Y'all know I love weddings, but I adore the romance of a couple so in love, they only want to focus on their commitment to each other. Allie and Eric were two such sweethearts! They made things legal at the courthouse that morning, then got all dressed up and met me at the North Carolina Arboretum for vows and portraits.
Read MoreMusic has been an essential part of my life for as long as I can remember: I don't start driving without choosing a song, I immediately turn on a playlist when I get home, I live for seeing live shows. There are certain songs and records that define each and every period of my life. For the past 6.5 years - since I left home and set off on the journey towards "adulthood" or whatever this is - Imagine Dragons (the band) has provided me with the majority of these tracks. I could discuss them for days, but the best of them all that literally gave me the defining moment to move forward into a new phase of my life is "Bet My Life" off their sophomore album Smoke and Mirrors.
Read MoreEach year, right around Christmas, I evaluate my goals from the ending year and then write out my goals for the coming year. I them let them sit for a few weeks while I evaluate other metrics - making sure that these are the goals that really resonate - and eventually come back to them during the first week of the new year to write this blog post. This year I've been so busy that I'm just now getting to it!
Nonetheless, I'm more than a little excited about this coming year. While each of the past 6 years has brought be a step closer to my ultimate career goals, this coming year is the first one where I feel like I'm really on the right track towards doing exactly what I want to be doing. It took me a while to figure out that exact intersection where my skills, enthusiasm for the work and ability to help people all coincide to create my "calling", but I'm only 24 so it's hard to complain. So, without further ado, here are my intended plans for 2018!
Read MoreI got to start 2018 off in the best way possible: documenting the wedding day of a my cousin as she married her prince charming. It was an honor to get to tell the love story of Katie and Mario through their engagement and wedding photos and to get to know them deeper both as individuals and as a couple while I captured their personalities.
Read MoreDespite the extra 26 hours soaking up the wonderful, clean air of the Newark airport, we'd had a surprisingly full rest of the trip, so I wasn't expecting much on our last day. Per usual, we had no plans - dad and Jake weren't even sure they were going to go anywhere. I'd spent several hours the night before searching train routes trying to maximize our daylight without having to get up at an ungodly hour, but I kept finding my mind wandering back to Killiney Hill, hoping to catch the sunset that I'd left too early for previously that week.
Read MoreWhat better way to close out the year than to celebrate love! We got to travel over the mountain to capture Kristie and Ethan's December vows and though it never got above freezing, the warmth of this couple's happiness was almost enough to forget the chill.
Read MoreNew Year's Eve has always been one of my favorite holidays. Not for the parties or the food (okay, maybe the food) but because it's a collective time of reflection and refocusing. I've always been a very goal-oriented person (which is both a blessing and a curse) so for my business, this gives me a very specific deadline to analyze not only the growth and financial status of my business, but also gauge my passion for the work I've been doing and decide what I want to pursue further. I'll discuss in my next post what my goals are for the year, but as it's still 2017 for a couple hours, I want to look back at the goals I set for myself this time last year and reflect on just how beautiful this year was for me.
So here, in the same order as I wrote them last year, are my 2017 goals and how well they played out:
Read MoreI love the details and all the personal touches that couples infuse into their weddings, but when it all comes down to it, my very favorite thing about wedding photography is getting to capture the beginning of each couple's lifelong journey as they're surrounded by their loved ones. Meadow and Theo made their vows to each other in a beautiful sunlit field as the bride's dad presided, giving his own sound advice for a long and happy marriage: don't settle for the wedding being the best day of your life, make each day better than the last.
Read MoreIn putting together this album, my focus was to tell Morgan and Mike's story of excitement (particularly in their first look), personality (especially through the personal touches in their decor) and pure happiness at saying their forever vows surrounded by friends and family, even family from across the ocean. Because they did a first look (one of my favorite parts of the day!) we spent the first hour relaxing and taking couples portraits and group shots with their maid-of-honor and best man.
Read More2017's wedding season began quite a bit earlier than I'd anticipated as I got to shoot my first winter wedding since my very first wedding 4 years previous. One afternoon I was taking a nap when I heard my phone buzzing and - after pulling myself out of a cozy slumber - booked a last minute wedding on the spot. You see, Morgan and Mike met in Ireland while she was studying abroad and with so many unknowns surrounding the visa process, they had to plan their wedding rather last minute as they had 90 days to get married once Mike's visa request was approved. Luckily, they had the wedding wizard, Michelle of Party Envy, to help and on a balmy January evening they said their "I do's" amidst friends and family.
Read MoreThis was one of those shoots where I saw the location (on a shoot I was modeling for, of all things) and without any plans in place immediately created a scene in my head to shoot that I knew I needed to bring to reality. I knew I wanted Lauren, one of my gorgeous 2017 brides, to model and that if at all possible I wanted to put her in a whimsical gown from one of my favorite Asheville bridal shops (Wildflower Bridal) paired with a bright color palette from Swannanoa Flower shop and Cakes by Gray for a bohemian mountaintop styled elopement. As the shoot would have to be right in the middle of wedding season to make sure it was warm enough, I knew it would be a long shot, so when every one of these selections worked out, I was so excited I was bouncing off the walls! Of course, no shoot is ever that easy and in the end we only had about 25 minutes or so of photography, yet I couldn't be more thrilled with the results.
Read MoreWhat I really loved about this wedding weekend was the emphasis on bringing two families together. Not only did we have a delicious and fun rehearsal dinner the night before and family brunch the morning after the wedding, but the reception allowed both families to celebrate together in their new bond. Perhaps the most touching moment of the day was when Monica shared a sweet dance with her grandfather, leaving no one in the reception hall with a dry eye.
Read MoreJust as I said in their engagement post, I knew that photographing my friends' wedding would be extra emotional. From documenting the frenzied moments of preparation to capturing Clair and JJ's poignant first look (and struggling to keep it together myself) to photographing their sweet ceremony, there were more than a few times that I found myself shooting through tear-filled eyes. But these were, of course, happy tears as I got to watch one of my good friends from college marry this steadfast man of her dreams!
Read MoreMatt and Alex had the right idea: get married quietly without any stress or fuss and then get all of the family and friends together almost a year later to celebrate. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE weddings (not to mention, if we didn't have them I'd be out of a job!), but whereas weddings can be understandably taxing, Matt and Alex's marriage celebration yesterday was nothing but enjoyable.
Read MoreThese two almost-weds had selected the crest of Mt. Tabor Park as the place to make their vows, so we grabbed what we needed for their ceremony and hiked up the numerous steps to the top, coming out into a grove of evergreen trees. Jen and John both practice mindfulness, so they wanted to begin their ceremony with a few minutes of silence as they readied themselves for marriage. Their unique idea was to set up a circle of flowers which they would each step into once they were ready to begin. In a stroke of genius, Jen had the idea to bring a hula hoop in order to create a perfect circle (this hula hoop also served a photographic purpose later in the shoot) so Jen, John and their two friends/witnesses set about selecting greenery and placing flowers from Costco around the hoop.
Read MoreAll the time I get the question "What is your favorite subject to photograph? For the first couple years of my career I would waffle between "Oh, I just really like photographing people" and "Well, I don't think I can choose - I love everything I shoot!" But that's not entirely accurate. I shoot everything from weddings to athletic events to product shoots to landscapes to maternity sessions professionally - sometimes all in the same week - but over and over again the shoots that I enjoy most and specifically the images I am happiest with are those that include laughter.
Read MoreI cannot say enough how much I love intimate weddings! Morgan and Mike met while Morgan was studying abroad in Ireland (more on their sweet story in their full blog post in a couple months.) With so many unknowns surrounding the visa process, they had to plan their wedding rather last minute as they had 90 days to get married once Mike's visa request was approved; we only began discussing wedding photography a few weeks before their ceremony!
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