Downtown Asheville + Crest Center Vibrant Fall Wedding || Asheville, NC

The absolute best thing I get to hear as a photographer is that a couple - who began our partnership weary of having their photo made - genuinely enjoyed the experience. When I first met Stephanie and Marc in person for their spring engagement photos, Stephanie had just had back surgery. So, not only were they both nervous to have their portrait made, but I was scared I’d somehow pose them in a way that wasn’t doc-approved! . By our fall engagement session (we’d split it into two to allow Stephanie time to recover) they were cautiously dancing together in the garden, preparing for their first dance. By their wedding day? They smiled for the camera as if they’d been doing it for years!

Elegant Summer Sunset Wedding at The Crest Center & Pavilion || Asheville, NC

If we gave out superlatives for wedding couples rather than vendors,Laura and Gabe would definitely get “most welcoming.” Certainly from their loved ones - it seemed like everywhere they turned they threw their arms up excited to hug another guest, almost all of whom traveled quite a distance to attend. In every single photo, I caught both Laura and Gabe with huge grins on their faces, making sure each person knew just how much their attendance meant to them.

Picturesque Spring Wedding Surrounded by Blue Ridge Mountain Vistas || Asheville, NC

Bringing together large groups of people can be daunting, particularly when planning a wedding in the middle of Covid not knowing what everyone’s exact circumstances might be. But when Amanda and Harrison’s families and friends came together for their wedding last month, I was struck by just how amiable every single guest and vendor was. Amanda’s bridal attendants especially were completely devoted to ensuring that the happy couple have the best (and smoothest) day ever. So I have to give a shoutout to that exceptional group of ladies for helping me to round up people for photos, for being conscious of time so that we remained on time to the minute all day long, and for putting together a really sweet getting ready playlist!

Summer Beer Garden Wedding in the Blue Ridge Mountain

I’ve been doing things differently this year simply offering coverage of the entire wedding day rather than trying to condense it into one smaller packaged set of hours. And this especially came in handy when we decided to drive separately up to the Blue Ridge Parkway 25 minutes away for their first look! The first look is almost always my favorite part of the day anyways, but getting to coordinate one with the sunlit mountains in the background, no one else in attendance and only the sounds of birds chirping and breeze blowing? Absolutely perfect.

35mm Film Inspired Crepe Cake and Why You Should Always Buy Butter

As I pulled the developed roll out of the canister, examining the frames and quite literally squealing in excitement, I suddenly thought of berries. It naturally followed that the yellow hues made me think of lemons. And thus, with this errant thought suddenly making me hungry, my crepe-sterpiece idea was born (inspired primarily by the last photo above.) Who knew that a roll of cellulose acetate smelling astringently of chemicals would inspire such a delicacy?

September 28, 2019 Mountain Wedding in Downtown Asheville, NC

For the very last photos of their Charlotte engagement session, Laura and Chris (per Chris’s half joking idea) ran through a fountain. We finished our photoshoot all laughing; them completely drenched, Emmaleigh’s shoes and pants soaked through from holding a flash, me nicely dry but nonetheless ecstatic about our photos.

A few weeks later, Emmaleigh and I stood on the balcony of the penthouse suite of the Indigo Hotel watching an enormous rain cloud roll over West Asheville towards us, this time quite a bit less excited about the impending drenching.

August 3, 2019 Magical Garden Wedding at Haiku I Do || Asheville, NC

Fal and Richard had quite the week leading up to their wedding: medical boards on Tuesday, moving on Wednesday and driving to Asheville on Thursday. So, come Saturday, it seemed almost surreal that they’d been able to pull everything off. As they were sitting on the floral sofa under the twinkle lights taking their couple’s photos, in the middle of gazing lovingly at each other Richard suddenly gasped and threw up his hands, “We really did it!”

June 22, 2019 Fairytale Garden Wedding at Homewood || Asheville, NC

Not often do I get to say this, but I actually knew the groom before the bride did! Q and I both came to Asheville in 2011 as student athletes, and since my freshman roommates were all on the women’s soccer team, I befriended many on the men’s side as well. I photographed both Q’s soccer matches and his graduation photos, so when I got a text from an unknown number while I was working in NYC saying “Hey! Are you free June 22, 2019? Tara and I would love for you to shoot our wedding.” I was understandably thrilled! Well, first I had to figure out whose number it was, then I was thrilled.

May 18, 2019 Mountainview Wedding at the Crest Center || Asheville, NC

Wedding days are often a great metaphor for life: you can plan for months or years to have that “perfect day,” but no matter how foolproof your strategy, things will never happen quite that way in real time. The beauty of wedding photography is that when things go off course (and timelines go out the window!) we’re there to document families, friends and our fantastic wedding industry colleagues working together to help make each couple’s day, as Emmaleigh says, “perfectly imperfect.”

Amber + Chris's Elopement at the St. Jude's Chapel of Hope in Asheville, NC

Susan Marlan of Beloved Ceremony officiated the simple ceremony, and because this was a “true elopement” I also got to serve as a witness. Just after the bride and groom exchanged rings, and just before their first kiss, Chris leaned forward and rested his forehead against Amber’s, where they simply stood breathing each other in for a few moments. It’s these moments, the quiet and intimate scenes, that impact me the most - both as a photographer capturing the emotions before me and a human who feels everything deeply.

Parent Photo Albums || Nicole + Chris's Highland Brewing Company Wedding in Asheville, NC

I loved giving people gifts. I love even more getting to make said gifts. From age 5 onward, whenever I could, I handmade all family Christmas gifts, starting as early as June to ensure that everyone’s was completed on time.

So, to be able to incorporate gift giving into my business has been a real pleasure. My favorite product that I started offering last year was a parent album, a smaller version of each couple’s photo album showcasing almost exclusively the images that the couple, the parents and siblings are in. This way, each parent gets their own commemorative album tailored to them, highlighting the moments that they were a part of.

Engagement Photo Album || Tara + Q's Zillicoah Beer Company + Beaver Lake Engagement Session

They loved so many of the photos that rather than try to narrow it down further, we decided to include near-duplicates (or at least photos in very similar poses/moments) which made for an interesting design challenge combining quite a few photos into one spread. I love the cinematic quality to their album because of this - as if each photo sequence is its own storyboard for a scene in their romantic flick.

Photo Album || Dee + Sam's Botanical Gardens Anniversary Session

The 5th anniversary gift is typically wood, so we spent Dee and Sam’s anniversary accordingly - hanging out in the woods! Dee and Sam had already planned a weekend getaway to Asheville. So, to help celebrate their beautiful milestone, Dee’s sister arranged a couple’s photoshoot with me so that they could commemorate their weekend. As we were in the middle of June, we chose the Botanical Gardens of Asheville as our backdrop to make use of the bounty of greenery highlighted by a brilliant sunny evening.

Boho Chic Styled Elopement at Ridgeview Venue || Asheville, NC

One of the reasons I love participating in styled shoots is getting to see the amazing creativity that comes out of vendors directly working together to create a concept. For instance, not only did Emmaleigh help me to style the provided attire for detail shots, but she even brought in her own crystals and antiques to add character and depth to the photos!

Sultry Black and Gold Styled Wedding || Asheville Social Hall

Melissa of Cakes by Gray reached out to me to photograph a new cake flavor for her - grapefruit and black pepper (it was delicious!) - as we decided that instead of simply sticking with the original in-studio photos that we’d first planned, we would also put together a little styled shoot. Why not, right? To coordinate with the sensual flavors, Melissa created this stunning black pastry masterpiece accented with gold and thus we had our theme. Design inspiration can come from anywhere, even the wedding cake. To round out our design team, Melissa brought in vendors all local to Asheville to help us create this moody styled elopement in the brand new Asheville Social Hall Space.

Wedding Photo Album || Nicole + Chris's Highland Brewing Company Wedding

By far, my favorite part of creating Nicole and Chris’s heirloom album was interweaving each line of their vows throughout the book. Design-wise, adding text to a photo album presents its own challenges; namely, how to make it readable without distracting from the photos. I shoot each wedding with the album in mind, using compositional elements like leading lines or shallow depth of field to create negative space perfect for overlaying words. Typically, if I’m adding just a few verses or quotations in an album, I can choose which already-designed (by me, in a different program) pages to pair the text with based on the blurb’s shaping. With Nicole and Chris’s I needed to keep their vows in the order they wrote them, and somehow as I was creating the photo layouts for each page, the text seemingly just fit right in perfectly. A reflection of how easily Nicole and Chris work together as well, I think.

2019 Goals: Dream Big

After everything I learned last year (read more here), I realized that it’s the “helping others” part that I want to focus on most in the coming year(s). This is the first year that my goals will look quite different than they did in the past; traditionally mine have read something like: “more weddings”, “more family photoshoots”, etc. Not that there was anything wrong with that approach, I did need to augment my bookings for my business to be sustainable. However, its the experiences I’m creating through those photoshoots that I want to focus on most.

2018 Reflection: The Building Year

I like to use the changing of the calendar year as a start- and end-point to evaluate my metrics and to reevaluate my goals. This is the first time that I ended the year with a very different sense of achievement than I began: I entered hoping to bolster my bookings and set my goals accordingly. But I ended having learned the true “why” behind my drive to do each of these types of photoshoots. In essence, my work has become not just about the end product (typically a storybook photo album) but the entire experience of the session, and by extension an enjoyment of life.