pre-bridal portrait shoot

Yesterday I shot with two colleagues, Robin Dini and Matthew Wagner, who are also wedding photographers. Matthew had been in contact with a bride who was interested in participating in a shoot with us and was willing to wear her dress (her wedding is not until 2008) so we found a 'groom' named Bryan, who has the best eyelashes!

They were both so fun to work with, not to mention our make up artist Natasha (860-985-1124) who works at Mac who did wonderful work! The most challenging part of our shoot was that we were forced to work in the studio as it was POURING outside and utilize our studio lighting. I am such a fan of natural lighting but was excited for the challenge of coming up with each lighting scenario-

Matt pointed out that is the major difference he saw- with natural lighting you can already see it and work your subject into it whereas with studio light you have to have a vision,
mostly. All in all I have to say we had a lot of fun, listened to some great music and ate some tasty Trader Joe's snacks.

it's all in the details

One of the things I love most about my weddings is seeing all of the well thought out and carefully crafted details. My assistant Dominique and I really get excited to check them out and ohh and ahh over them- some of them are truly amazing.

One bride put her picture (and her husbands) on a bunch of Jones Soda bottles and had really cool flavors like bubble gum for her guests to drink before the ceremony. They were really colorful and looked great! Since she and Dave met on J Date she made her throwing bouquet out of current J Date profiles!

Another client had the best idea for table numbers- they had each table number correspond with a picture of them at the age of the table- so their table 8 had a picture of the groom when he was 8! It was so well done and it was great to see the guests look at each table.

They also did a crossword puzzle on their first date so they made up a crossword puzzle about how they met and other neat facts about them for the guests to fill out- they even had a prize for the first person to complete it correctly! Their cake was also really different- it had lyrics frosted all over the cake, or maybe it was a poem, I need to ask them. The roses on top were made entirely of frosting and looked stunning.
OK, and finally, their flowers were out of this world- I have seen many a red bouquet but wow, this one had neat things in it like berries and dark red dalias and another really petaly flower that I have to find out what it is...There are so many things you can do to personalize your wedding that don't have to cost you a fortune but will really set you apart!

Norwalk, who knew?

The second of my two shoots on Sunday was in Norwalk with the ever-fashionable Stacy & Allen! I had never been to Norwalk and had no idea it was as cool as it is! They were so much fun and had so many well coordinated and snazzy outfits. We went to Cranberry Park (i am not sure if that is how it is spelled...) which has a mansion on site and beautiful grounds and trails, even a frisbee golf course.

While shooting I looked across the grounds and saw the brightest spot of orange way off- and decided I had to investigate. Fall pictures must have some kind of colorful fall foliage and that orange was beckoning me. We discovered the coolest little Japanese maple tree that had the most detailed, feather-iest little leaves. It asked me to climb it and make Stacy & Allen lay in them- we got the sweetest picture out of it. Then I had Allen shake the tree so that some more leaves would fall on Stacy while she stood there and again, wow! I love the pictures I got and we all had such a great time shooting. Those two were up for anything and they didn't complain once about how cold it was!