It’s winter. It hasn’t felt like it completely yet, but the cold is coming and winter in the NC mountains is stunning. Snow on the ground, leafless trees, broad meadows and our awesome mountains make a perfect landscape. This time of year is an opportunity for portraits that are unique, creative and cool (insert snarky laugh track here).
Honestly, we wish more brides would consider portraits this time of year and not shy away from the elements. We’re all accustomed to the greens, yellows, and pinks of spring, but winter white is breathtaking and bridal portraits this time of year turn out to be singular, and with an equally beautiful palette. Barren trees and dormant grounds can still be amazing in the dead of winter. A beautiful bride will stand out even more against such a backdrop.
Even though not much snow remained on the ground during these shots, we set up this shoot with our gorgeous model, Tiffany Roope and once accessorized, she was the winter princess of each portrait.
We live in a part of the country that knocks our socks off, and then requires that we promptly put them right back on. BE BOLD! Have you thought about bridal portraits that are different from what you’ve seen or taken into consideration engagement portraits that creatively showcase a fall or winter landscape? Don’t be afraid to try something that might not have occurred to you before. The results can be unforgettable. Our reviews will tell you that we are creative and adventurous, but we are friends and guides also. We will not steer you wrong.
Contact us for bridal portraits by phone – 336.990.0080 – or email. We’re booking and would love a chance to work with you to do something new!
By the way – Tiffany’s dress & accessories were provided by Bridal Traditions Wedding Attire.
For those of you who don’t live and breathe wedding photography, WeddingWire is the nation’s leading online wedding marketplace and it named Pixels On Paper as a winner of the prestigious WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards® for photography.
“The WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards® recognizes the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. The esteemed awards are given to the top local wedding vendors in more than 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their professional achievements from the previous year.”
We are humbled and excited by this, you guys. And we are incredibly proud.
We’re proud of our first successful (and thrilling and experiential, experimental, exhausting, gratifying and zany) decade in the business.
We’re proud of the partnerships and relationships that are the result of our business.
We’re proud that, while working as a team and as a married couple has its challenges, we have grown as people, as a husband and wife and as artists and photographers.
We’re proud that this is our 7th consecutive year winning this award, thanks to you guys!
Finally, we are incredibly proud of our work. Being recognized for being one of the best at what you do is a shot in the arm to say the least, and a fantastic way to start 2016. So, thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Award winners in our industry are often selected by the host organization, but the WeddingWire Couples’ Choice Awards® winners are determined solely based on reviews from real newlyweds and their experiences working with Pixels On Paper. This means a lot to us! WeddingWire’s award-winning vendors are distinguished for the quality, quantity, consistency and timeliness of the reviews they have received from their past clients.
Additionally, Pixels will be highlighted within the WeddingWire Network, which is comprised of more than 200,000 wedding professionals all over North America and abroad and includes leading wedding sites beyond WeddingWire, such as Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee.
We wanted to share a few of the reviews that helped us win and help tell our story. It goes without saying that we love and appreciate our clients so sincerely, but hearing them describe us in these reviews shows that the feelings are mutual. Not only is it very, very cool, but it’s professionally satisfying. The reviews mean even more than the award. If you are a client of ours and would like to add a review to WeddingWire for us, we welcome it and would love it!
“Pixels On Paper Photography is more than just a couple who takes pictures (amazing pictures!) Misty and Ryan got to know me and my husband so that they were able to capture the special moments between us on our special day. Anyone can take pictures and yes some have “special eye” but the amount of talent and special techniques they have as a team are unbelievable. Taking the time to get to know your clients before the event and even stay in touch after makes the biggest difference. We have found our family photographers for life!! I would highly recommend them to anyone for any event.”
“We used them for both our engagement shots and wedding. We were 100% confident that the pictures would turn out amazing and did not have to worry about a thing.”
“It was important for us to have photographers that we got along with because we knew that they’d be with us for the entire wedding day! Misty and Ryan were so much fun to work with and be around. They were also very prompt in delivering our proofs! Our photos were posted online 12 days after our wedding! We came back from our honeymoon and were able to enjoy our photos– it renewed all the warm feelings that we’d had on our wedding day. Thanks to Pixels On Paper for capturing our special day!”
“My daughter was running late getting to the remote mountain venue from having her hair done in the nearby town. Misty and Ryan were purely professional and seemed to not have a care in the world. They gave my daughter time to get her make-up done and began taking her preparation photos. They know exactly what moments to capture and they do it well. Misty noticed during the ceremony that my daughter’s veil was on backwards and positioned most photos in a way that it wasn’t so noticeable. She immediately corrected it before taking the after ceremony shots. I felt more like my best friends were taking the photos that day. This incredible husband and wife team made everyone feel at ease. We were all able to relax and enjoy the moments. I am a memory fanatic and take tons of pictures at any event that I attend. I must say, I started the ceremony with a camera in hand but quickly realized this was something I didn’t need to do. I really could count on Misty and Ryan to capture every single moment as well as all the small details. Amazing team even more amazing photos!”
“Ryan and Misty Case are AMAZING. We purchased a photography package that included engagement photos, bridal portraits and wedding day photos for a great price. We shot our engagement portraits along the Blue Ridge Parkway and the bridal and wedding portraits in Charlotte, NC – the flexibility that they have to travel where we wanted was great and very easy to coordinate. Both photographers were professional, creative and absolutely incredible to work with. Immediately we felt like we’d known each other for years. On the day of our wedding, Ryan and Misty were completely organized, kept us on schedule, made us laugh and captured so many beautiful shots throughout the day that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. Pixels on Paper rocks!!!!”
“These photographers are true artists and can really do some creative things when you let them do whatever they want! I wanted non-traditional and just let them have at it. Best decision of my life (well, second best–after accepting my husband’s marriage proposal!)”
“I love that [Misty & Ryan] work so well together. It’s like they read each others minds.”
[Quick aside: honestly, we do read each others minds on photo shoots… for the most part. Other times – we’re like everyone else who’s married. You think you’re communicating seamlessly one minute and the next you’re saying, “wait – WHAT?!!“]
“As MOB [mother of the bride], my job was to show up in a field, carry cold water and a dress train through a field. Little did I know, I was about to meet two exceptionally talented and excited people who wanted our daughter’s bridal photos to be even more spectacular than she imagined. Misty & Ryan’s enthusiasm and vision have provided our families with moments we all will treasure … They not only took superb photos, but also blended into the fabric of the day, making being comfortable in front of their cameras as natural as can be. The hardest part is choosing which photos to keep! I would highly recommend their elegant style and innovative ideas to anyone.”
Believe it or not, it’s the start of the season and we’re looking forward to the proposal, engagement, bridal and wedding sessions we’ll have in 2016 and 2017. We’re booking now, so call (336.990.0080) or email us and let’s get started.
For more information about Pixels, please check us out at the WeddingWire Storefront and if you want to learn more about the Couple’s Choice Awards®, please do!
About WeddingWire
WeddingWire, the leading technology company serving the $100 billion wedding and events industry, is the largest online vertical marketplace connecting engaged couples with event professionals. With more than two million consumer reviews, it is the industry leader in consumer reviews. The site enables engaged couples to search, compare and book from an extensive database of more than 200,000 recently reviewed event professionals, from venues to photographers. WeddingWire provides event professionals with the technology they need to serve their clients, including a SaaS platform, which powers advertising, marketing, and CRM needs of local wedding and events businesses nationwide.
For generations, a formal, in-studio bridal portrait was the only game in town and there is a reason for that: they were classic and beautiful and often placed in gilded frames and given a place of prominence in the formal living rooms of people’s homes. In this post-modern age of outdoor portraits, studio bridals are a dying breed. Couples now have a specific vision that begins with quirky (often funny) and inventive ways to announce their engagement, then create their save the date cards, launch a website and finally produce a narrative that is singular to them. The genie is out of the bottle, folks and at Pixels, we embrace this and love the opportunity to create unique portraits that tell a story in an unexpected backdrop. I have to say though that I still love and appreciate tradition and the experience that it takes to create a formal portrait with studio lighting. We had this opportunity with Elisabeth, the beauty you see below.
Elisabeth is an only child and her Mom always envisioned having a traditional, formal, studio bridal portrait of her daughter to hang in their home. Of course we were eager not only to honor this request, but to exceed expectations. I spoke to her mom and got a sense of what she had in mind. This mother-of-the-bride wanted a hand-painted muslin backdrop for some photos and mentioned that she loved images of brides on staircases. Fortunately our studio has both!While the studio bridal portraits feel more like they’re from a by-gone era, they are a perfect foil for the outdoor engagement portraits we took of Elisabeth Isaac…
… and their glorious wedding photos. If you haven’t read their story of doing pretty much everything in reverse, launch the links. It’s worth the read. These two are an inspiration.
Pixels on Paper is now booking sessions (both traditional and crazy creative) for proposals, bridal, engagements, and weddings for 2016 and 2017 and we’d love to help create memories and heirlooms of your journey from “yes” to “I do.” Call 336.990.0080 and let’s discuss this adventure you’ve begun.
There are more than a few inspirational quotes about girls. Girls and cars. Girls about to become brides. Girls and their dreams. Girls being domestic. Girls being daring, etc. So we’d like to pause here and let you conjure your favorite lines or even images…
Done? Ok. So meet this glorious girl, Jamie Goforth, now Jamie Harrison. Her wedding was October of this year, [you’ll have to stand by for the photos of the day], but THIS DAY in August was just about her. We photographed Jamie at the home of a family member in Wilkes county and her mom, grandma, great-aunt and great-uncle all came with her to enjoy the experience and watch her.
The views were spectacular as they tend to be in late summer in the western part of NC, and Jamie looked so fresh and happy. Honestly, this day seemed to increase her excitement about her wedding day. Every bride deserves a day as BRIDE that isn’t her wedding day, don’t you think? The wedding day blur is exhilarating yet inevitable, so we love being able to spend time with brides (and their family members and pals) before the actual nuptials.
I mentioned the views, but the entire home was perfect for showcasing a girl just about to start a new chapter. In particular, the pair above where she appears to be the queen of the estate, but still so young and fresh and contemplative.
Jamie’s family loves antique cars and they have a large collection, so including one in the portrait session was an easy and fun choice. She had a huge assortment to choose from, too. While classic cars are as different as individual girls, her groom is a big fan of the convertible red classic Thunderbird. Photographing her elegantly draped over it was too fun and it is a shot that any car guy can love and appreciate.
We look forward to showing off their wedding pics soon, but in the meantime, we encourage those who are planning proposals this season and want to capture it, those who are engaged and need portraits of you and your fiancé(e), brides-to-be or couples planning a spring or summer wedding, contact us. We’d love to help make your day perfect by ensuring you get the best portraits. Visit Pixels online or call us 336.990.0080.
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken….*
Bride-to-be, Kendall Shephard, reminds of us a swan a little bit. Dressed in white, gorgeous but not overdone, long, lean, elegant. She stands out, but just so, in all that green. Her fiancé, now husband Nathan Williams, works for the North Carolina Wildlife Commission and the couple spend an enviably high percentage of their time outdoors hiking, playing and exploring. We chose the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC for her bridal portrait session and it made perfect sense. She was happy and completely in her element, even in a wedding gown.
Kendall shined, surrounded by shades of summer green, rippling water, moss, stone, rocks and branches. She was this perfect column of light. A classic beauty in the middle of natural beauty.
These portraits were taken in June of this year and the couple were married in August. She was just as, if not more, beautiful on that day with Nathan by her side and surrounded by her nearest and dearest, so stay tuned for the blog about the Shepherd-Williams wedding. But this day was Kendall’s and she could not have been more clear and pure and alive wandering in the woods and musing with us about her upcoming wedding.
*Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
– Mary Oliver, nature poet