Rebecca and Bryan’s Wedding Details Venue: University of Denver, Daniels School of Restaurant, Hotel, and Tourism Management Flowers:  Newberry Brothers

I’m very excited to showcase the photos in a gallery format because it means I get to share more–let me know what you think!  But I have to share this one on its own because I think it’s the coolest photo ever taken.  Huge tip of my hat to Nic for this shot of the flower girl being ninja awesome:

Hard to top a shot of a flower girl walking on water, but I’m a fan of the rest of the wedding pictures, too. 

Vanessa and Jarrod’s wedding details

venue:  Sherman Street Event Center

florist: Flowers Forever Design

dj: Sound Master Entertainment

This setting was beautiful…but so stinky I wanted to die.  On the way home I could still smell it.  I think the stench might be burned into my clothing.

I got home and realized I was totally channeling my inner Image is Found for these next shots!

Joe is one of our grooms that pretends to be camera shy but then totally rocks it the whole shoot.  I’m beginning to not believe grooms when they say they’re camera shy and not photogenic. 

These guys were FUN:

I *love* close-ups.  If I could mount my 85mm lens and never take anything except close-ups, I could still live a completely fulfilled life!

And it’s even better when they’re as cute and in love as Jessica and Joe are!

But I guess if I only did close-ups I’d miss out on fun shots like this.  How cute is Jessica?!

This one is fun in color, but in black and white you can pretend that the leaves are green. 

We closed off the shoot with these shots back at the stinky pond of stank:

Thanks for a very fun afternoon, Jessica and Joe!  I hope the traumatic memory of sitting in so much goose-poop will be short-lived or that you at least love the pictures enough to make it worth it!   I can’t wait for your wedding–I know it will be a blast!

Last weekend found us photographing Lauren and Andy’s wedding at St Mary’s in Littleton and their reception at The Sanctuary.  (I know around shared the above shot, but it just sums up their snowy day so well I couldn’t not have it in their official sneak peek!)

Getting ready:

I blatantly stole this shot from my friend, Abbotsford wedding photographer Rachel Ludwig.  I’ve been wanting to do it ever since I saw her version months and months and months ago!

A few portraits before the wedding ceremony:

The church had requested that they arrive very early before the ceremony, so we had lots of time for pictures.  But as cold as it was outside, no one wanted to spend a huge amount of time out there!  So we got a little creative and I took these bridal portraits of Lauren in the cafeteria, using some dramatic natural light from a window:

Time for a little touch-up…

And then show time!

Couples often worry that if they see each other before the grand walk down the aisle, that moment might not be as special.  But just look at their faces in this shot right after “the hand-off!”

The proud mother, father, and grandmother of the bride:

St Mary’s Catholic Church in Littleton was beautiful and their priest’s homily was great.  He made us want to move to his parish!

We absolutely had to take a big bridal party shot in the snow (our biggest bridal party yet–ten on each side)!  A big thanks to all twenty of them for making the trek outside!

The reception was held at The Sanctuary, and it could not have been a more beautiful spot!  The cake fit the weather perfectly!

The first dance:

LOVE this shot of Lauren!!

I am a sucker for a good father-daughter dance shot:

The Christmas tree made a great back-drop for the dance floor!

The DJ’s lights were the coolest ever, and I always got excited when a new group of people moved over to them.  The light coming off them is so fun!

And I’m going to end with the dance-off shot, cause it’s so rad.

Andy and Lauren, thanks for your graciousness and for allowing us to photograph your beautiful wedding.  It was the perfect way to kick off 2009!

***

Behind the scenes…

You know that beautiful “bride and groom walking through snow” shot up top?  Lauren suffered for that one!  She was for pretty much barefoot out there, so when we came in she went straight for the bathroom and a warm towel for her exceptionally red feet!  (I’d show the color version, but then you’d see just how red they were and accuse me of “cruelty to brides.”)

Nic at the ceremony getting his “ninja shots,” as our August ’09 bride Leigh coined it:

Belinda is one of the most genuinely sweet people I’ve ever met in my life.  And so I forgive her for being so crazy beautiful!

I couldn’t resist an ivy background!

Yep.  Belinda is way too pretty!

Nic’s shot, and my favorite from the ceremony.  I bow down to him.

My favorite “We did it!” face of the year.  Which is a good way to end because this is our last wedding of 2008!

The dove release after the ceremony…

Belinda’s son, Aidan, is such an adorable little boy!  He was so well behaved for us.

We had some beautiful afternoon light.  The kind of light that we just don’t get in most areas of Colorado Springs because the mountains get in the way!

Time for some back alley kisses.  I’m pretty sure photographers end up spending almost as much time in back alleys as muggers.

We had an awesome amount of time between the ceremony and reception for photos, so we played around for a long time and then released them to the limo party…

My favorite reception shots are almost always from the first dance.  Nic really rocked this one!

The mother-son dance always gets me thinking about the future.  (Although I’m pretty sure I’ll run off any of Will’s prospective brides.  Because No One will be good enough.) 

Belinda’s father passed away, so her uncle stood in for him on the father-daughter dance and they danced to There You’ll Be (that song from Pearl Harbor) and I cried like a baby.  So much so that Nic was prompted to look at me and ask “Have you been drinking?!”  (But since this was his shot, I know he was feeling it too.)  It was so moving it was totally “two glasses of wine” or “six months pregnant” pain-in-your-chest emotion.  I can’t even proof these without tearing up.

Before I start crying all over the place again, I’m going to end with my favorite picture of the day.  A little something I like to call “the magic of the D3.”  Or just “a really cool bridal bouquet toss picture.”  Belinda has the cutest expressions!

Thanks, Belinda and Justin, for letting us photograph your day.  You were so easy and fun to work with, so gracious, and so welcoming.  We hope you have a wonderful mini-moon in Vail and fantastic forever together!

Carolyn getting ready in her awesomely lilac bathroom (their house has all the best colors)!

Carolyn had collected the most perfect accessories for her aqua and lime wedding.  A hoop skirt, a gorgeous hair accessory, and CHECK OUT THESE SHOES!!!

Time for the dress…

When everyone was ready, it was off to Wash Park for portraits!  Here’s my absolute favorite from the day:

At The Space Gallery, Carolyn and Jack were married in a room decorated with Jack’s art!  On one of their first dates (or maybe the first date) they visited an art gallery where the titles were in Spanish.  They enjoyed making up their own titles for the pieces, so at the wedding, they put up pieces of paper so the guests could have a go at naming Jack’s silkscreened art pieces.  What a fun way to incorporate that part of their history!

During the ring ceremony, I was in a great spot to capture the traditional shots.

Nic was up in the balcony and couldn’t get anything from that angle…so he got creative and shot a few of their shadows as they exchanged rings.  How clever is he?!

The kiss!

In Colorado, a bride and groom can marry themselves without an officiant.  The tricky part is figuring out how to sign the marriage license afterward!

Our favorite florist, Dawn from Hillside Consultants, did flowers and centerpieces, so they were of course gorgeous!  They included beautifully painted orchids.

Carolyn’s nephew was one of the cutest and certainly best behaved toddlers I’ve ever seen at a wedding!

Nic takes the best toast pictures.  I always look forward to seeing what he’ll capture!

Another of Nic’s great toast pictures: Carolyn’s dad.

These guys were cracking me up as they played with a camera on the dance floor!

A good night kiss…

Carolyn and Jack, thanks so much for allowing us to be a part of your day.  You were so easy to work with and we loved all of the personalized touches in your day!  We hope you have a wonderful honeymoon!

***

Behind the scenes…

Can you spot Nic?

Glorious camera equipment dripping off every inch of me… 

When we left the wedding, we joked with Carolyn and Jack that we hoped their car was okay.  At the engagement shoot, their car window had been smashed.  But we should have knocked on some wood while we were joking, because when we got back to my trusty Civic we discovered this!

Oh no!  Window broken, glove box open…my best friend and life-saver: GPS Girl was gone.  Bernadette had been helping out the wedding coordinator and was catching a ride home with us.  Something I’m sure she regretted as we drove home on I-25 at midnight in October with no window!  (Of course, my favorite moment was when I looked over and realized that we could have at least turned the car heat on!)  Bernadette broke out her camera for a “we can’t feel our ears” photo.  Laughing at the result kept us warm all the way home. 

Jack is Cute.

SUPER CUTE.

Meet Lauren. She’s one!

She had a high chair in her room just like the one my photographer pal Lisa uses to make adorable pictures!

Together, Jack and Lauren are AMAZINGLY CUTE.

And when you add in their mom, Anna, the cuteness starts to get a little ridiculous.

And when Jack wears a hat, the cuteness DEFINITELY gets ridiculous.

(I have been wanting to get a kid to play in the leaves since I saw the brilliant Maria Grace’s fall shots.  I was all about stealing prop ideas yesterday, apparently!)

And when the hat comes off, he’s still just plain cute!

I spent a wonderful afternoon with these three and captured a mountain of adorable portraits.  It was a joy to meet them, and I’m so thrilled with the pictures it’s all I can do not to blog them all!

They asked for more conservative portraits than we normally do, so that was a fun challenge for me! I love that we were able to capture how wonderfully Faisal cares for Sonya–you can really tell that he is always looking to take care of her!

Faisal and Sonya got engaged on the Millennium Bridge, so it was only appropriate to take a few shots there!

Sonya is so beautiful!

***

Behind the scenes:  We were shooting on a few bridges over a little stream and there was a very happy dog prancing around in the water.  He wanted to know what my deal was:

Photographers tend to adopt funny stances as they attempt to become human tripods.  I like this one that Nic was sporting.   Like he’s going to take this shot, and then break into a run.  (I really shouldn’t throw stones about poses…but luckily Nic doesn’t write blog entries.) 

]]> http://realphotography.com/blog/denver-colorado-engagement-portraits-sonya-and-faisal/feed/ 3 http://realphotography.com/blog/denver-engagement-pictures-carolyn-and-jack/ http://realphotography.com/blog/denver-engagement-pictures-carolyn-and-jack/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:55:22 +0000 Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer http://realphotography.com/blog/?p=585 We had two engagement sessions this week, and apologies to Matt and Meg, because I’m posting these sneak peeks in reverse order.

Poor Carolyn and Jack get bumped to the front of the line because when we returned to our cars at the end of the shoot, their car had been broken into! The criminals didn’t take anything, but broke the window anyway (which almost makes it more annoying).

We were also disappointed when our piece de resistance of the evening didn’t happen. We had planned on ending the shoot at The Tattered Cover (Jack and Carolyn are both in publishing, which makes the fabulous bookstore an even better location) but didn’t think through the fact that on Sunday, they close at 6:00 (instead of 11:00). BUMMER OF BUMMERS.

Jack and Carolyn were fabulous troopers, though, and total pros at engagement shoot posing by the end of the night! We had our fair share of disappointments last night, but it was matched by fun accidents like when we were were misidentified as teenagers, or finding the cool underside of this bridge:

And this awesome wall:

Or this little locks by the river (it looks a lot prettier than it smelled…):

Or this coffee shop (and the kind girl who left her sweet spot in the window for a few minutes while we took a few shots):

And a few more shots for good measure:

A little bit of vintage grunge for this one:

Thanks again, Jack and Carolyn for a wonderful evening! We can’t wait for your wedding, we hope you love this sneak peek, and we hope your car magically grew its window back last night!

Cindy and John!

Cindy is currently deployed in the Middle East, so when I have spoken with her in the past, she’s said how much it would mean to her to have this part of her wedding taken care of and off her worries! I’m sure she and John would like to thank everyone that voted for them!

We are so excited to photography their wedding and can’t wait to share those pictures with everyone (the Academy Chapel is really a dream location for wedding photographers, so we hope we’ll do it justice)!

Nic and I would like to thank all of our finalists for participating. We have loved sharing their stories with you and thank everyone who came to visit our website to vote for their friends/family/favorites! It has been a wonderful experience and we look forward to doing a similar wedding photography give-away contest for 2009!

In case you missed it the first time around, here is their winning entry:

Cindy and John – 23 August 2008

We quickly connected with Cindy and John’s story. Our relationship also began in college with our Air Force training (ours in ROTC rather than the Academy) and we had lots of long-distance times in our own relationship. And if that wasn’t enough to pull at our heart strings, Cindy and John are tanker pilots…and I have had an unusual love affair with tankers ever since my Aircraft Maintenance tech school (other maintainers thought I had it sweet working at Langley with F-15s and F-22s…and all I could dream of were KC-10s)!

My name is Cindy, and I would like to share my love story with you. My fiance, John, and I are both first lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force. We are both KC-135 Stratotanker pilots, and as such conduct air refueling for other jets. That probably makes us the highest paid gas station attendants in the world!

How We Met (or “The Usual He-said, She-said”)

John and I met a few years before we even considered dating each other, as freshmen (actually we were called “fourth class cadets”) at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Though I had worked hard to land a congressional nomination and appointment to the Academy, my first real exposure to the military and life away from my small hometown was a bit daunting. But I’d been running on sports teams basically my whole life, so joining the Academy’s cross country and track teams was my release. I found that running was the same no matter where you were. It was at one of the first few practices that I met John.

John was born and raised in central Florida, near Orlando. He was the tall, dark haired, stunningly handsome, and confidant guy you’d expect to meet in a beach town. I figured there would be no chance he could ever be interested in me. Years later he told me that I had caught his eye during those first few practices as well–me in my short running shorts and spaghetti-strap sports bra–but of course I had no idea at the time.

Time passed, and we became teammates, mere acquaintances–because I could never work up enough courage to really talk with him outside of practice. The next summer, my boyfriend-at-the-time failed to pick me up at the airport upon my return from summer leave at home in California. While I was on the phone with him, furious and stranded, John walked up to me in the airport and offered me a ride. I was embarrassed, but took him up on the offer. He was very pleasant and friendly, but I was sure he was laughing on the inside at me and my awkwardness. He tells me now that he had enjoyed talking with me so much, he decided then that he was going to date me someday.

Over the next two and half years I ran into him at various times. Every time we’d meet he would stop and ask me about things–classes, running, my family, my boyfriend–and he genuinely seemed to care. I’d always walk away thinking he was so sweet and sincere. Of course in my head I was swooning over the fact that he actually remembered my name! He says he was always scheming on how to take me out on a date. He wanted me to know that he cared, and to make sure that I didn’t forget about him. At long last, he asked me out, and we just clicked—chatting through our first date for more than seven hours!

Fast-Forward (or “Insert Complications Here”)

Two years later, the military put a stumbling block into our otherwise ordinary development as a couple. We were both in pilot training, and it was time for each of us to make some career decisions about first, what type of airplane to fly and second, where we each wanted to live for our first assignments (about four years). I came upon decision-making time first and though we were very much in love, we decided I should ask for assignments based on my personal preferences and we’d figure things out with us down the road. My first choice: Fly KC-135s in Mildenhall, England. And sure enough, I was granted orders to England as a KC-135 pilot! I was so excited.

Seven months later—more secure in our relationship and ready to commit—it was time for John to request his first assignment. His request: KC-135s to Mildenhall England, in hopes of following me. The tanker was not actually his favorite, but it might make it more likely for us to be stationed together. As we waited to hear the results of his assignment, I packed up my belongings, shipped them to England, and bought a plane ticket in preparation for my departure. Much to our dismay, John was given orders to fly KC-135’s, but in McConnell, Kansas. Instead of Great Britain, he would be living in the Great Plains. Now he was stuck flying a plane that would not have been his first choice, and we wouldn’t even be living on the same side of the Atlantic.

He had sacrificed a lot for the chance of being with me, and so I decided it was time I do the same. I requested my orders be changed to Kansas in order to be with him. John of course did not want me to give up England–he knew how excited I was for the assignment–but life with him in Kansas would bring me more joy than life alone in England.

I moved to Kansas in October, with the two small suitcases I had planned on flying with me across the ocean. With all the rest of my belongings already being shipped to England, I had no furniture and was even borrowing shower towels for months, but I knew I had made the right choice. Things started to fall into place in December. My belongings finally arrived back from their voyage to England (my couch is now more traveled than I am) and I settled into my new place. Then on Christmas Eve in my hometown, John asked me to marry him!

Our Wedding (or “Happily Ever After … Mostly”)
We will be sharing our vows in front of friends and family back where it all began—in Colorado at the Air Force Academy, in the beautiful Cadet Chapel on August 23, 2008. (If you haven’t seen it before, the Chapel is simply gorgeous–every photographers dream;) ) I couldn’t be happier with the way things have turned out, but there are still many obstacles in our future.

Long term, even though we are stationed together now, every re-assignment brings with it the risk of being separated. The needs of the Air Force will always trump the desires of the wedded members. We are thankful for our good fortune so far, and will never take it for granted! Wedding-wise, planning is kind of difficult. With my family living in California, his family in Florida, me in Kansas and him in Oklahoma (he won’t be moving to Kansas until a few months from now), all arrangements must be made via email and phone exchanges. As if that were not difficult enough, I will be deploying to the desert in a few weeks in order to do my part in the War on Terrorism. I’ve heard of brides planning weddings from Iraq, but that’s never how I imagined my wedding planning would go. I just keep thinking about heading down the aisle in my elaborate white dress (I’m thinking elbow-length gloves would go well with his crisp, navy-colored mess dress uniform, right?), with the colored light streaming in through the Chapel’s modern windows spanning the height of the majestic spires—and John ahead of me. With him by my side, I’ll always be home.

OK, so it’s a bit cheesy–but what’s a bride without her cheesy love story? This one’s mine!