Sometimes you get lucky.

Sometimes one of your best friends in the world meets her soulmate, falls in love, and gets engaged.  And sometimes, if you’re really really lucky, you are the people she turns to for her wedding photography.

Sometimes, your friend decides she wants a rockabilly wedding on a decommissioned Battleship on the Cape Fear River.  Yes, sometimes you’re really that lucky.

Sometimes, that best friend has a little girl who is best friends with your own little girl.  And all the bestest friendses get to be together on one of the biggest days in all of their lives.

Joanna and Nathan have three little girls between them – and as of this writing, a little boy to follow!  It’s nothing short of amazing to watch people you love dearly expand their hearts and homes and worlds to make a bigger family together.  It’s… it’s just awe-inspiring.

You should know that Nathan’s last name is “King”.  The crown, well, you know.   The ODB on the iPhone?  All Mike and the Best Man, Charles.

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you might recognize Casey from our Fort Fisher portrait session (that was featured on Offbeat Mama) a while back.   Casey was one of Joanna’s bridesmaids, and the craftmaster/cake-pop provider of the day.  Shameless plug time: Poppinz Gourmet Cake Pops and Truffles is who you want to call for your wedding or event cake pops.  Casey is a beautiful spirit who works way too hard and still seems to have enough time for everyone in her life… and I want her to find the greatest success.

So Joanna wanted to do a first-look with Nathan, mostly to calm both of their nerves before the ceremony, and to get some pre-ceremony pictures when we knew we’d still have plenty of time and before the chaos of post-wedding crazy hits.

This is where I almost lost it.  I cry at every wedding, I won’t lie.  I’m not jaded by the years of shooting, I can still be moved by a simple smile, a special song, a glance… I get to see these moments at every wedding, and I never know which moment, which part of the day, will bring on the waterworks, but they’ll come at some point.

But I can compose myself pretty easily.  Usually.  But not this time.  Oh man, did I cry.  I cried when they had their first look.  I cried when I saw the light hitting the Battleship in the distance behind them as they talked quietly to each other in the tall grass.  I cried when I watch Joanna walk down the aisle, I cried when Nathan’s little Abby ran up to him to give him a kiss at the ceremony.  I was NOT strong.  How could I be.  These two amazing people waited a lifetime to find each other, and parted seas and climbed mountains to be together and make a life together, and here they were, making it legal.  Making it official, with their three daughters dressed alike, watching, participating, and loving them.  You would have been a blubbering mess, too.

Just… how beautiful is this?  You don’t even need to know the backstory to appreciate how much JOY they’re sharing in these moments, you know?  You can just feel it.  You just know.

These beautiful girls are such a big part of our lives.  The spunky middle-heighted child is our Ellie’s BFF.  They get along mostly.  Sometimes I wonder how they manage, what with all the fights and disagreements.  But they’re nine and ten.  I forget how moody I was at that age.  I like to think I was an angel, but Mom tells me otherwise.

See Abby giving her Daddy a kiss before the ceremony?  Is that not the most adorable thing ever?  Right?

Their officiant is a friend of all of ours, Kris, who bartends at our favorite Downtown Wilmington bar, Cape Fear Wine and Beer.  You should stop in and say hi to him sometime.  He’s a riot.  Also an ordained minister.  You’d be surprised at how many people in downtown Wilmington happen to be ordained ministers.  

Joy.  I’m not sure how I caught any of these shots because my viewfinder was completely blurred by all my tears.  Thank you autofocus.

Joanna did an amazing job of creating her look for the wedding day, and I think the photo below shows it off the best.  She is positively STUNNING.  Just a beautiful, glamorous, rockabilly bride, with the sweetest expressions in the world.

I don’t think there’s anything better than the look of adoration.  Nathan’s got it for Jo in abundance.  I’d put this picture in Target 5×7 photo frames all over the country if I could – it’s just happy and perfect.

Or maybe it’d be this picture.  I mean, c’mon.  Look at that family.

Fortuitous graffiti is fortuitous.

I’ve tried to write this blog post at least a dozen times now.  I could type words for hours and still not quite describe the honor and the emotion of being such a big part of such an enormous day in the lives of people you love so very much.

To be chosen to document not only the new family with whom you’re so close, but to photograph all the mutual friends, the extended family you’ve grown to know and love over the years, and to be part of every group hug and every inside joke.

To be trusted with such a delicate and important job, by people you respect and admire.

YEAH I cried.  If you must know, I’ve got a tear or two running down my cheeks right now.  So?

Well, I may be down with a horrific head cold, but at least it’s forcing me to slow down and post some pictures today, right?

This wedding happened in early July, at the Watermark Marina in Wilmington, right on the Cape Fear River.  If that sounds like an unbearably humid, hot location and time of year for a wedding, well, it was .  But you know what’s so magical about weddings, dance parties, and booze?  No one ever complains about the little things.   That’s the trick – give your guests enough food, music, and beer and you can hold the wedding in the middle of winter in an unheated room.  They don’t care, they just wanna celebrate!

Among my favorite memories from this wedding are Lauren’s hilarious sense of humor and the fact that she apparently lacks the gene that eventually mutates into the bridezilla factor.  I mean, you can’t get further away from bridezilla than Lauren – she didn’t even know what her centerpieces would look like until she got to her reception… and that didn’t bother her AT ALL.  Imagine how much nicer life would be if we were all so laid back and easygoing?

While we searched for fun places to take newlywed photos after the ceremony, I almost stepped on a copperhead.  A lot of couples would see that happen and be all, “Oh HELL no we’re not standing in this crazy tall grass for pictures, you crazy photographer.”  Not them.  They were like, “Whatever.  Snake Schmake.”  And then they made out in the same tall grass where the snakes live.  Man I love adventurous people!

Oh, and this was an INSANE dance party – serious unstoppable sweaty dancing all. night. long.  I don’t know where people find the energy to keep going sometimes.  I’m just glad we get to watch and record it, and no one expects us to dance.

Life is funny.  Several years back, right around the beginning of the economic collapse, the wedding industry started drying up.  It wasn’t DEAD, but it sure felt like it as I went from having chaotic, full years to having only a few weddings scattered throughout the year.  They were tough bookings then, too – no one knew what financial calamity was around the bend, so couples were putting their weddings off, or minimizing all of their plans dramatically – big, ornate weddings with 200+ guests became small backyard affairs with a handful of friends and family.  The country was downsizing, and weddings were no exception.

Coincidentally, this nationwide downsizing resulted in a never-before-seen influx of new photographers to the industry – so, as we struggled to book half our years, the competition grew by a factor of ten or greater, most offering cut-throat pricing and infectious enthusiasm, making the recession even harder to get through without taking on the dreaded DAY JOB.

It was hard, I won’t lie.  I networked and marketed, spent money I didn’t have on advertising and website upgrades, offered discounts and specials, slashed pricing, bartered and negotiated.  The business was falling way short of where it needed to be, and after struggling for what seemed like an eternity, I finally cried UNCLE and looked for a job.  (There’s a point to this, I swear!)

I managed to fall into an administrative position with a physician recruiting firm.  It was a surprisingly great job with really wonderful people.  I met hundreds of physicians, learned all about health insurance and hospital hiring practices, and gained a great deal of knowledge in an area I’d never even thought about before.  The job got me through some of the hardest times in the recession, and made it possible for me to keep the business alive and running while the market was in the pinch.  I left that job when weddings started roaring again and I could no longer balance the two priorities, but I didn’t leave empty handed.  One of my co-workers was Eric, who years later would pop up to let me know he and his long-term girlfriend were (finally) planning their wedding, and would I shoot it for them?

You’re damn skippy I will!  I’d always liked Eric – he was the three-parts-cool, one-part-geeky guy in the office who always had great music playing and the best comebacks during staff meetings.  He was always pleasant and witty, easy to work with, and one of those people you don’t soon forget.  My friendship with Eric didn’t extend outside of the office walls when we worked together, but I knew just from the 9-5 times I’d spent around him that his wedding would be very, very cool.

Rebecca is a graphic artist.  An extremely talented, intense, passionate person with this quietly frenetic demeanor that you can’t help but fall in love with every time you’re around her.  She designed their wedding stationery herself around the wedding colors and her incredible sense of balance and hip elegance – in fact, she designed every aspect of the wedding, all the decor, the colors, the floral ideas, all of it in like some crazy-making timeframe, like two months or something.  We’re in our ninth month of being engaged and I haven’t even begun to figure out the details – it’s beyond me how Rebecca managed everything she did in such a short amount of time.

The City Club was a fantastic backdrop for their wedding – gorgeous greenery and florals in the garden, elegant manor for the dinner, it all worked so well with Rebecca and Eric’s subtle country-city vibe.

Oh god this ceremony was so great.  Most couples try really hard to keep their ceremonies under five minutes, usually out of respect for a tight timeline or for their guests.  But there’s something really special about a ceremony that takes its time.  Where the officiant gives the event some attention, gives their histories a bit of the spotlight, where the ceremony is a story on its own.  I don’t think this ceremony lasted more than ten minutes (which is, in real life, a very long time), but it felt like it flew by, because every second there was another hilarious moment, another tear-jerking reading, another unforgettable expression, and it all needed to be captured.  I don’t think Mike and I have ever shot as many frames during a ceremony.  There was just too much to see.

There are few things more emotionally satisfying in our job than watching a newlywed bride and groom get almost clobbered by their friends after the ceremony, in a show of elation and love and joy.

Everyone was thrilled.  Everyone basked in the reality that yes, they were finally married after all these years .  Yes, all the hard work had paid off – and the hardest part was over.  MARRIED – and now drink and dance and barhop.  It’s such a juxtaposition from the moments before a ceremony… all the stress and nervousness washes away the moment the bride and groom walk back down the aisle hand in hand.  This delightful transition from subdued reverence to no-holds-barred elation, and it happens at almost every single wedding.  Some are more outrageous than others, of course.  Some couples surround themselves with people who invest all their emotions into that one day, and that’s when you see the biggest payoff after the ceremony.  There’s really nothing quite like it, and every time I see these displays of raw joy, I’m thankful for the career path I chose.

Rebecca and Eric are exactly the same one-on-one as they are in front of their friends, their families, their distant relatives and co-workers.  They’re genuine people, no fakery, no BS.  Getting them away from their wedding party for the “alone” shots wasn’t much like it is at most other weddings – we probably could have had the whole crew tag along and Rebecca and Eric wouldn’t have been the least bit phased.  They didn’t breathe easier when the crowd was dismissed.  They didn’t change their demeanors, or become more snuggly or affectionate.  They just WERE, and they continued to BE, and that was that.  This, by the way, is a unique character trait and if you know people like this you know exactly what I mean.  I have the greatest admiration for people who are always true to themselves.

You should know that Eric made his own wedding band, and that aside from the physician recruiting gig, he’s a solid, talented woodworking craftsman.

In our job we deal in superlatives.  The wedding was amazing, the bride’s dress was the prettiest I’d ever seen, the food surpassed all expectations, the wedding party was the most fun wedding party ever.

You know when you go to a concert… say you’re seeing a band you don’t really love, but the tickets were cheap and your friend begged you to go with her so she wouldn’t be alone — so you go, and you’re not all about it but once the music starts and the crowd starts pumping and your friend has tears streaming down her face because she’s in love with the bassist… suddenly, you’re having the time of your life.  Even if the music sucks.  Even if you normally wouldn’t be caught dead listening to that band.  Watching the happiness around you… feeling the emotion… being caught up in it.  Living.  It makes everything better.  It turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.  The amazing.  The most fun ever.

That’s what a wedding does.  It does it to everyone.  You get sucked in.  You get even more sucked in when the bride and groom are so in love, so happy, so overjoyed… there’s no way to be there and not LIVE IT.  Not become part of it.  Not feel what they’re feeling.  Whether you’re a guest, a vendor, part of the wedding party, or even just a passerby… experiencing a wedding on any level is intoxicating, because right before you, before your very eyes, are two people who love one another so much, who waited their entire lives for each other, who want to be together until the end.  That’s something.  That’s really, really something.

On May 19, 2012, this was the best wedding in the entire world.

Amy and Neal waited forever to find one another.  We all say that, don’t we?  Whether we found our perfect match at 21 or 41 or 71… whether we’d never been kissed, or had been around the block a few times… by the time we meet THAT ONE?  It feels like it’s been forever.  It didn’t feel like forever before you met the one, mind you.  Mostly, we’re all happy living our lives, dating one wrong guy after another.  But then the right guy comes along, right?  And suddenly you look back at all the time you spent with the wrong guys, or alone, or chasing after the wrong dreams, and how LONG it seems now that you’re on the back end of it.

It’s funny how falling in love does that.  Turns a once-tolerable stretch of time into the most unimaginably LONG AND PAINFUL stretch of time… just by meeting the right person.  What a trip life is.

cupcakes: Imaginary Cakes | flowers: Moxie Floral Design Studio

On the day that Amy married Neal, there was an electricity in the air.  This palpable vibration that resonated through every last person involved in the day, from the most distant cousin to the best man.  There was joy.  I have no better way to describe it.  I have never witnessed as much joy out of any group of people in all these years.

The amazing, diverse, personality-rich women that were there for Amy that day (and, no surprise, every day of their lives) were filled with the same vibration, this incredible joyful anticipation that you could feel just by standing near them.  Their hands shook – not out of nervousness (I don’t believe there was a shy person in the entire group), but as a side effect of that electricity.  MY hands shook.

Neal’s hands shook.  His from the buzz of elation, anticipation, and awe.  He stood in this constant state of amazement at all the incredible ways his wife-to-be made this happen – for them.  For their marriage.  For their celebration, their families and friends.  How nearly every last person in attendance had traveled, many all the way from California, just to participate in their day.  Thunderstruck.  I think that’s the best word to describe how Neal was feeling in the moments before he walked down the aisle.

If you know me at all, or if you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you know how much of a sucker I am for true human emotion.  The human experience, the one commonality we all have that ties us together while simultaneously making us each so distinct, so unique.  We each have our own very personal ways of being, of communicating and emoting and showing our love.  Finding those ways for each person we photograph, feeling what they feel, and watching them honestly, fully, and totally express themselves… there is nothing more grand.

The below sequence will explain (better than I can do with words) how much emotion we found in the ceremony on May 19th.  Mike and I both wiped tears as we shot… I can’t speak for Mike, but I had a pretty steady stream of tears falling.  Neal’s expressions… Amy’s joy… their absolute pure delight and ecstacy in seeing one another after a night apart, gripping each others’ hands, and saying the words that would send them to the next chapter of their lives together… it was all I could do not to sob right along with Neal.

This.  If we all allowed ourselves to be as happy physically as we are emotionally, this is how we would all look and act at the moment we’re pronounced husband and wife.

Their wedding party surrounded them in this surge of hugs, laughter, tears, an immediate physical connection between everyone, cementing what had just happened.  They were all, equally, elated.  All overjoyed.  All brimming with more pride and love than you’d think possible.  This was absolutely the most supportive, loving, and joyful wedding party I have ever witnessed.  Period.  And that’s not just a superlative from the high of being there.

It was as though these two couldn’t believe they were married.  Like they had just opened the most magnificent, most fantastic Christmas present of their lives.  Like they’d won the lottery.  They were breathless, overcome, completely in their own moment with only each other.  Mike and I are lucky – so lucky – that we get to see things like this.

Amy’s father KILLED IT with his toast.  The entire room stayed in stitches all through his speech.  He’s one of the most delightful characters I’ve seen yet at a wedding, and certainly among the best speakers.  Watch him deliver his deadpan joke, and the crowd reacting (it was pretty risqué)

I hope that next March, when Mike and I get married, our celebration is even half as fun as this one was…. but just as real.  Just as authentic and honest and unabashedly human.  There’s nothing more beautiful.  I’d rather shoot weddings like this every weekend than to spend even a half day at a wedding that is all about the pretense, the show of wealth, the caché of the guests.

The level of emotion, electricity, and excitement of the day was nothing compared to the frenetic vibe of the dance floor.  There they were, fifty or sixty or nine hundred and seventy four kids and adults, all squeezed on to a teeny dance floor, all ready to claim a twelve square inch piece of laminate for their own personal show.  There were elbows and knees and butts and hands and stiletto heels (oh the stiletto heels… as if I needed another reminder not to go barefoot once the dancing starts!)… it was nothing but energy, hours of energy all packed into one undersized but crazily adequate dance floor.

It didn’t end.  It didn’t slow down.  It didn’t even take a breather.  The dance floor was alive, and it would not give up!  I’ve seen dance-happy receptions before and since, and this one might not even be the most dancey… but it sure was the most energetic.

It’s because of Amy.  When you’re with her, you get to feed off all the energy she emits.  It infects you, and makes you do more than you thought you would, try harder than you meant to, laugh longer, dance sexier, be more.  She just does that, just by her very presence, by the way she lives her life and how she shows you exactly who she is from the very first moment you lock eyes with her.  I suggest that everyone find a friend like Amy, and that every Amy out there has a soul mate for herself like Neal.  I suggest this because we did this, and it has worked out wonderfully for us.

Here’s the thing about Katie and Matt.  You can’t not like them.  You can try, but it’s just not possible.  You could hate Katie for her looks… but then she’d make some ridiculous face and crack a fart joke and you’d suddenly realize she’s not a Grecian statue, she’s just a silly girl who happens to be ten feet tall and built like a dream.  You could hate Matt for his chiseled face or his athletic frame… but then he’d tell you some awfully embarrassing story about himself, maybe even sing something in a bad falsetto, and you’d remember that he’s just Matt, all tall and exotic looking but totally, completely, utterly normal.  And funny.  Crazy funny.  They both are.

I’ve known Katie and Matt through mutual friends for years now.  YEARS.  I don’t remember a Matt without Katie or a Katie without Matt; they’ve gone together from the beginning of time, I think.  And anytime I was out with our mutual friends and rumor had it that Katie and Matt MIGHT be coming out too?  Everyone got excited.  Giddy excited.  They are so loved everywhere they go.  It’s not like they bring presents or pick up the bar tab or anything.  They’re just unassuming, caring, awesome people.

During the toasts, Matt’s dad (oh shoot… or was it Katie’s dad?  It was a DAD for sure), said that Matt and Katie were twin souls, soulmates that have joined one another on earth the way they’d always been joined throughout history as stars or spirits or… something ethereal, I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the exact words he used (sorry).  I totally see it, too – like I said, there’s never been a Katie without a Matt, a Matt without a Katie.  They just go.  Like popcorn and M&Ms (that might just be my thing, though).

It was an honor to be asked to photograph this wedding.  And the engagement session.  And the bridal session.  And hopefully, one day, if they ever slow down on their careers , their family sessions with babies one and two and three and… well, I shouldn’t write their future for them .

Do yourself a favor and hit play on their first dance song (Jack Johnson’s “Angel) below so you have some appropriate background tunes while you look at their pictures.

Vendors:
Ceremony Venue: Kenan Chapel
Reception Venue: Lumina Hall
Caterer: Middle of the Island
DJ: DJ Professionals
Cake: Sea Salt Bakery

Let’s start with Krissy and Ryan’s wedding at 128 South in downtown Wilmington.  This is such a fabulous venue.  I’ve lived in Wilmington long enough to remember it as Stemmerman’s Bar, which was a hole-in-the-wall for college kids.  Quarter draft night!!!  The draft was always Busch Lite, and it was always packed from top to bottom… back then you had to have a $1 membership to get into the elite upstairs part of the bar… where there was nothing special other than another, smaller, more limited bar.  Oh the good old days.

So Stemmerman’s Bar is long closed, and in its place stands Stemmerman’s B&B and the gorgeous two-story ballroom of 128 South Events.  They recently added a deck out back for outdoor ceremonies, which is where Krissy and Ryan said their I Do’s.  It was so pretty… the sun was brutal, but the views were phenomenal, and once the sun set below the trees it was absolutely heavenly out there.

Some fun factoids about this wedding:

-Krissy is from “all over the place,” but chose Wilmington for the wedding because her dad recently moved here for work.  Otherwise?  No Wilmington connection at all!
-Ryan is from South Africa – right around Durban, if I’m not mistaken.
-They met in New Zealand.  ???  Yeah, that’s right – so if everything in their lives hadn’t fallen into place exactly right, at exactly the right times, and in exactly the right places… they wouldn’t have met at all.  I love stories of fate like this.
-They’re now living in Charlotte and enjoying the far sunnier skies and warmer weather while, hopefully, gazing at all their wedding pictures over and over, morning till dusk.
-For her flowers, Krissy chose to highlight protea, which are native to South Africa (but also grow in my home state of Hawaii, so they have a special place in my heart as well).  Julia’s Florist did such a wonderful job of incorporating these unusual florals into all the bouquets and centerpieces.
-Ryan’s accent is awesome.
-Ryan’s brother and best man gave the longest, funniest, most full-of-regional-non-American-references toast EVER.  It went on for AGES and just kept getting more hilarious.
-Krissy is real.  Like, a real person that you know from college or work.  She’s sarcastic and irreverent, relaxed and funny, totally charming and not all about talking herself up.
-We loved this wedding.

 They danced their first dance to Pearl Jam’s “Breathe” – such a pretty song, and so fitting for their personalities.  If you hit play on the video below of Eddie singing their first dance song live at Austin City Limits… well, you’ll capture the feel a little more closely, we think.

Vendors:

Venue/Catering: 128 South Events
Music: Brian Hood, Active Entertainment
Officiant: Pastor Skip, Weddings of Topsail
Flowers: Julia’s Florist
Cupcakes: Coastal Cupcakes
Rentals: L&L Tent and Party Rentals

Amy + Neal, The Oceanic at Wrightsville Beach

So, first up: Amy and Neal. Seriously, just wait till you see this wedding in its entirety. It was the most fun, honest, down to earth, hard-rock, kick ass wedding I’ve seen in forever. I wish I could promise that Mike’s and my own wedding will be as much fun, as much raucous AWESOME, but I know it won’t. It takes a delicate special balance of the right personalities to turn a normal wedding into something EPIC. Amy and Neal have that balance. Their friends, their families, and the BIGNESS of their own incredible souls… all of that combined to create something I’ll never be able to adequately describe in words.

Their engagement session was featured on Fresh Squeezed Weddings last month, just about two weeks before their wedding day!  Perfect timing, and what a sweet, wonderful feature for this absolutely perfect couple.

While you’re on the site, poke around a little bit – Courtney does a great job of finding and showing really interesting, *good* photography, images that tell stories and show real interaction and emotion.  It’s rather rare in the wedding blogosphere to find a blogger that doesn’t only show the detail shots plus a couple of obligatory posed pictures of the bride and groom (usually looking dour and/or holding vintage suitcases and/or balloons in an open field/dark alley/meadow/city street).   I’ve been following Courtney’s posts for a little while now, and I definitely think she has got an eye for journalistic photography, the kinds of photos that the *clients* talk about for years later, the ones that mean something to the people involved.  I like that a lot, so I like Fresh Squeezed Weddings a lot, and I think you should too!

So you can imagine my utter delight when this very special, very unique portrait session was picked up by Offbeat Mama.  There’s probably no more perfect place to show these off, after all – Casey IS offbeat, and being Joseph’s mom is somewhat core to her personality, so the feature was almost a no-brainer.  But it isn’t easy to get into some of the more genre’d websites, they’re pretty picky about who and what they show, and Offbeat is known for rejecting weddings and sessions because they’re just too banal, normal, uninteresting.  So for them to accept this session… well, I knew it was a special collection of images, but that sort of sealed it for me.

Here’s the feature:

Krissy and Ryan, 128 South in downtown Wilmington NC:

Katie and Matt, Kenan Chapel at Landfall (reception at Lumina Hall in Wrightsville Beach)

Tabetha and Justin, Shell Island Resort at Wrightsville Beach (photographed for Elise Beall Photography)

And, for good measure, here’s a shot Mike got of me shooting Krissy and Ryan’s wedding last Friday that I didn’t immediately delete the second I saw it.  In fact, I almost kinda like this shot of me, which is a REALLY BIG DEAL.