We did start the shoot in a fairly traditional setting, the family by the fireplace.  I tried to get everyone in a more comfortable and relaxed state and this was the best way to start.

After a full series inside we moved outside.  The shoot had actually been postponed by 3 days as the end of May and beginning of June were very tricky for outdoor shooting.  Outside my vision was of a much more relaxed and natural group.  I let the kids run around, throw balls, use the slide and swings… I let them be kids in their natural state.  A much more lifestyle approach to the family portrait.

We will ALWAYS remember how old these kids were when we did this session.  Its a trick I learned from another photographer.  Just ask the kids how many they are and you get a certain number of fingers.  My hat is off to mom for figuring out a way to get a 1 year old to hold up 1 finger.  It was BRILLIANT and I will use it again and again… shhhhhhhh its my secret!

I had such a good time with this family, I do hope we get to play together again at another milestone!

The DJ asked me while I was taking this next image, “So this is what you have been reduced to, taking pictures of CD covers?”  I shrugged took my picture and walked away.  It is by no means what I have been reduced to its a found object.  Maybe this b&g had no idea that their favorite songs from the day were on 1 cd and that they would be getting it at the end of the night.  Maybe this image will make an awesome background image during the party section of the album.  Maybe it was a waste of time, nah.

I don’t often blog about the garter toss.  Let alone the removal of said garter from the bride’s leg.  There is something about the ritual that isn’t really blog worthy to me.  Well enjoy the next sequence as you have NEVER seen a groom retrieve the garter quite like this!

This next shot is one of my favorites.  Totally a happy accident, but to me it just establishes a time in this family’s life that is so fleeting.  Before we know it I’ll be doing this little girl’s senior session!  But they will always be able to remember when she had these tiny little feet…

I met Andrea and Ryan at Fort Williams Park in Portland, ME.  Fort Williams Park is also the home of Portland Head Light, one of the many lighthouses that dot the east coast.  Lighthouse are on their way to being extinct.  Many are in disrepair, or worse in danger of just falling into the sea from beach erosion.  I’ll post something later on my feelings about lighthouse preservation, for the time being lets focus on Andrea and Ryan.

They will be getting married this fall at The Landing at Pine Point in Scarborough Maine.  The Landing is a wonderful venue and I am super excited to be going there with this couple.  Ryan grew up in the Portland area and even had his senior portraits done in this park.  So for the first hour our so I let him guide us to some of the locations he was familiar with.  I wanted to let them get completely comfortable, and familiar surroundings will do that.

This was our first setup, Ryan admitted shortly after this that he had never actually been this close to the lighthouse itself.  So this was a first for all of us.

It was shortly after this shot on the swings, that Andrea really wanted, that I took over leading the group.  I had seen some things on our walk that I wanted to visit that might not have been on the couple’s hit list.

I always do a portrait of each person during the session.  The location for these portraits was inside a fairly run down shack.  There was some colorful graffiti on the walls that made it difficult do to more environmental shots.   I didn’t think it appropriate to have such a description of what was going to happen during the honey moon in their e-session portraits.  I can’t wait to shoot their full wedding this fall, its going to be a rockin’ good time!

The bride and groom were pretty relaxed getting ready. There was plenty of time, nobody rushed or stressed even when the caterer said they had the wrong chair covers. The bride just shrugged it off and we went right back to work.

After a beautiful ceremony in the Gazebo we spent a little bit of time doing family portraits. It was painless for everyone involved. After that we had time to do some lifestyle portraits with the bride and groom alone, just the 3 of us…

I would love to show you hundreds of images from the portrait session, but I would be neglecting the reception. All star DJ was the entertainment and lighting provider. I love when clients do a package upgrade to include uplights at a wedding. It really adds dimension and life to the room, and to the photographs.

The party was amazing, and everyone EVERYONE had a great time. It was a wonderful way to send off this couple onto their journey into married life.

Because I was not the only person who could not make the event down in the sunny, warm Caribbean they planed to have a small reception state side. They chose the LOVELY and I mean absolutely gorgeous Tupper Manor in Beverly MA.

We did some family shots, some brief coverage of cocktail hour, nothing too over the top as they had done all of this before for the camera. What they had not done was read their vows for their grandparents. That was the heart of this special occasion.

Ok so the heart of the party was allowing the grandparents to hear the vows, the rest of the party was about DANCING! Becky and Chris did a very formal dance they had rehearsed in their kitchen.

After dinner Becky changed into this lovely little green dress and they did another routine they had pre-rehearsed, this one not so formal

By the end of the evening everyone was SPENT… especially the groom. I mean who could blame him, this crowd danced and danced… it was an amazing way to celebrate with family and friends!

Of course the bride had some amazing shoes…

But of course the bride and bridal party were also prepared quite nicely for this eventuality…

After the ceremony, which was in a little chapel in the middle of a cemetery…

We managed to get down to the fun part!

The reception was held at the Tewksbury CC a gorgeous venue, and one I have had the privelage of going to several times now.

All things considered with the weather, I couldn’t have asked for a more fun and adventurous bride!

It has not only been a lot of fun, it has been a great mini break from photography. Well when I saw the signs for the Big Air Competition 2010 I thought, hey why not take some pictures of these amazing athletes jumping way up into the air. And dontchaknow… it was FUN!

Some of the images were published on the Pats Peak website, these are my favorites from the day…

So where was I rambling on… Oh yes! the party! I mean what goes better with an emotionally charged wedding ceremony between two loving people, a ROCKIN’ PARTY. So after Candi and Tj exchanged rings,

they had some fun. First they had a beautiful first dance…

Then they danced with their parents. Its a really wonderful tradition that honors where they came from. Candi and her dad did a sort of jitterbug which was lively and up beat. Tj and his mom did a more traditional dance during which his mom spent the bulk of it in tears, it got me chocked up once or twice.

After the dancing we played a game. Now you ask what kinds of games do we play at weddings. Well the NEWLYWED game of course! Candi and Tj stood back to back they had a bouquet in one hand and a Red Sox hat in the other. The DJ would ask questions and if they thought the answer was Candi they raised the bouquet and so forth. It was really quite cute and it got EVERYONE laughing. Especially Candi’s mom, the picture below is after a particularly funny question, I believe it was “Who is always right?” Both of them raised the Red Sox hat…

And then we danced, drank, laughed… All of the things you do at a fun party. I’ll shut up now and leave everyone with some more images. If you are waiting to see the entire catalog it will be up when Candi and Tj get back from their trip and have seen the entire thing first. If you want to register on the website feel free, or if you just want to email me I will add you to the email announcing the whole catalog.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

So lets get started… My very lovley 2nd shooter and I arrived at the Woodbound Inn just before noon. I don’t want to go into detail about the Inn because it was so awesome, so there its awesome if your looking for a good weekend getaway check it out.

Ok back to the day, gesh I can get myself off track too easily. The day was shaping up to be a killer November day, and there was questions about where to have the ceremony. Tj was trying to get guidance, he wanted it to be perfect but nobody had their cell phone on! Sure he’s laughing below, but he was trying every number he knew to get SOMEONE on the phone.

After we had the ceremony site all set, Tj set off to get dressed with his dad (also the person who married them, pretty damn cool).

Then he had a very private moment with him…

We checked with the official “ring security” and with his ok we were ready to depart… Yeah he fell asleep on the job at one point but was after his “duties” were fulfilled.

I left to go meet up with the girls and my very lovely 2nd shooter stayed with the guys as they departed for the venue.

So with the flowers in toe I took off to see Candi. She was so full of excitement/nervous energy when I showed up, she was litterally bouncing off the walls, it was so cute. There was one rule, no crying. As you can see one minute she was hugging her very attentive sister/maid of honor, and the next smacking her to keep the 1 rule intact. Jill almost lost it several times…

Before we knew it, (and on time I’ll have everyone know) we too were ready to leave for the venue. Candi had a limo but…

We arrived at the Shattuck Golf Club Candi waited in the limo while everyone went down to the ceremony site, then the limo drove her down over part of the course right up to the start line. I mean the bride gets privileges on her wedding day.

There were a lot of people ready and waiting for this momentous event to offically start…

While the ceremony is one of the shortest parts of the actual wedding day it is at the center of the event. Without those magic words, we are all just dressed up for fun. I could post 50 pictures from this ceremony, but in the interest of editing the story I am showing everyone the one that sums it up completely.

Candi and Tj were so excited that he almost forgot to stop on the glass as they ran down the isle! Then we had some fun together with their families and bridal party.

Remember this little guy? This was just before he went “off duty”.

Then Candi, Tj and I had some alone time…

Well this has been a MONSTER post, and we haven’t even touched on the party yet! Stay tuned later this week (more likely the beginning of next week) for the second half of this story.

The Nonatum Resort is an amazing little spot right on the water right outside of Kennebunkport ME. Yes that Kennebunkport that is famous for Bush 41’s summer home…

Well this bride and groom spent quite a while looking for places to have their reception and after an exhaustive search of the area this was the spot. The kitchen even accommodated them making several family recipes for the dinner, now that is really cool.

After we finished getting ready, this couple alloted about an hour with me to go for a little adventure. We scurried up the coast a bit to find some spots out of the wind to do some bridal portraits.

After portraits and a light snack, we ventured off to the church. It was the beautiful historic church in the center of Wells ME. After a beautiful ceremony the bride and groom took off in a “special” limo.

I easily could have put 20 images up on this wedding alone, but I had to edit to tell a story… Part of that story involves the “shot ski.” If you say it fast enough shotski you think I am talking about a older Polish gentleman, not the case. This is a tradition amongst skiiers, and this is a family of powder hounds…

Yes that is the bride with the grooms brothers doing a shot. As the story goes at the engagement party she drank them under the table on that thing. Made her an instant hit in the family!

Well this could go on and on and on, I had so much fun with this couple! But I will leave you with a perfect end to a perfect day…

They live on a beautiful tree lined street in Park Slope Brooklyn. The kind of house you saw in the opening credits of “The Cosby Show.”

After we dodged the rain drops we came inside for the real magic… Ok we put a very cute snowflake onesie on Norah and a hat. She didn’t really care for the hat.

Norah is as smiley and happy as they come! While she will probably harbor a deep hidden resentment towards me for the hat thing, I’m ok with it… She was too cute!

You would think Booker and I are old friends at this point, but maybe he is confused by the camera in front of my face?

Being very close to Halloween we decided to incorporate the them into his session. And well, his momma likes neekeid baby!

Just before we finished up, we did some clowning around…

And as a special treat, Grandma and Grandpa were visiting all the way from Germany!

Now we start planning the 9 month shoot, I am hoping for snow

They are an extremely lively couple, they would barley hold still enough for me to get them in focus!

After covering a very large portion of the city to do pictures we headed off to a resturant that holds a special place for this couple. Radici is a lovely little Italian restaurant on middle st right in the heart of the city.

This is a very spcial place to Becky and Chris and it was extremely important to them to shoot here. They made special arraignments with the owner to come in before dinner so we could have the place to ourselves.

Becky and Chris are making a sign in book from this shoot to take with them on their Caribbean adventure. Its gonna be an amazing book and I can’t wait to design i!

As with all of my portrait clients we had several discussions about locations, wardrobe, makeup, jewelry, shoes etc… we started out with the semi formal clothing in Concord center, and planned to move to some more casual stuff in a wooded area I found on my scouting trip.

This young lady was amazing, not only bright and energetic, she didn’t even blink an eye when I suggested climbing a tree…

After this location we moved off to the Old North Bridge.  Not so much for the bridge itself, but for the beautiful fields and natural landscape that surrounds it.

The last stop on our shoot is a secret…  Why you ask?  Well we weren’t exactly supposed to be there.  It was a 15 min hike into the woods to find the perfect spot, and when we did look what happened…

Yep that’s a rainbow.  I know where this spot is, and would happily shoot there again, but cannot promise mother nature will provide such a landscape.