I have to say that cake smashes are my second favorite shoots.... second to only family sessions with dogs. I got to help Charlotte celebrate her first birthday with her dad David and mom Breanne.
At first, Charlotte was a little apprehensive of the cake but after awhile she dove right in and the results were adorable!!
Marina was such a beautiful bride! She chose 701 Whaley for her bridal portraits and then totally rocked it! The pealing paint made for a beautiful contrast with Marina's super sexy and modern fitted dress. We then went outside next to the building where there are huge wooden doors that added another great architectural feature to her modern dress!
I just love early morning sessions. That sunlight makes everything so beautiful! I had the pleasure of meeting Tyler, Lauren and Evie early on a chilly Sunday morning for a family session in Gilbert on a soy bean field.
Lauren was hoping for a session in a pumpkin patch but unfortunately we couldn't make that happen so we did the next best thing.... Tyler and Lauren brought with them 6 pumpkins.... It was fantastic!!
Holy cotton fields Batman!! Danielle and Austin killed it with this maternity session in the cotton field last week. They make such a cute couple and I'm so excited to meet their little bundle of joy.
I absolutely loved this session!! I got to go down to Aiken, meet Lily, her mom and her light brown pony Nora. Also there was Champagne and Ghost who were more than eager to get in front of the camera. It was such a fun and magical morning I didn't want to leave!!
But what was even better, was getting to ride Nora back to the barn!!
I love doing beach family sessions but this one was by far, my favorite!! It was so much fun working with Dan, Sara and River.
This was such an amazing afternoon on Folly Beach in Charleston. Jonah and Leticia were so adorable you could feel the love radiating from them both. When Jonah reached out to me about being their photographer for their small beach ceremony, there was no threat of bad weather at all. However, as their wedding date approached, there was a category 5 hurricane heading towards Florida, and coming up through Georgia and into South Carolina.
Jonah was not bothered at all by the threat of Mother Nature, and the ceremony commenced and I'm so happy that the ceremony was not cancelled!!
These photos are right before Hurricane Irma swept up the east coast. Just by looking at them, you would never know of all the destruction and devastation that hurricane had caused.
Richard and Victoria are such a dream to work with! They are so sweet and laid back and good lord are they great looking! The State House Grounds did not disappoint again. I really can not wait for their wedding in April.
My first Groom's Dinner! This is a traditional Mormon celebration and I was not allowed inside of the temple as they were performing the sacred ceremony, only a select few were. The bride and groom wear traditional garb and afterwards change into what we know as the wedding gown and suit.
Afterwards they take photos and then go to dinner which is traditionally everyone else's rehearsal dinner. I really enjoyed doing Kaysten and Kayleigh's portraits, they are genuinely nice people who are so in love it's adorable! Their family and friends were so nice and I greatly appreciated the Mormon 101 lesson!!
Here's a few of my favorites from that day......
If you know me then you know how much I love dogs!! So meeting five of them was so much fun! This is Konan, Lady, Rolly Polly, Vernan and Milk Dud. Oh and their owners, Jennifer and Kenny!
I met with Nick and Alyssa on Thursday in Greenville and it was great! We first went to the Rock Quarry about five minutes down the road from downtown Greenville. It was such a quiet and tranquil park and we were the only ones there on such a hot but beautiful day. We finished up there which took all but 20 minutes and drove less than 5 minutes to downtown Greenville.
I really take Greenville for granted! What a beautiful city it is with so much architecture and culture and the river flowing right through the middle. And the birds... so many different kinds of birds it was amazing!! Nick and Alyssa were such a wonderful and cute couple.
Oh how I love living near the coast! This was my first beach session and I absolutely loved it. This family was wonderful to work with, they just went with the flow and literally did whatever they wanted. The kids, Alex and Eleanor, were of course the stars, more Eleanor than Alex.
I can't wait to do another one!
I had the pleasure of second shooting for the very talented Leslie Perkins of Leslie Perkins Photography in Charleston on the Carolina Girl where I met Ryan and Abbie Blackledge. Ryan and Abbie had already gotten married the year before in front of the court house, because they got there when it closed. They were able to find a fellow officer to officiate and notarize their marriage.
You see, Ryan is in the Navy and was about to be deployed and wanted to make things official with Abbie! A year later, they decided to have a real wedding and do a vow renewal and it was just wonderful!!
Here's a lot of my favorites!! (I know I usually say just a few but I couldn't help it!!!)
It was such a pleasure meeting this little ray of sunshine!! She was wide awake the whole session and watched me the entire time. We had a little mishap while doing the "naked baby shots" she decided to use her daddy as a diaper and pooped and peed on him! Of course dad was a great sport about it.
Here's a couple of my favorites from that session.... without the little mishap!
It was such a pleasure meeting Brandon and Harley! They were such troopers not only getting in the river with me but actually walking through it to get to a beautiful location that could only be done by walking through the water on top of slippery rocks! They were amazing to work with and I can not wait to work with them again.
Brandon and Harley met while gaming of all things. They are both huge video gamers and so it was natural that they met through mutual friends while playing.
Here are just a few of my favorites!
It was such an honor and privilege to have been apart of such a sweet ceremony. I met with Brooke of Brooke Amelia Photography at Starbucks and she is just the sweetest person! Her and John have already been married and each has kids so they didn't want to do anything big to tie the knot.
Their first date was actually a blind date for coffee at the exact Starbucks that we had met for our consultation. They ended up hitting it off and talked for hours until Brooke had to leave to go to Toys R Us for her son. Well John decided that he needed to go as well and that was their first date! They haven't been together a year before deciding that they were meant for each other.
The ceremony took place on a Wednesday evening on John's family's property on Lake Murray. It was in his dad's backyard in a garden that his mother had started before she passed away. Her parents and his dad gathered around and the officiant was his uncle and the notary his aunt. On her side was her son Thompson and on his side was his sons Jacob and Thomas. It was one of the most beautiful and sweet ceremonies I've ever done or had the pleasure of witnessing!!
Here are a few of my favorites!!
What a beautiful day for a wedding! This was my first Catholic ceremony and it was amazing. The church was pretty with a high vaulted ceiling and a beautiful nave and stained glass windows. Kate came down the aisle beaming and Andrew mirrored her happiness while waiting at the end of the aisle for her.
I met Andrew and Kate a little over a year ago at a Starbucks in town and we talked for over an hour. They are just the most genuinely nice and charming people you will ever meet. We went to my beloved peach orchards for their engagement shoot and they did such an amazing job that I couldn't wait for their wedding!
And it finally happened after over a year of waiting and these photos are only a slight few of my favorites!!
Chris and Candace are the nicest people that I have had the pleasure of knowing. I just wanted to do a family/maternity session for them because they struggled for so long for God to give them Hampton and now by the Grace of God, they are naturally having a little girl named Whaley!
Here's just a few of my favorites!
I met with Daniel and Britta yesterday. They live in Florida but Britta is from Columbia so they decided to have their wedding here on May 4th of 2018. Hints why they wore t-shirts and brought light sabers.
They were so much fun to work with, I really had a great time meeting them and getting to know their story. Britta wanted to go to school for the deaf because she wanted to do something different, so she packed her bags and headed down to Florida. She soon met Daniel at the local church and he asked her to a movie, Batman vs. Superman, since she didn't know anyone. And of course, the rest is history!
I met Sam and Kristina in November. They just wanted a few engagement photos for their reception tables at their wedding. Kristina is from Connecticut so they planned to do the wedding there so their family and close friends could be apart. I did their session in my favorite place, the peach orchards, (R.I.P) and they were so much fun to work with!
I did their session, edited the photos, and sent them on their way.... I recently received a phone call from Kristina who was very upset.
She expressed to me that they got their wedding photos back and that she didn't like them at all! I felt so bad for her and tried to console her. Then, here's the real kicker, she said she wanted to print a couple for Sam to take with him when he gets deployed in July of this year to Afghanistan for A YEAR AND A HALF!!!!!
Unfortunately though, She could not make those photos work in any other size but the size of a smartphone. So I told her, lets do a photo session! So no, this was not a court house wedding. This was a couple that were in desperate need of just a few precious memories that couldn't be captured at their wedding.
