James Melia
March 30, 2013
To me, the thing that makes a really great editorial shoot isn't all the pretty details (although they help), the beautiful model or the amazing backdrop - it's the narrative and the story that the images tell. As soon as I saw this shoot sent over by wedding photographer James Melia I instantly started wondering what this girl's story was and what the photographer and stylist wanted to tell us.Read more...
Keith A Savage
February 16, 2013
Engagement shoots might not be everyone's bag, in fact I rarely blog them myself. But when I saw Kate & Brandon's intimate and utterly gorgeous shoot I knew I had to break my self-imposed rule. I love how these images perfectly reflect the couple - their likes and dislikes, the things they do together and who they are as people - without any pretentiousness. Nothing is overdone and nothing has been imposed by the stylist - it just shows them.Read more...
Ulmer Studios
February 12, 2013
After a sweet proposal outside the concert of one of their favourite bands, Emily & Casey set to planning their fairytale wedding. They wanted it to reflect how much in love they are as well as their fun, carefree and loving nature towards life.Read more...
Sharalee Prang
February 11, 2013
I didn't think people like this existed in real life. When I first laid eyes on Erik & Caitlin's wedding images I was convinced it was a styled shoot with models. This couldn't be an actual wedding, surely? But I was wrong and my heart whooped with joy. The wedding took place in September at the bride's parent's home. The entire wedding cost less than $5000. (I know! As if it wasn't amazing enough already, right?!) Caitlin designed her own dress (which was made by the mother of the groom and ended up costing only $190, including the veil!), wore $20 shoes (which she customised) and her floral headpiece was made by one of her bridesmaids an hour before the ceremony. The cakes were homemade, the flowers were grown and collected by friends and family and the invitations were hand painted and wax sealed by the bride. All the catering was done by the mother of the bride and the bride's brother Matt acted as bartender. As you can probably imagine the couple also decorated the entire space themselves.Read more...
Rubistyle
January 30, 2013
Noel & Dee's Cork wedding had a laid back, bohemian vibe and was held at Ballyvolane House. The ceremony was held outside in the woods. "The owners of Ballyvolane House, Justin & Jenny Green and their wedding coordinator Breffne McKenna organised our ceremony and reception flawlessly", began the bride. "We didn't have to worry or think about anything on the day as everything went so smoothly. Even when our celebrant didn't show up, there was no issue as Justin stood in to conduct our ceremony in the woods. This made it even more special. Our guests didn't know any different, and just assumed Justin was the celebrant until he came around during the reception with a tray of champagne. Some of the guests commented that we were really getting our money's worth out of him! We can't thank them enough for going above and beyond in every way."Read more...
December 11, 2012
After a romantic proposal that involved a treasure hunt around London, culminating in the bride being led to Greenwich Park where her groom proposed with a hamper of treats under the Royal Observatory, Becci & David were married at Wise Wedding Venue, a woodland hideaway in Kent.Read more...
December 5, 2012
I do love winter wedding inspiration, but more than that, I love winter inspiration that's a little bit more edgy. Gothic even. To me, winter is the perfect opportunity to embrace your dark side. And for their engagement shoot, Adriana & xx wanted to to just that as well. "I wanted to really go all out and embodied the darker side of us for our engagement shoot", Adriana explained. "We really weren't trying to be 'dark', we were just trying to be true to us. My fiancé is a musician and I am a event creative director, so I really wanted our passions to be apparent in this shoot. I wanted to create an enchanting feeling and our own little creative fantasy."Read more...
November 12, 2012
"I wasn't the kind of girl who had dreamed about her wedding day since the age of five", began newlywed Leah who married Simon earlier this year, "and being engaged on December 20th and getting married on March 31st didn't give us a whole lot of time to plan anyway. So I found myself in a little deep at first, but a few days into discussing ideas, we realized how cool it was to be able to create an event from the things we love - nature, the woods, rustic details. Daily life delivers you many inspirational things, and having eclectic tastes we knew it wouldn't be a cookie cutter or 'paint by numbers' kinda wedding."Read more...
October 31, 2012
"Woodland party circus!" replied newlywed Kat when I asked her to describe her wedding. "At least that was the three things we kept saying to people when they asked what our wedding was going to be like." Kat & Mat were married at The Hideout, a bar and music venue in Chicago. "We really didn't want to have a traditional banquet wedding, and we both wanted something that was very relaxed", the bride continued. "The ceremony was an important part of the day for us but we also knew the party was equally important! We saw the reception part of the evening an opportunity to really celebrate with all the friends and family who had come from both close (a few blocks away) and far (as far as Australia). We racked our brains and both of us have some great memories of The Hideout. We spend a lot of time going to shows there and we even first met at one, so it seemed like a natural fit. I think the venue was what really made our wedding special and started to really define how we were going to work in the rest of the details."Read more...
July 18, 2012
I love love love Shell de Mar's wedding photography. Every single image is bright and fun and vibrant. They just make me feel so happy. I don't know what it is... It's probably a little to do with the amazing way she captures colour but more likely than not it's a lot to do with the firecracker behind the lens. Shell is a cute as hell force to be reckoned with. She's also one of my best friends and so it's always an honour to share her work on my blog. Today's installment of sunshine comes in the form of Jenny & Gary's woodland ceremony, hillside portraits and pirate themed reception. "Our ceremony was held at Wittenham Clumps (i.e. up a hill!), just next to the reception venue", Jenny told me. "When we came to see the barn as a potential reception venue we fell in love with the view, the fresh air, abundance of wild flowers and birdsong (sounds cheesy but it truly was idyllic) and just had to have the wedding there. Amazingly the sun shone on the day, although it had been raining for weeks before and after. We were bloody lucky! The only down side was there was no license so we had to have a small civil ceremony the week before (no great burden really – having an intimate day was also wonderful)."Read more...
October 13, 2011
"The theme for our wedding began as a circus/carnival inspiration and grew to encompass woodland creatures, feathers and various fancy dressed individuals from badgers to unicorns, not forgetting the now infamous family of bears!" newlyweds Toby & Isa told me. "We did things differently, just simply because that's how we are and to have had any other style of wedding or traditional ceremony would have not been true to us as we are not religious. However we did have a beautiful blessing with Sally our Interfaith minister and we wrote our own wedding vows."Read more...
September 21, 2011
OK so it isn't much surprise that I pretty much died when I first saw Ian & Jo's wedding. The woods! The campfire! The bride wearing freakin' antlers! Oh my lord I'm so thrilled to be blogging this baby. "Our wedding was had a subtle vintage 1920's summer fete theme," Jo wrote, "We love art, creativity and community. The things that make us human. The wedding was never about me & Ian exclusively, marriage to us means the joining of many, a coming together. It was our opportunity to share our love for each other, and extend it to our loved ones. That day was for all of us. I think that vibe came across."Read more...
September 15, 2011
Faith & Chris were married at Camp Brockway in Pratt's Falls, NY. The theme of the day revolved around birds, but more than that it revolved around the love and the fact that the two of them were committing their lives to each other. After a touching outdoor ceremony, the couple enjoyed some time having their photos taken by Love Me Do Photography.Read more...
July 5, 2011
Oh where oh where do I begin with telling you about Jachen & Monica's woodland-inspired wedding? The images and video of their wedding are such a visual feast that I almost don't know where to start. The day had a sort of travel/woodland theme which reflected the fact that the couple met in Switzerland. Monica explains, "A year ago I was living in Switzerland as an Au pair when I met my now husband. I was only there for 3 months, but just long enough to have met him the last month I was there. We were both in the right place at the right time, the only time I would have been able to meet him. It is amazing how you can look back on all the events that led up to that moment and how evident it was that I was supposed to be in Switzerland to find him. After I met him we had one more month until I had to return to my home in Seattle. We continued skyping, emailing and a few times he came to me and I went back to beautiful Switzerland to be with him where we became engaged. Sometimes everything just falls into place and we were lucky enough to have that happen to us."Read more...
June 1, 2011
Peter & Alisha's Sydney wedding had a whimsical woodland vibe (complete with animal masks no less!)...with both modern and vintage twists. The bride explained, "I wanted to do something bright and whimsical with some traditional and vintage twists. I love colour so the blue of the bridesmaid's dresses knocked me over when I saw it ... its also one of my maids favourite colours. I wanted to surprise my friends and family with some little surprises , I hope we did. I love autumn colours and bright blue skies in May. Green goes well with these two palletes too and thats my favouite colour."Read more...
May 23, 2011
This morning's shoot was set up by photographers We Heart Pictures to showcase the types of brides they want to shoot. "Hector and I fly to Jersey often for client meetings as we shoot weddings in the Channel Islands," photographer Charlie told me. "I took the opportunity to make the most of our trip and the stunning location and heckled people into getting up at 8am on Easter Sunday to join us in St Catherine’s Woods. We wanted it to be fun so packed a picnic, chandelier, flags, bunting, balloons, bubbles, masks, several meters of fabric and threw in a couple of wedding dresses as you do!"Read more...
December 17, 2010
Sharon & Mike woodland wedding was held at Owl Moon Farm in The Berkshires, MA in September. Both the bride and groom wore vintage clothes and even Sharon’s engagement ring was made from the cast of a vintage ring. Sharon told me all about their day, starting with why they decided to get married in Massachusetts, “We live in California, and when our state revoked the right for homosexuals to marry, it really angered and upset me. I believe that any two people who are in love should be able to legally (and socially) commit themselves to each other.Read more...
September 15, 2010
"David, an Aussie living in London, met Norwegian Ingrid on a trip to Norway through friends" photographer Ed began. "They hit it off straight away and had a long distance relationship for a while until Ingrid decided to move over to London. They both share a passion for music. Dave is a guitarist and music director and Ingrid is still studying, but sings. One thing led to another and they got married in July 2008 in Ingrid's home town Stavanger, in Norway. It was a fantastic wedding with people from London, Norway and Australia. However, one thing went badly wrong... their photographer lost their entire set of photos (their photographer was not me by the way!) due to a hard disk issue. Ingrid was naturally devastated!"Read more...
June 16, 2010
I always wonder, when a photographer gets married, how the hell do they decide who to shoot their own wedding? Well Laura & Dave of Blissed Photo had just this conundrum when they got married recently, but chose the amazing One Love Photo as they knew Heather & Jon would capture it perfectly. Being surrounded by all things wedding in their day to day lives, the couple had seen loads of brilliant ideas (and knew some to avoid!) in their own planning. However they still knew what was important to them, music and poetry, and wanted to make sure this was brought into their day. "Dave plays sax in a few bands, so a trio of his best friends played during cocktail hour, and we hired an amazing funk band, Emerald City Throwdown, that had everybody dancing" Laura told me. " We also wanted everyone to mingle, so we skipped the seating assignment and also had couches (from Bella Rugosa) to make the vibe more casual and open. I'm not really a poet, but I LOVE spoken word poetry, so I asked my 3 favorite poets if they would read at our reception. Everyone went nuts because these poets are some of the best in the world (truly- they constantly travel and compete internationally). I surprised Dave with a poem I wrote, and then he surprised me by having a good friend of his perform a new Pearl Jam song, Just Breathe, for our first dance. "Read more...
June 12, 2010
I usually only put one post up on a Saturday, but I have to admit that I wanted to share this engagement shoot as soon as I could...and plus, the submissions have been coming in at such a rate of knots since I posted my How to... Get Your Wedding Featured on a Blog post (which I'm not complaining about of course!) but I do feel like I have a lot to get through this week! Alister & Rachel are having a gothic & diy wedding on a mountain vineyard in a few weeks. The wedding is sure to be super detail-heavy and I can't wait to share it! However their engagement session was actual quite impromptu. "They wanted a Gothic yet bibliophile theme with a twist for the main part of the shoot, hence the books, vinyl and rug. Then for the rest of it, we simply found some killer locations and let them do their own thing; smiling, laughing, whatever went!" photographer Julian told me.Read more...