Rebecca has been one of our most fabulous clients to date. I don’t think there’s a happier, more genuine girl in all of North Carolina. I’ve loved her from the minute I’ve met her and through all encounters we’ve had with her from the first e-mail til she was sent away in an awesome vintage car on Saturday on the way to her honeymoon. :)
So we know that cats were mentioned three times in the actual wedding ceremony for Amy and Ben. They were also mentioned several other times throughout the day in speeches and songs, but we eventually lost track. I should probably keep a notebook tally from now on to determine who wins the award. All that mattered to us is that we had decided once and for all decided that we really like Amy and Ben… and we really respect their intense love of cats.
They live in New York City which we’re envious of, but maybe next time we go we can insist on crashing on their floor (maybe, guys?). Amy just graduated as a physical therapist and Ben’s a software engineer whose company, strangely enough, makes a program called Trello which Geoff uses on a daily basis for our website, his game company, and his work. Another creepy client coincidence! Their wedding was held in Raleigh at Amy’s childhood Temple and they had a fantastically wild and awesome reception.
Best part of the day: we’ve never seen two people more thrilled to see each other for the first look. Lots of crying not necessarily because they were getting married, but because they were just so relieved to actually see each other after being kept apart for the few hours that morning. It was pretty adorable and amazing… as was the rest of their wedding. :)
First Dance Song: “Come Away With Me” – Norah Jones
Amy’s Occupation: Physical Therapist
Ben’s Occupation: Software Developer
How You Met: Through our mutual friend Kelsey! Amy visited Kelsey in NYC when she was in college, and Kelsey introduced Amy to Ben, who she went to Duke with.
Interesting Fact About Amy: Once hitchhiked in desperation when lost in Greece
Interesting Fact About Ben: Is listed on IMDB for being in a documentary
Honeymoon Destination: Maui
Date: September 2nd, 2012
Ceremony Venue: Temple Beth Or // Raleigh, NC
Reception Venue: 1705 Prime // Raleigh, NC
Officiant: Rabbi Lucy Dinner
DJ: Randy Bennett // Joe Bunn DJ Company
Florist: North Raleigh Florist
Cake: Ashley Cakes
Caterer: Rocky Top Catering
Hair: Heather Thomas
Makeup: Courtney from MAC
Vidoegrapher: Southern Video Design
Coordinator: Nicole McMillian // Premier Party Planners
Hello, old friends and new!
We are so pleased and excited to announce our new website, our new branding, and our new status as an “official” husband and wife wedding photography team! Man, that’s a lot of new stuff.
First, we’d like to thank Dapper Paper for doing an amazing job creating our new logo and design! Previously our logo was simply colored text, so we decided it was time to have someone do it right. Chris and Elizabeth did just that, taking all of our ideas and demands and creating something amazing for us. They were fabulous about everything the entire time, and we’re faaairly certain that we’re probably not the easiest clients to work with since we’re in a visual field and are slightly demanding. But they never complained and got everything exactly right. High-fives to Dapper Paper!
So let’s answer your question: why the bats?
Well, when we thought about a logo, we wanted to incorporate 2 of something in order to represent that there are two of us. Two cats. Two monsters. Two jellyfish. Frankly, we weren’t sure. Secretly Carolyn wanted it to be two bats, but she didn’t tell Geoff. Secretly Geoff wanted it to be two bats, but didn’t tell Carolyn. Eventually one of us (we can’t remember which) brought up the suggestion of bats to the other. The conversation went something like this: “I thought about bats, but thought you might think it was weird!” and the other person said, “ME TOO!” And bats it was. So again, why the bats? Carolyn’s always liked bats because she’s always thought they were cute and fuzzy (weird, we know). She used to watch for them at night all the time when she was a little kid (and still does). Both of us have always thought there was something super cool about nocturnal animals that can fly and are a little creepy but cute at the same time. And both of us really love Halloween. We like it so much that our wedding was Halloween themed and had adorable fuzzy bats hanging from the rafters at Artspace during our first dance.
So bats it is! Although we didn’t want Halloween bats (let’s not give anyone the creeps here, folks). We wanted more of the summer-night type of bats. We have a lot of gorgeous outdoor weddings in the summer under the moon and stars, and we thought it would be kind of a homage to that too. There are a lot of photographers who use birds or owls in their logo, and bats were also kind of the antithesis of that… identifying us and our photography style as a little bit… weird. Animal friendly, sure, but maybe a little off. Which we certainly are. :)
Dapper Paper took care of the logo and design work, while Carolyn crafted some of the other paper products involved in the packaging, redid PDF designs, contract designs, and a million other rebranding things. Geoff took care of the website design (with Dapper Paper taking care of the sidebar) and recoded all of it! It took a monumental effort and a lot of late nights and DVRing Breaking Bad because we didn’t have time to watch it (the biggest travesty of rebranding), but we’re super happy with the end result. We’ll be posting a picture of our new (and freaking awesome) packaging once we get all the materials in and ship someone’s wedding stuff out. :)
The new website is a blog site and has our blog posts built right in, as opposed to a separate portfolio and separate blog as we had before. We updated the pricing to be even simpler than before (we believe simple is good), and have thrown our testimonials and other stuff under the “about” link. The “categories” to the left hand side are the blog categories. The “favorites” link on the sidebar will lead you to what was previously our portfolio, although a much more slimmed down version (since the blog is right there with all of our most recent stuff). There’s weddings and un-weddings. So what does this mean?
We’ve decided to go into a direction of exclusively weddings, engagements, bridals, and couples. That’s what we love, and those are the types of clients we love. No worries, we’ll continue to do “outside category” work (such as pets and families) for people who are already our clients and friends, we’re just branding ourselves as purely weddings now. Mainly because we feel like we thrive with couples and that’s what we want to concentrate on… and babies make us nervous.
Along with the new decision to advertise as just weddings, we’ve also decided to officially become a husband and wife team (despite the name staying the same… sorry, Geoff)! We’ve been working as a team for some time (since always, really, since Geoff’s always done our website work), but now about half of our clients’ wedding pictures come from Geoff, and half from Carolyn. We shoot separately for the first half of the day, and have different strengths during the second half of the day that we concentrate on independently. So there really are two of us shooting different parts of your day equally… and we are married… so that totally constitutes a husband and wife team. Winning! Geoff now has a totally separate e-mail that you can use to contact him on the contact page, although Carolyn still handles all of the business end of things and the editing. But you can e-mail Geoff if you just want to give him a hard time, or maybe talk about baseball or video games. He’s up for answering those types.
So we hope that you guys are digging the new look and the new changes! It’s weird, yeah, but so are we. And if you’re reading this, you probably already know that by now. :)
Love,
Carolyn and Geoff
