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Lori and Jesse – what a GREAT wedding!  This is our last one of the season and it was so great to go out on such a fun wedding with a great photo collaboration!   You and your families and friends were so great to work with!  Thank you!

Lori got ready at the Mystic Marriott and Spa with her girlfriends and parents. 

Lori and Jesse – I just hope you still have this photo when you are 90 years old and wrinkled!  Love it!

I really like the composition of this photo taken by our second shooter, Mike, and the crispness of Jesse’s hair:

Jesse’s guys leaving for the ceremony:

Dad and Lori on the way to the ceremony:

The ceremony was in Norwich, CT:

I thought this was a really unique runner:

Jesse surprised Lori by picking her up and carrying her down the aisle at the end – an awesome moment!

True, true joy – 1st photo out of the church after coming down the aisle as husband and wife….all I had to do was push the button!

Some bridal party photos at the Branford House:

Love this picture with Jesse and his brother in the center!

Yes Guys, I did get that high five shot!

I love a washed out sun look (for some photos like this one)…

Lori and her sister in the light of the sunset…

We took a lot of portraits.  Jesse and Lori were so easy to work with and Branford House is a photographer’s dream for different settings all within a small area…and a beautiful sunset always helps!

This is my favorite portrait of Lori of the day:

I love when we can get the moon in a picture:

If it looks like Lori’s dress is glowing, we actually have a light in there!

Sixpence For Your Shoe out of West Hartford were the wedding planners.  Everything was beautifully appointed and ran extremely smooth – Lindsay was a pleasure to work with and be around. 

Some favorite reception shots…a choreographed first dance to "The Theme to Legends of the Fall" (which was preceded by the wedding party being announced to Billy Idol’s "White Wedding" and the Scorpians "There’s No One Like You!"–love that!):

GREAT cake:

I love this mother and son moment:

Sometimes we do an additional portrait session (10 minutes) late in the evening –  this can give the couple a whole other set of portaits with an entirely different feel…I’m so glad we did these!

Laying on a table wrapped in xmas lights – did I mention there was a xmas theme to the wedding?

Really enjoyed it guys!

Well first off – thank you so much for hiring me without ever meeting me!  I really appreciate it and even though I got a chance to meet Marisa before the wedding, I felt I knew Tom just as well from  our phone calls and emails!   Anyway, it was a great day that started in my home town of West Hartford…

One of the first things I learned about Marisa is that she loves sunflowers.  Here is the entrance to her room as the girls get ready:

I thought her handmade veil looked really cool from below:

We took some portraits in Marisa’s parents’ back garden.  Marisa was up for any type of direction and we had a lot of fun with this!

Marisa’s dad IS the fastest kisser in the East!

The ceremony was at St. Mark’s in West Hartford with a full mass.

The girls:

The brothers:

The reception was at The Bond Ballroom  in downtown Hartford.   But first, we had decided to do an urban street shoot – just us, Tom and Marisa and Tom Hickman, the videographer.

I had scouted this alley ahead of time and it made for some really cool pics (if you like gritty city):

Tom and Marisa were great collaborators and Tom found great chairs to use everywhere we went:

Now we are in a pretty deep, dark alley.  This light is actually made by a motion sensor light that our assistant had to keep stepping in front of to keep it lit!

Back on the street – yes, I also have pics of Tom throwing Marisa on the hood of the pickup off to the left with the guys inside pointing and laughing (hard to see on the blog though!)!

We also made it up by the capitol:

This is behind Black Eyed Sally’s.  The owner came out and wants one for the restaurant wall!

Great creative collaboration!  Thanks guys! 

Then it was on to The Bond for the reception…the light was really cool when we arrived:

The first dance:

The cake in the light at sunset (not photoshopped…actual color of the light!):

One of the highlights of the reception was a little surprise from Tom.  Tom, the artist who never sings in public, surprised Marisa with a song that he had written for her, aptly named "Sunflower Girl".

Here’s Marisa finding out:

Here’s the actual performance:

To all the guys out there … here’s what you can expect following a surprise (of any type I’m sure!) for your bride–what a great moment!

By the way, I don’t know if I mentioned but even though Tom doesn’t normally sing in public , he did great and has a fantastic, haunting voice, writes music, plays piano, guitar, etc. and is basically incredibly talented.  If you’d like to see him sing, here is a video clip that I was able to get hold of — please send this to all your music producer friends….

Tom Singing "Forever We are Bound"

You can check out his "Landslide" cover and an original piano piece, "Here We Are" there too.  And if you feel like a laugh, check out "Dogs cannot play the piano!".

But back to the wedding…I just want to close on one of my favorite shots that happened just as I was saying goodbye to Marisa – the wind just took her veil perfectly!  It reminds me that it’s good to wear the camera until I get in the car and drive away – you never know what shot might just appear when you think the night is wrapping up!

Thanks guys!  It was such a pleasure!

Thanks Lisa and Jeff for letting us be a part of your wedding!  I love to shoot a daytime wedding because it’s a whole different light all day and makes for different and interesting shots!

Although, everything started early in the morning and this was the scene first thing:

Lisa got ready at Avon Old Farms Hotel.  I spent a lot of time shooting the bride getting ready and really liked the hair/make-up artist, Dana Bartone of Dana Bartone Salon (203-250-7709) — Lisa’s make-up looked great, Dana used top products, and was really friendly, yet unobtrusive.

It’s fun to shoot shoes:

Some moments with family in the morning:

Great eyes and window light:

The morning light made for a really romantic feel:

It’s probably hard to see on the blog, but I love it when grown men cry when they see their bride!  (sorry Jeff!:))

Jeff and Lisa saw each other before the wedding so we could shoot all the portraits before the wedding – I loved Lisa’s dress mixed with the trees–very fashiony:

Then we went across the street to Avon Old Farms Inn for the ceremony, cocktail party and brunch reception.

I loved this shot of Jeff and his dad during the Ketubah signing.  Please note that all the orange kippahs have Mickey Mouse on them.  Once again, the personal touches throughout a wedding really make it unique!

 

Guests are always asking me camera questions and I got several questions on how we shoot the wedding when it is backlit with windows.   Probably a lot of point and shoot cameras will meter off the windows and the couple will be too dark.  We definitely shoot this on manual settings and we expose for the couple, so they are the correct exposure and this blows out the background (which I like).  There’s no way to get both correctly exposed unless we added lights or a lot of flash so that the existing light on the couple was equal to the light level outside the windows which would be a little annoying during a ceremony!  Fascinating, huh?  But here’s the result. 

By the way, this is my second favorite tradition in Jewish weddings – the breaking of the glass – Mazel Tov!

Here’s my first favorite tradition – the Chair Dance!

Everything was done in fall colors – perfect for an October wedding.  The flowers were a major part of the design and were done by Bouquets and Beyond.

There was a great swing orchestra from Boston called White Heat – real pros:

The toasts:

Jeff’s napkin went to his face less than a minute after his dad started his speech–very moving!

Jeff’s parents:

A great take-away for fall – candied apples!

Thanks guys — you had a beautiful wedding!