raleigh trash the dress: stephan volume 1.

a month or two ago stephan and i had our first consultation about her trash the dress shoot. her and her husband sean had recently married and she wanted to do a fun, artsy post-wedding shoot. stephan and i had tons of fabulous ideas and for the next month we both rummaged through thrift stores for great trash the dress props. we had a bit of a delay when we had to wait for our shooting permit from the american tobacco campus in durham, but we finally got it and our trash the dress session finally arrived!

for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a trash the dress session is a relatively new idea (within the past several years) where a bride has a very artsy shoot in a strange place (usually grungy or in the ocean or some body of water). the bride no longer plans on using the dress because the wedding has come and gone, and most of the time the dress was slightly damaged from the wedding and they can no longer resell it. so, she decides to have a trash the dress session where the dress literally gets trashed.

stephan and i had wanted to go into the water, but were informed by american tobacco that it’s severely frowned upon :) so we didn’t. but it did rain, and people did look at us like we were crazy taking the bride in her wedding dress out in the rain. the clouds made for some fierce shots. i love love love the results of this session and i give all the credit to stephan and her husband sean for having awesome ideas, being cooperative and patient, and being an awesome couple. you rock guys!

here’s a preview… more to come tomorrow and then later under “weddings>stephan-trash the dress” in my portfolio.

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raleigh wedding photographer: tips for brides.

as i book more and more weddings, i gradually refine my photography skills and am able to make increasingly better decisions about lighting, composition, etc. photographers grow with their volume of work and should never stay stagnant, much like a good teacher. each client becomes so special to the wedding photographer as you’re part of the most important day in that person’s life. your goal is to get it right so that they can properly remember and cherish that day forever.

however, on the bride and groom’s end of things, they cannot refine their skills over a period of time or decide what they’d like to try differently next time. you only get one shot at your wedding day. you want to make things awesome and run smoothly. you can also do some things to make your photographs look even better for the photographer. thus begins part 1 of an unknown number of series i’m calling “tips for brides.” original, huh?

i plan to include several of these in the coming months and years. it not only helps you plan your day, it also helps your photographer make the most of your wedding day. i have a giant list of tips in my head, but we’ll go ahead and get started with a few now.

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tip no.1: lay out your makeup, but go easy on the makeup.

laying out your makeup while you’re getting ready makes for some awesome detail pictures. yes, you can even include makeup in the picture that you rarely use or don’t use for your big day. this applies if you have a makeup artist or are doing it on your own. now for the second and controversial part – go easy on the makeup. your photographer will take very close-up headshot style pictures of you on your wedding day. you want your makeup to accent your features, bring out color in your face, but not be caked on or fake looking. if you’re worried it’s too much, it probably is.

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tip no.2: get a mosquito net for your cake if you have an outdoor wedding.

this is especially true for mosquito season in the south, but it also works for all outdoor weddings any time of the year against bees, wasps, flies, etc. it also makes for some dreamy cake shots (obviously you’d want ones w/o the netting in the shot as well). it protects your cake from all sorts of outdoor stuff and looks pretty nifty. julie and evan, whose wedding this cake is, also used their excess cake butterflies to clip on and decorate the net (not pictured).

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tip no.3: put someone in charge of your rings and put that person in your dressing room.

i love ring shots. i’d run around for hours before your wedding putting your rings in various poses if it was up to me. give your rings (wedding, engagement, or both) to someone who will be in your immediate vicinity while you’re getting ready. make sure your photographer knows who this person is so they can get the rings from her and take some creative shots. don’t get stuck giving the rings to the cousin who is already at the ceremony location. also – if you have any extra invitations, stickers, or anything with you and your groom’s name on it, keep some extra around in the dressing room! they make excellent settings for your ring photos.

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tip no.4: put all your vendors in touch with each other.

make sure your vendors know each other. DJs are usually good at arranging schedules and can tell your photographer and caterer which comes first: bouquet toss, cutting the cake, newlywed dance, eating, etc. this can help the photographer by giving him or her time to scout out a great location to set up camp for your bouquet toss or cake cutting. it will also take some pressure of answering all the questions about the schedule off of you.

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tip no.5: make your kid table fun.

the kid table doesn’t have to be like the adult tables! their wedding favors can be different, they can have different centerpieces, and even different food. your photographer can get some great shots of all the kids together as well, instead of little johnny falling asleep in his chair at the adult table. :)

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tip no.6: don’t be afraid to get cake in your face.

the ceremony is over. it’s time to stop caring as much about your hair and makeup. it’s time to have fun and eat cake. or wear it. seriously, funny cake pictures are adorable. they’re also super spontaneous as opposed to the tons of posed shots you’ve had taken over the day. have a towel or some wet wipes handy and go for it. and besides, all of the guests are secretly looking forward to this moment.

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tip no.7: kick off your shoes at the reception.

like i said, it’s time to have fun now! the reception is all about the crazy candid shots. kick off your shoes, change your dress, or do whatever it is to have a completely awesome time and not worry about being uncomfortable. this is much more for you than the photographer, but your pictures will come out tons better if you are being yourself and aren’t worrying about your corset crushing your insides.

that concludes this edition of tips for brides: part 1. :) in other news, the trash the dress session yesterday was fabulous and i am so excited to post pictures of that tomorrow. also, you can now find us on northcarolinaweddings.com.

hanging rock part 2 – the more conventional side of things.

we got to hanging rock on friday afternoon, pitched camp, ate dinner, then proceeded to get lost in the woods for the next several hours. after we finally found our way onto a road and back to our camp it was pretty late, so we gave up on any planned expeditions for the night. saturday morning we woke up, got ourselves a trail map, and mapped out where we decided we’d go for the day. hanging rock is small by comparison to the mountains, but large enough that you’d need several days to see it all. geoff and i both wanted to go back to window falls and hidden falls, a beautiful back trail that leads you to gorgeous rocks and small but impressive waterfalls. we had visited it last time we were at hanging rock but wanted to see it again.

we then decided we wanted to see tory’s den and falls near the other side of the park. this part of the park was much more secluded and had little people on the trails. the waterfall wasn’t as impressive, but there was a sweet cave (tory’s den) that just reminded me of all the creepy things that are living in the woods i’m tromping through. on the way back from tory’s den and falls we passed a sign for the lower cascade falls. since there is an upper cascade falls also in the park, geoff concluded that the lower cascade falls would be “lame” and that we should naturally bypass the lamest cascade falls for the obviously superior upper cascade falls.

i said that since we were on that side of the park we might as well walk down the really short trail to go see it anyway. we did, and it was probably the most breathtaking part of the entire park besides the actual hanging rock. after you walk down a long path, you get led to a large set of stone stairs. you come out in a small clearing of rock and look out into kind of a mini cave, complete with waterfall and small pool. this was taken during the .5 seconds where all of the small children and ambitious adults somehow cleared out of my lens:

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some of the kids venture back in:

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it was awesome… and when i go back, i will bring my bathing suit. the lower cascades is where the party is! don’t let your significant other tell you that they’ll be “lame” just because there are upper falls. we never did make it to the upper falls because we spent too much time at the lower. :)

also, there are a billion salamanders all over the place at hanging rock. unfortunately a lot of them get run over or stepped on because they’re so small. we walked a lot of trails and walked a lot of road and i would always get really excited to see a salamander… only to realize it was a squished one. :| here’s one i found that a.) didn’t immediately run away from me and b.) wasn’t squished. horray!

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in addition to him, we saw deer, giant moths, spiders that glowed like weird gems in the dark when you shined your head lamp at them, lizards, walking sticks, the fattest toads i have ever seen, all sorts of creepy spiders, and a large copperhead that geoff stumbled upon saying, “wait, is that snake alive? YES YES IT IS.”

we had done a lot of hiking that morning and decided to head back to camp to take a nap and eat. afterwards we woke up and hiked to the top of hanging rock. it is a long hike… although approximatley 1.3 miles, it is almost entirely uphill. and we’re not talking the gradual incline of most trails, we’re talking uphill. it is difficult and by the time you reach the top you are just happy you didn’t have a heart attack along the way.

hanging rock is a giant cliff (think lion king‘s pride rock) that overlooks the park, sauratown mountains, and also several miles away (you can see downtown winston salem). the rock sticks out from the earth 200 feet and is situated 2,145 feet in the air. it is a relatively skinny rock and you have the unmistakable feeling that you will trip and slide until you eventually fall off one of the sides to your untimely death. but it is the best view ever. we went up late afternoon, stayed for the sunset and into the darkness to watch the stars come out. it was a little bit cloudy, but it made for some cool sunset pictures.

sitting on the rock, looking to my left:

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several minutes later, the sunset to my right:

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no blogging tomorrow due to several appointments in the afternoon and my trash the dress session – finally! photographs from that will be up relatively soon… i already can’t wait to see them. :) have a good friday everyone.