile.

Thanks so much for trusting me with your wedding day, Anne and Andrew! I had a blast!

Check out hundreds more photos from Anne and Andrew’s wedding day and order a print or two (or heck, a hundred!) if you’d like to!

To First Look, or not to First Look?

June 20, 2011

If you’re planning a wedding, you might have thought about whether or not you and your fiance will see each other before your walk down the aisle. You may have envisioned this moment and how it will feel and what it will look like for years now … or it may be an afterthought!

I am a huuuge fan of the first look and I recommend it* … with the following footnote. I understand completely that many couples prefer to save that special moment for the ceremony and should you choose to do that, no problem! I will absolutely accommodate your decision either way. But I’d like to offer you a few reasons that, in my experience, make a compelling case for seeing each other beforehand:

A first look is time before the ceremony is time together – uninterrupted. I can’t emphasize this enough: while a wedding day is such a wonderful occasion in part because you get to spend it with the family and friends you love most, it is also a day in which you will probably very little time to yourselves. Even five to fifteen minutes will feel awesome.

A first look is an amazing opportunity to take both candid, unscripted photos and wonderful, relaxed portraits together. Schedule and then take your time together – as much as you’d like to. There is no “right answer” here – only what sounds best to you – but often I will hang back and use a telephoto to capture the spontaneous emotions unobtrusively, and then we can take portraits if you’d like. And there’s actually a good reason to opt for portraits now, as opposed to after the ceremony. Why, you ask?

Think about what will happen after you’ve said “I do” and walked your recessional together for the first time. You may choose to greet your guests in a receiving line, or it may be time for the family “formal” photos. What doesn’t usually happen during this time – or throughout the past few hours previous – is food. So when the three of us finally get to shoot your portraits together, you are hungry. And tired. And ready to get to the reception and have some dinner and get off your feet! This has happened more than a few times in the past with my clients and while we will always make the most of the time we have together, you’re more likely to be at very best if you’re more focused on the moment … and less on getting to dinner.

Thanks for reading! And please do drop me a line so we can talk about how we might shoot your first look!