this wedding is total proof that november weddings are awesome and should not be dismissed as cold or dreary! cortney and james, two super nice and wonderful people, met in chiropractic school and are soon opening up their own business in durham. when i first met them to discuss their wedding, cortney and i found out that we grew up and went to school not too far from each other in pittsburgh and that she went to high school with geoff’s best man for our own wedding! small world!  they are two of the sweetest people i’ve ever met and had great families and friends (i was very popular with the pittsburgh side of the family). ;) they had a beautiful wedding day with the temperature in the low 70s and the leaves just starting to change. their vendors were also fabulous! and, to start making things easier to read, i’m going to begin listing the vendors and their links below to make things a little easier on the eyes.

date: november 13, 2010

venue: 1705 prime

hair: citrine salon

hotel: renaissance by marriot, north hills

cake: sweet memories bakery

flowers: julie liles floral and event design

dj: greg ramsey of the joe bunn dj company

officiant: reverend barbara lodge

musician: harpist elizabeth munch

citrine salon chapel hill

geoff, being a good assistant by sitting on the couch in hair salons on his phone. ;)

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gotta have the jimmy john’s!!

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cortney and james opted to see each other before the ceremony, or have “first look” pictures. their ceremony was late in the day and the sun set directly afterwards, so it was a great choice to get pictures in before the sun set. also, it helps calm the nerves to see each other beforehand and makes for a much more relaxed day!

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hahaha this picture cracks me up every time i see it. cortney’s, “soo, what do you think??” pose. she was GORGEOUS! she wore a flower in her hair taken from her mother’s wedding day hat and had a beautiful dress that fit her style so well. and i can’t compliment the flowers enough… but maybe that’s because i pretty much had the same ones! ;) so beautiful and perfect for their day.

first look wedding photographs

we had a super handsome and sweet group of gentlemen.

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bridesmaids silver shoes

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and look at these good looking ladies!!

raleigh wedding bridesmaids

i am so in love with the following series of couple shots that i feel the need to emphasize how awesome november is for weddings.

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cortney is so pretty and james is super handsome and together they will make the most attractive team of chiropractors ever!

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1705 prime is one of the best wedding venues in the raleigh area, in my humble opinion. the outside is very southern/old school while the inside is very modern/hip and the food is delicious and wonderful. their staff and wedding coordinator was nothing but fabulous. we have a great time every time we shoot there. we’ll be returning in february for another wedding and i’m definitely looking forward to it.

1705 prime wedding wedding guests

rev. lodge married us in october and we had a nice little reunion. :)

reverend barbara lodge 1705 prime wedding 1705 prime elizabeth munch harpist 1705 prime 1705 prime wedding 1705 prime wedding sweet memories bakery nc 1705 prime first dance

raleigh wedding photographer

the mother of the groom, left, made the fantastic cookies seen on the right for the couple’s cookie table. for those of you who don’t know, it is standard pittsburgh tradition to have a cookie table at your wedding. this doesn’t take the place of the cake, but it’s more like a candy bar sort of thing. if you get married in pittsburgh, you must have cookies. that’s pretty much all i can tell you in terms of history/significance, haha. anyway, the “best cookie ever” was a delicious gluten free cookie that i could actually eat! and it really was the best cookie ever –  i chowed down on these all night!

mother son dance

cortney’s parents moved to raleigh, but her dad still operates his own chiropractor business back in pittsburgh 3 days a week. he was hilarious!! we had a great time talking about the ‘burgh and making fun of geoff for going to valley high school. booo vikings! ;)

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oh hey! it’s just me, your photographer, in your photo booth.

joe bunn dj company photobooth

wedding reception

1705 prime wedding

congratulations and much love to cortney and james for having a beautiful wedding with great friends and family! best of luck in life and your business!

things have been quiet over here at CSP as i closed down the doors for 3 weeks while geoff and i got married and went on our honeymoon to costa rica. :) we had the best time at our wedding and a very interesting (and dangerous!) honeymoon! i’ll be blogging about all these adventures later… :)

but for right now i am so thrilled to announce that i came home to discover that i had won 1st place in two categories in the 3rd quarter contest sponsored by the wedding photographic society! the WPS is headquartered in raleigh and is a network of professional photographers locally and globally. they hold quarterly contests where their panel of judges receive submissions from photographers in various categories. this quarter’s judges were james walters, stacy borelli, and christobal perez.

i won first place in the “beautiful mistake” category from rosalyn and patrick’s wedding. the beautiful mistake category was meant to highlight the occasional mistakes that photographers make that turn out to be a totally awesome picture. in this case, one of my flashes didn’t fire and i was left with this image. i believe i ran over to geoff and was like, “LOOK THIS IS AWESOME” shortly thereafter, haha. i now tend to do this “mistake” on purpose. :)

first place winner wedding photography

the other first place winner of mine was in the category of large groups, which is one of my absolute favorite pictures from my repertoire of wedding pictures. taken from valerie and kenneth’s wedding, this was an image that was created using a very willing and cooperative bridal party + lots of time for pictures + cool lighting + nice setting.  i’ve been told a few times that it looks like it could be a twilight movie poster, haha, which i think is both funny and kind of accurate. one of the judges said it was “kind of badass”, and i’d have to agree. :)

1st place wedding photography

thank you to the judges! i am so flattered and honored to be recognized. and congratulations to all the other winners in the categories! to see the other winners as well as read the comments from the judges on my photographs and others, please visit the WPS website here.

enter renee, daniel, and khia! and yes, this is the renee and daniel from july. :) i was so excited to see them again and even more excited to photograph their new puppy, khia. i am a cat person as i’ve never owned dogs and suspect i’d be far too lazy to ever have one, but khia made me want a puppy. like, now. specifically, a puppy just like khia. i can gauge how adorable i think an animal is by how badly my face hurts afterward due to clenching my jaw when i speak to them because i’m overcome with cuteness. and my jaw hurt pretty badly after this session. :) SOOO RIDICULOUSLY CUTE. and she didn’t bark once. how amazing is she!? pet portraits are so fun.

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there’s a puppy in there somewhere. :) she was awesome at listening! we told her to stay and walked really far with her treats and she stayed, just chilling in the barn. most kids wouldn’t do that!

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i feel like i need a big canvas of the below two shots in my house somewhere. and when someone asks me if that’s my dog, i will say no. and they’ll look at me funny, but i won’t care.

raleigh portrait photographer puppy portraits

prepare for your hearts to explode, everyone! it’s an australian shepherd puppy driving a john deere.

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and let’s not forget that renee and daniel are adorable themselves. :) love these guys!

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sooo, how many of you have the strong urge to go out and get a puppy?!