Laura and Mitchell Wedding

All weddings are beautiful, but Laura and Mitchell’s wedding has to be one of the most beautiful I have ever attended or photographed.  Preparation was at the Stephen F Austin hotel on 7th and Congress.  I love this hotel!  The cermony was at the First United Methodist Church right next to the Texas State Capitol.  The reception was in the Governors Ballroom at the Texas Union on the UT campus at 24th and Guadalupe.  This stunning facility has very high ceiling, beautiful wood paneling and a wonderful ambience.  There were about 500 guests.  Big kudos to Kay Watson who coordinated this wedding.  We kept to an 8 1/2 hour timeline despite having 3 locations and 500 guests.

I got some shots the night before at the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and welcome party at the Stephen F Austin.  On the wedding day, I started with the groomsmen while Addison photographed the bride and bridesmaids preparing.  Once the groomsmen were ready, we took a few fun shots at the Stephen F Austin and then hopped on the Austin Trolley to the Texas State Capitol for some Capitol images.  I love shots with rich blue skys which you can get by shooting away from the sun.  Then we walked to the church for a some images inside the church and finally it was time to give Mitchell and the groomsmen a break.  After taking some family shots (bride and grooms families seperately), Addison and I prepared for the ceremony.  The ceremony was magnificent.  This church is so beautiful.  At the same time the balconies are in close, so it is still intimate – even with 500 guests!  After the ceremony, we completed our group shots and Laura, Mitchell and I walked over to the Capitol for some images with the Capitol in the background (see below).  We then rode the Austin Trolley with the entire bridal party over to the Texas Union for the reception.

The reception was high energy all the way with 500 guests.  The band was great – I love brass and there were trumpets and a trombone and the were full of energy – getting out into the crowd for some of the dances.  The sparkler exit was the most amazing I have ever seen.  With most of the guests still there and a long walk down the Texas Union stairs to the waiting Bentley waiting on Guadalupe.  Wow! 

Laura Bridal

Yet another wonderful shoot at Dunvegan Keep.  Laura looked stunning!  Monica Jurgens did Laura’s makeup.  It was great to have Laura’s mother Jan and maid of honor Adrian helping with the shoot.   There are so many great locations at Dunvegan.  We started in the cottage, then moved to some outdoor shots in the English gardens.  Then over the the Grecian pool, the arch and over to the castle tower.  Then my favorite – the green door.  We finished in the event room and then under the tree with the beautiful hanging moss. 

These backgrounds are incredible.  Of course, the backgrounds are there just to complement the beauty of the bride.  And that was easy.  There is no mistaking the primary subject of these images – Laura.  Laura is so fun loving it didn’t take any time at all for her to get into shoot.  In many ways, a bridal shoot is a fashion shoot where we try to push things a little while having fun.  I will be posting Laura and Mitchells wedding shortly – so be on the lookout for those images.

Sarah, Gabe and Mike

While my primary focus is wedding photography, I also love to do family portraiture.  Some of my wedding clients arrange for a family portraiture session the week of the wedding to take advantage of the unique opportunity of having their family in town.  These images were taken at my brothers home (Curt) in Nevada City, California.  If you have never been there, it is beautiful country.  Nevada City is about 1 hour from Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada footbills on your way to Lake Tahoe which is about an hour away.  His home and property is at about 3000 feet in elevation. 

I was out there visiting my brother, his wife Karen and my father.  My neice Sarah, her son Gabe and Mike were up there as well.  Sarah wanted some pictures and we knocked out about 100 beautiful images in a half hour.  These we taken with a Canon Rebel XT (old school 8 megapixel SLR) which goes to show it really is not about the camera in most cases.  We had a great time in the woods and culminated the shoot with a massive snowball fight.  I escaped the snowballs, but Gabe wasn’t so lucky…

 

McKenzie and Paul Engagement

McKenzie, Paul and I met at the UT Tower for this engagement shoot.  It was a perfect day – mild weather, nice clouds for dramatic skies and plenty of great places to shoot right there by the UT Tower.  The goal of this shoot wasn’t to do a “UT” engagement shoot (we only did a few tower shots), but to incorporate some great door shots and other fun backgrounds and settings.  UT is a great place to do this even when you aren’t looking for a UT theme.  We also shot at the mural right across Guadalupe from the Texas Union and then drove to Mount Bonnell for sunset shots.  As always, we had a great time.  McKenzie was a bit nervous at first, but we had her at ease and having fun in no time.  We want all of our shoots to be fun while still getting great images.  Those two things can be done at the same time.  Next step will be to design McKenzie and Paul’s Guest Book.  With these images, it should be stunning!

Kris and Jesse

Kris and Jesse booked us in September and with a November 5th wedding, we moved quickly.  You can see their engagement shoot in the Engagement Category of our blog.  We had their custom guest book and event cards ready to go.  Our Guest Book is basically a 20 page album of engagement images with every other page a “sign yearbook” style page.  Our event cards are for giving out to guests and have an image of Kris & Jesse as well as information on where to go to see images and order prints).  The venue was Star Ranch Golf Club in Hutto which is a beautiful facility for a wedding and Samantha Fulford and Kassy Throop are so great to work with.  The ceremony was outdoors with an “endless” vista view over the golf course and countryside.   The reception was held in their indoor facilty and dancing was in their outdoor, covered pavillion.  You can see from the images just how beautiful a “sunset” wedding can be at Star Ranch.  Both Kris and Jesse’s family’s were wonderful.  I got to know Jesse’s parents as they had accompanied us on the engagement shoot in Horseshoe Bay.  The wedding itself was perfect.  Fun bridal party (check out the shots below), picturesque sunset ceremony, beautiful reception with great food and a “high energy” party in the outdoor pavillion.

F a c e b o o k