Year after year, this is one of my favorite blog posts to write! If you’ve been following me for any length of time, by now you know that behind-the-scenes at a wedding doesn’t always look like the pretty pictures that come as a result! And being a wedding photographer means a lot more than simply clicking the shutter - it involves arranging details, hanging dresses, calming nerves, having fun with my second shooter/husband, and sometimes just getting out on the dance floor when the Wobble comes on.
This also happens to be one of the times I can post some embarrassing pictures of Nathan without objection, and this year resulted in some of my favorite yet! Sometimes I remember why he’s in a ridiculous pose (trying to make me laugh and calm me down, for example), and sometimes I have no clue (why is he crouching behind a pole?!).
Regardless of the reason, I guarantee a few laughs and a whole lot of silliness behind the scenes of our 2019 wedding season…
2019 Behind the Scenes
2019 Wedding Favorites
This year was different than any other, in a lot of good ways. I got to photograph two gorgeous elopements, one at Fort Monroe Beach and one at The Historic Post Office in Hampton. I had two military weddings, my first Jewish wedding, and almost zero travel all year long…and as much as I love travel, it was wonderful to sleep in my bed the night after a wedding most of the time!
Each time I approach a wedding, I put pressure on myself to do something different. I truly want to capture the individual personalities of the bride, groom, and their friends and family, because no two weddings are the same…and they shouldn’t look like each other, either! Fortunately, when I walk into weddings and already know the couple from their engagement session, it’s easy to remember why I love them as a couple and why they love each other. From there, each pose and each moment is completely individual, and while I will always take the smiling-at-the-camera family pictures, so many of the in-betweens are uniquely beautiful to every day…
Norfolk Botanical Garden Wedding | TJ + Jessica
Hurricane Dorian threatened to ruin their day in a dozen different ways. First, there was the outdoor ceremony - it would have to be moved from the original place. Then, there was the Botanical Gardens themselves - would it be too muddy to get good pictures? On top of that, many family and friends were traveling from far away, and one bridesmaid got stuck in Los Angeles, frantically trying to arrive before the ceremony started.
Yet somehow, everything fell into place on Saturday for TJ and Jessica. What started as a backup ceremony location turned into a spot even more beautiful than the first. The Gardens dried up quickly and between the Rose Garden and the wildflowers, their portraits couldn’t have been more beautiful. Miraculously, Jessica’s final bridesmaid landed just over an hour before the wedding and, because the venue was so close to the airport, she made it in time. The rain held off, the sun came out, and their wedding day was one for the record books…