adventures in wedding photography

I second shot for a photographer friend of mine over the weekend at a wedding. The couple was super cute (and the bride was sweet), the reception area was pretty, and the bridal party was a lot of fun... it really had the potential to be perfect. But because it was not my wedding, and because I don't want to accidentally offend anyone, everyone will remain anonymous (so no pictures)...

So here's the ridiculousness that ensued: 

- I tried to get a cool shot from above of everyone dancing at the reception. The problem? I stood on a FOLDING chair. You can figure out what happened next.

- At one point, every single groomsman was twerking on me. I screamed.

- One of the groomsmen apparently had a crush on me. He stalked me all night, asked me to take a selfie with him, and told me to add him on facebook (thank the Lord he didn't even know my name).  Me and my friend stayed together and she refused to let me walk to my car alone afterwards.

- They put a keg on the dance floor and proceeded to turn people upside down to drink from it. I don't have much experience with keg parties, but I kind of figured women in dresses wouldn't want to participate. I was wrong. So very wrong.

- The groom kept trying to dance with my friend while she was working, and the bride kept having to rescue her.

- By the end of the night, the whole bridal party was so gone that they didn't even bother doing a fun exit. That actually made me a little sad for the bride. But she looked like she was having a good time. haha

The plus side? I took home free cake. :)
And also made lots of hilarious memories with a new friend.

Saying goodbye to summer

We don't do the beach in the middle of summer. It's like a form of torture, especially for my insanely white family (except Noah apparently tans even with 30+ sunscreen?). The sunburn, the crowds, the heat... just not our thing. So we wait until school is back in session, and then we head down to Kiawah. We've been going since I was 14, and even though it's gotten way more popular since then and a few big changes have been made, it's still like going home.

 (in case you're curious, yes I did get my hair redone. It's in the middle of a rescue operation in order to get me back to a more natural color. I kind of love the color now though... hard to tell exactly here, but it's more of a dark red brunette)

 Over the years, we've brought different friends along with us. This time, we brought our buddy Chase (I'm sure you figured that...). I think Brad enjoyed having a guy friend around, and I liked having the extra set of hands to help with Noah. :)

 (okay, seriously... it looks like they hired a photographer to take pictures of them with their son. lol. I'm in like 2 pictures from this whole trip. I really need to get better about that.)

 Brad got to play golf on the island for the first time ever (he scored a great deal). Chase tagged along with him for that and got a few phone pics.

One afternoon, Noah and Brad were both exhausted, so I took Chase for a tour of the island. I showed him all the insanely massive summer homes of all the surgeons, lawyers, and celebrities. We both agreed that if we ever had enough money to build something like that, we wouldn't. Mainly because just the cost to build something like that could feed an underprivileged family for a year.

However, this one is my dream home. I love it so much. I'd never need all that space, but it sure is beautiful.

I also showed him the Oceancourse where they had the 2012 PGA Championship. We also used to take our truck out there and drive to the end of the island to fish.

He's officially branched out on his own business-wise. He does web design, SEO, and other nerd like things that make my brain hurt. Anyway, he needed some updated shots of himself, so we had some fun and did a photoshoot while we were there. And since neither one of us work for free, we traded... he's in the middle of designing a whole new website for my photography business, and I gave him new pictures. I love a good trade. :)

(to see more from the shoot, go here)

The price of fish there is ridiculous, especially when you can just catch your own. So that's what we did. We caught dinner.

It was a lot of fun. At least until the monsoon hit. Oh and until the gator in our back yard came after our fish. Yeah, that wasn't as fun.

It ended up being the perfect trip. The perfect goodbye to summer. Noah had so much fun, he didn't want to leave. When we got back home, he climbed back in his car seat and asked to go bye-bye. :) I felt the same way.

4.

Four years.

It's been four years since this little guy made us a family.

At four years old, Noah has brought us more joy, more sweetness, and just more... everything. Everything good and right with the world can be found in my little guy's soul. He wears his heart on his sleeve, cuddling up when the mood strikes... getting a perfect frown when he scrapes his knee, whimpering, "okie, okie"... or throwing a fit when he hears his least favorite word in the world right now, "wait".

But I like that fighting spirit that's slowly showing itself lately. While it's not much fun to deal with as a parent right now? It's going to come in handy one day for him.

This little boy is amazing. While he sometimes struggles with expressing himself through verbal communication, he excels like a champ in areas like science and math. Hearing my (just now) four year old suddenly count, "three-six-nine-twelve"? Blows my mind.

He's now learning to put on his own shoes, sit up for long periods of time without leaning or propping himself up, ride a bike, make great eye contact, follow simple directions, learn "first and then", and other awesome accomplishments. Lots of small things, all adding up to big things.

Noah has taught us more about perseverance, patience, faith, and hope in these last four years than anything else. I adore this kid. I'm so happy he is who he is, and I'm forever proud to be his Momma.

Family Pictures... and I'm in them! And I'm not blurry!

One of the downsides of being a photographer is that I'm never actually in front of the camera. And if I am, I'm usually blurry or in some weird angle.
So a little over a week ago, while she was in town, we met up with Jess to get some pictures taken of our little family at my grandparents' home.
I was so excited about these. We've never had professional pictures done of our family together (which is stupid, since I'm a photographer that stresses the importance of them). I even had my stepsister to do my makeup for me (she's a professional makeup artist... seriously, she's good. Her whole job is to travel around and teach other artists new techniques, styles, etc).

Frankly, I'm just happy it's documented that I existed. That Noah actually does have a mother. But beyond that, Jess did such a fantastic job. She got Noah to look at the camera (hardly ever happens) and was patient enough to wait while he kept asking his great-grandparents for more ice cream. lol. I'm really happy with how they turned out... thanks Jess!!

I'm not going to bombard the post with every one of them (I could, but I won't), but here are a few... okay a lot... of my favorites:

 



 

(one of my personal favorites...)