Happy two weeks, Nicole + Adam :: St. Michael's Wedding Photography

It is so hard for me to come up with something to say about Nicole and Adam and their wedding. Why? Because I absolutely adore them so much that everything that I come up to say about them that seems like is more than adequate turns out to be anything but. I type, I stop, I look at what I just typed. I stare at the blinking cursor. And then I delete everything.

(This sounds like such a lame excuse for why I have not posted anything for them/of them on here so far but it really is the truth.)

There are photographers who specialize in weddings and engagements but I am actually not one of them. Why? Well... because, honestly? When I do them the only way I know how to do them is to really invest myself personally and emotionally in them with the couple. I spend a lot of time with them before I take their pictures (engagement and/or wedding) and then I spend a lot more time with them when I photograph. This time is something I need to be able to get to know them and so they can get to know me. It helps me to establish a connection with them so that when the camera has to come into play, it is mostly a non-entity and pretty unobtrusive.

With the camera playing a role that is so inconspicuous - all while I am getting to know the folks I am photographing - I am able to use my camera to document people at their most authentic. I (and the camera) are able to see the purest essence of who, what, how, and where they are in the moments that I am sharing with them. And it's for all of these reasons that I can't and I don't just do every wedding or engagement presented to me. Photographing weddings is so much more than me taking pictures of someone's big day. For me it's an honor and blessing that I am permitted to have because I know that I am being allowed to be a part of something sacred and monumental for a person and the rest of the story of their love and life.

By the time Nicole and Adam's wedding day arrived, I had already spent enough time with them and come to know them such that I felt like I belonged there and not just that I was being paid to be there and do a job. That's how I feel at most all weddings I photograph but it only happens like that because of my personal commitment, responsibility, and investment to being right there with them.

I just adore Nicole and Adam. They are two of the most lovely and loving and fun and kind and unconditionally caring people I might ever know for the rest of my life. Seriously! I know I am gushing but that's just how it's going to have to be because unlike everything else I have tried to right about and for them, I don't want to delete any of the gushing.

As of tomorrow, they will have been married for two weeks! Here are just a few of the amazingness that was their perfect wedding day. There's so much more to come but this will have to do for now because I certainly need more time to be able to come up with a much more descriptive posting of their day that isn't just me talking about how awesome they are.

Featured today on Bayside Bride!

I'm delighted to share a wonderful collective of unique engagement and wedding ring designs presented by Bayside Bride...

The ring shot I contributed is toward the end of the feature and showcases a ring shot I did of my own engagement and wedding ring set. Here is the picture featured on the page:

I'm actually not a huge fan of jewelry (plus for my husband!) and I'm much more a lover of a beautiful piece of artwork (not good for husband since these are typically more expensive than lots of pieces of jewelry). I love my ring set because it's something that takes the symbolism that is a beautiful piece of jewelry and infuses it with the integrity of an amazing piece of sculptural artwork. If you can believe it, this is actually an "upgrade" from my original engagement and wedding set that I got last year around the time of my third wedding anniversary. Why the upgrade so soon? Well, my original ring set was vintage in style and had a tremendous amount of filigree and engraving within the design that I had pretty much destroyed because I am so hard on my jewelry. My regular dayjob is working in high school art education classroom and all of the different types of art media I might have deal with just plain whittled the designs down to almost nothing. Not good. Not good at all. The solution to this? Well, my husband indulged me with picking something new to replace it!

I searched probably almost six months until I finally found the perfect ring and wedding set for me on Etsy via an incredible artisan jeweler named Elizabeth Scott. Her inspirations are of the botanical sort and the specific inspiration for my ring came from a sapling branch that she found when she was hiking around the area where she lives and works in her home studio. One of the best things about my set is that Elizabeth really helped me to take her design and customize it to very precise specifications (like down to measurements in the millimeters!) so that it could be as structurally sound as a piece of jewelry that would take the beating it would end up taking like my old set. Elizabeth also allowed me to use a stone called a moissanite in lieu of a diamond because I am not keen on diamonds anyway though I like the look of them . Moissanite was a stone that was a great alternative because of it's hardness and look - most people seem my ring and think it's a diamond!

So that's it. That's the story of my ring and just wanted to share a little background about it because Bayside Bride was so kind of include it in the collective that they shared today.

So much sparkle! :: Gaithersburg Wedding Photographer

This past weekend I had the extreme honor of witnessing a long awaited celebration for a very special bride and groom. They married each other abroad and then had a reception locally for their family and friends. The amazing thing is that despite the fact that there was no ceremony for me to photograph, that didn't mean that the event was any less special or festive. This event had more sparkle, shine, and fancy elements than most any I have had the honor to behold with my camera. I mean, just check out the bride's shoes...

And this image is the only one that I will be sharing of the event. Why? Well, per special request, images will be shared only directly between me and the lovely Mr. & Mrs. and their family and friends. And though this is different for me, I have a great deal of respect for their intent of doing things this way. For as much as I really like to share the amazing images I get to capture with my camera, I have a great deal of respect for those who choose to keep their likenesses off of the web. In a world like now when we are wired by connections that barely give us a moment to breathe, it's always refreshing to me to meet folks who do things differently and spend their lives unplugged a lot more often than I do.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one shot of such fancy and pretty shoes. I've got to get back to editing. I'm working on two weddings right now! No rest for the weary.

Shhhhh! Don't tell ANYONE.

Technically I shouldn't even be showing these to you. Why? Well, because I wasn't supposed to take them in  the first place because I was asked to be at this wedding as a bridesmaid and NOT the photographer. But, well... you can't tell me not to take pictures! Telling a visual artist/professional wedding photographer "Don't take pictures" is like saying to a fish, "Please. Try NOT to swim!" I gotta get some shots in. I HAVE TO capture and preserve the moments that are placed before me. It's what I do!

Still, as God insisted and he knows best, after I took these pictures, my memory card filled itself to max capacity and I had to stop. *shrug* Good thing because I would easily have ended up trying to stuff my full-frame into a little evening bag for the rest of the festivities. Little black bridesmaid dress and awkwardly stuffed purse? Uh... NO.  Well, at least I got some of the lovely details...

Congratulations, Alyson! The "Once upon a time..." you wished for on stars and the "Happily Ever after" you've dreamed of all of your life has finally arrived. May the Lord bless you and your holy covenant with Jorge with only the richest life has to offer.

DO judge a book by its cover!

The creation of a wedding album is a creatively exhaustive and tedious process IF you do it right! A wedding album should never be just a photo album. It should have the ability to take you back to your wedding day with all of the anticipation, excitement, and bliss that comes with that magical day where you merge your life with your beloved's.

The cover of your album is one of the most important elements of your book. Why? Because it should provide a sampling of the beautiful imagery that's inside. Would you be compelled to open this album?

Yvonne and Chris's album is my current album design project! Not a bad "Once upon a time" for a wedding story, eh?

[Teaser] "With this ring... I thee wed... :: Kent Island Wedding Photographer

I'm still working on Yvonne and Chris's pictures but this is one of my favorites so far that I thought I'd share. They are very committed to their faith and I shot their rings on an open bible while Yvonne was getting herself ready before heading to the church...