March 30, 2016

Anniversary.

These guys. They’re like us, only they don’t have two cats. But sometimes they borrow their friend’s cat, so they’re basically us. Gretchen and Jason are two of our favorite people. We first met Gretchen doing weddings as she is a fabulous wedding planner. She owns her own business called RedBird Events (go check her website out!) and if you hire both us and Gretchen, you may come across us whispering in a corner somewhere. And it might look suspicious, but really we’re just planning our Halloween parties and comparing notes on costumes. When we finally decided to hang out together in real life, we met her husband Jason for the first time. He showed up wearing this shirt, whose image has been my go-to Facebook timeline image every November for the past several years, and so we loved him immediately.

Interesting Fact about Gretchen+Jason: “Gretchen and I have both dislocated the same knee. It’s our left one. I don’t mean this as a collective shared knee, but that we’ve both dislocated our own knees. Although, now I’m wondering what a shared knee would look like. Assuming we were actually physically joined together at marriage into something like conjoined twins, I’m wondering where we’d connect and how it would look. I’ll ponder this a bit more today.”

Now we are lifer friends and we enjoy their company. Jason does a mean Morrissey impression during RockBand, and Gretchen sings adorable songs that she writes about Star Wars, so they’re kind of my favorite band when you put them both together. Here are some options for their future album cover:

: NC State Legislature Building

: NC State Legislature Building

: Black and white couple portrait in Raleigh

: Quirky portrait photographers in Raleigh

: NC State Legislature Building

: Black and white portrait

: NC State Legislature Building

: Couple sitting on couch in Raleigh

: NC State Legislature Building

: Couple laughing during portraits in Raleigh

: NC State Legislature Building

: Couple standing by painting

: NC State Legislature Building

: NC State Legislature Building

: Portrait photographers in Raleigh

: Couple walking holding hands

: Girl smiling at camera

: Couple dancing

: NC State Legislature Building

: Couple standing next to Dogwood tree

: Couple standing by azaleas

: Black and white silhouette of couple

: Portraits taken in Raleigh NC

: NC State Legislature Building

: Black and white couple

: Couple standing on grass

: Couple smiling

say nice things

March 24, 2016

Megan+Carly // Downtown Durham Engagement Session

Megan and Carly met at a gym when they lived in North Carolina (Carly went to UNC and Megan to NC State). They lived in Durham for a while and it still holds a special place in their hearts, so they packed up their backgammon game and adorable mugs and hauled themselves back here from Lexington, Kentucky to have their engagement session with us. We had this planned for a long time and they were already in from out of state when both Geoff and myself came down with fevers and a sickness similar to the plague, so we awkwardly waved hello at them from about 10 feet away when we first met them as to not spread the contamination. Our jokes were far more awkward and made even less sense than they usually do, and my already poor ability to give verbal instructions to my clients based on pictures in my head became even poorer, yet somehow Megan and Carly appeared to have a good time (or they’re at least humoring us).

Despite our illnesses, we still had a great time romping around the Bull City with these two. I especially enjoyed that Carly is barely 5′ tall and I did not need my step stool to photograph her. They handled all obstacles (and parking cones) in stride, and our biggest hurdle was them being cool with the new Ghostbusters remake while Geoff tried desperately to verbalize that the original Ghostbusters is a national treasure that should probably have at least a few monuments in its honor. We talked politics and dogs and they told us about their wedding and Carly wore really cute shoes while Megan made me want to cut all my hair off again.

: Couple playing Backgammon in park

: LGBT couple engagement pictures

: LGBT couple engagement session Durham NC

: Backgammon game

: LGBT couple durham nc engagement session

: Durham NC engagement photographer

: LGBT friendly Durham Engagement Photographer

: Durham engagement session

: Girls laughing

: Girls laughing during engagement shoot

: Girls cuddling during engagement photos

: Durham NC engagement photographers

: Girls walking and laughing

: Girls talking and walking

: Girls standing against wall

: People playing with parking cones

: Playing with parking cones

: Durham NC engagement session

: Lesbian engagement session

: Engagement session in Durham NC

: Girls hugging

: Black and white portrait

: Girls hugging on rooftop

: Girls standing in front of painted mural in downtown Durham

: Downtown Durham parking garage

: Girls standing on roof

: Girls cuddling

: Girls cuddling in downtown Durham

: Girls walking holding hands

: Girls cuddling

: Downtown Durham NC

: people on rooftop

: Girls cuddling in front of bushes

: Girls hugging

: Downtown Durham skyline

say nice things

March 18, 2016

Oyster Roast // Wilmington Family Photos

This family goes back so, so far with us and for that we are seriously grateful and humbled. We’ve changed a lot since we first started and to have them all stand by our side through all of our changes has been amazing! Dottie and Jon were one of our first ever wedding couples, and we bonded so well with both sides of their families at their wedding that we’ve all become Facebook friends and kept in touch ever since. :) So when Dottie’s parents (step-mother Betsy and father Donald) asked us to join them out in Wilmington for an oyster roast at Donald’s childhood home, we happily agreed.

Dottie and Jon would be joining them, along with their two children (Patrick and Ellie), and Dottie’s sister Mich and boyfriend Tony. Thug the Pug also showed up, sporting a sweater. Everyone hung around outside on a beautiful late winter day and let ourselves be amused by the (quite active and humorous) Patrick. Ellie was very cute, but gave me a profound frown 99% of the time (don’t let these pictures fool you – she didn’t like the camera one bit). Despite the baby not realizing that her family is cool with us, we had an absolutely wonderful time reuniting with this friendly and ever-happy group of people. It is SO COOL to see everyone’s family grow and change and to feel part of the family at the same time. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for always embracing and supporting us, Betsy, Don, Dottie, Jon, and Mich… and to Patrick, Ellie and Tony – we hope we didn’t traumatize you too much, and we’ll see you again soon. :)