Posts Tagged: church wedding photographers

The Pinterest Factor – reality vs. pinned photos

A common challenge we wedding photographers have these days involves brides sending us a Pinterest board full of photos they want us to recreate on their wedding day. And believe me, we get it. Inspiration comes from so many different places and directions, people, memories……….. the origins of our muses can be anywhere these days and Pinterest boards are proof of that. They are a 21st century social media phenomenon, born of the old bulletin boards, college wall boards of your favorite actors or bands, and more recently the vision boards people made for aspirational purposes. They have enormous value for those who craft, knit, travel, have a yen for a certain type of fiction, color palette, movie genre, you name it.

from a board about movie stars of the 1940s

But Pinterest boards are just that: they are inspiration boards. And brides love them because they create a central and shareable place to collect ideas. It’s perfect for pulling together your ideas and favorite thoughts as you plan. With photography on your wedding day, it’s a moveable feast. It’s live and it’s subject to dozens of variables.

 

from a board about weddings

all images from Pinterest boards about weddings

When it comes to brides, we love seeing photos from Pinterest boards for this reason and pretty much this reason only: we get to know YOUR sense of your style, where YOUR inspirations are coming from and some of the types of imagery you want us to capture. You’re giving us a sense of who you are, but from someone else’s photos. These are someone else’s moments and that’s the distinction.

Why do you want someone else’s moment? Why not allow us to capture or create photos that are uniquely yours? We don’t mind looking at a pinterest board to get an idea of what you like at all, because we can then use it for inspiration. We want to capture what you want and we are seasoned wedding photographers and great listeners. But to wholesale recreate someone else’s moment is not only difficult and time consuming, that moment may be from a photographer with a different style from ours.

Schultz Crestwood Resort Blowing Rock NC High Country Wedding
Firethorne Country Club wedding charlotte NC. Whitford/Kessell wedding photography by Pixels On Paper Photographers photo
 Amanda Walling and Bonnie Hostetler On The Windfall outdoor Wedding West Jefferson NC photo

If you’ve fallen in love with a particular style of photography, you’ll need to find that photographer or a photographer who can mimic that style. Ryan and I feel strongly about copying other professional photographers images.

Thinking we can create images from Pinterest that only happen naturally where brides and photographers can find themselves in the weeds. Setting up an image based on a photo takes much longer due to set-up and lighting, posing people, etc. than those glorious shots that simply happen naturally.

A wedding is a moveable feast, as it were.

It’s live. It’s a living, breathing bit of joy, community, fun, calamity at its best and history in the making. Every moment cannot be a photo shoot and why would you want it to be? There are rain delays, wardrobe changes or makeup refreshes, lingering conversations, your cast of characters who may go missing, speeches that are lovely to hear but don’t convey on film. To capture every type of image based on other weddings on other days, in other locations and shot by other photographers is to set yourself up for disappointment. Have faith!
YOU need your own images that happen naturally for YOU on YOUR day. Remember that, as you sort through what you’d like to see on your day and trust that there will be magic moments we’ll capture that no one else on any Pinterest board will have.


We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddingsbrides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

88x31 lucy & glens valle crucis wedding photography | pixels on paper boone wedding photographers

All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

Wedding Season is closer than you think – think photography!

Schultz Crestwood Resort Blowing Rock NC High Country Wedding

We know that we get excited and prepared for wedding season earlier than most – unless you’re a wedding planner. It’s our job to be ready to listen to your requests, learn about the location – if we don’t already know it intimately (we’ve been around a while, ya’ll) – get to know you and your story and be a part of your dream team. It takes a lot of coordination and we want to be in the background, capturing moments, but still part of your support army on your big day.

Outdoor weddings, especially in our part of the country, are perhaps more popular than church weddings, but we love doing both. We also love learning your history, about the various choices you made and most especially what details, faces, dance routines, micro-moments, comedic surprises and acts of love we need to get on film so that you have memories and heirlooms for life.

We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddingsbrides, and special events and portraits  of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.

88x31 lucy & glens valle crucis wedding photography | pixels on paper boone wedding photographers

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

All photos are ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.

august wedding anniversaries

August sometimes gets a bad rap. It’s hot; it’s the end of summer; it’s back to school time (“AND ALL GOD’S CHILDREN YELLED: NOOOOOO!!!); it’s buckle down, “we’re done with the beach for a while” time for families and we all start slouching toward fall. But really, it’s a pretty great month. It’s transition time and it always feels to me like there’s elbow room between summer and the cooling temps and tasks that come with autumn. It’s also the month Ryan and I got married. Our marriage stands up in August and says, “yes! Another year, peeps!” In that spirit, it’s time to wish our couples who were married in August a very Happy Anniversary! You’ll notice two faces below who were mere babies when they got married in August of 2003.
We’ve loved being a part of your journeys, watching your grow, have kiddos and enter new phases of life. We raise a glass to us all.

We join this month’s anniversaries celebrating 14 years of marriage on August 2nd. Photo ©Laura Auman Photography

Lindsey & James Roberts, 8 years August 1st

Amber & Andy Shumate, 2 years August 1st

Heather & Joey Sowell, 9 years August 2nd

Melody & Pierre Banks, 3 years August 2nd

Erin & Diego Moldonado, 10 years August 3rd

Amy & Tom Davies, 4 years August 3rd

Christine & Frank Crowley, 7 years August 7th

Meghan & Josh Roberts, 2 years August 8th

Stacia & Adrian Phifer, 9 years August 10th

Mia & Lawrence Naylor, 5 years August 11th

Edith & Kirk Irish, 1 year August 13th

Micala & Tyler Rash, 2 years August 15th

Sierra & Casey Tevepaugh, 3 years August 16th

Barbara & Will Vulcano, 7 years August 21st

Heather & Jayson Parker, 8 years August 22nd

Kendall & Nathan Williams, 2 years August 22nd

Heather & Jason Rice, 6 years August 27th

Laura & Jeremy Coviello, 8 years August 29th

Whitney & Preston Parsons, 2 years August 29th

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Happy Anniversary – Wedding Portraits of Celebration

Author and environmentalist Rick Bass has a great quote about the seasons of life:
“My life, I realize suddenly, is July. Childhood is June, and old age is August,
but here it is, July, and my life, this year, is July inside of July.”

Erica & Mark Makowski, 7 years July 2nd

For each of these couples, in their year, in July, they were in the beginning of their new lives. Childhood was June. But they were entering the July inside of July.

Anna & Jordan Isaacs, 6 years July 9th

Elizabeth & Chris Bankett, 8 years July 11th

Jessica & Jason Clinton, 1 year July 16th

Precious & Damon Murray, 9 years July 18th

Lila & Joseph Duke, 6 years July 23rd

From Jessica and Jason, who were married in 2016, to Precious and Damon who’ve been married for 9 years, we hope that for the best and longest Julys in their lives. August can wait. Keep celebrating. Keep enjoying each other. Keep planting and harvesting, knowing how loved you are. Happy Anniversary, all of you!

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Celebrating June Wedding Anniversaries | Pixels On Paper NC Wedding Photographers

Ever heard of a June wedding? Me, either, but apparently they are really popular.

Pixels very first wedding was a June wedding – that of Sandy & Mark Sherill on June 18th 2005. That’s where it all began.

pixels on paper boone wedding photographers leatherwood mountains weddings nc mountain wedding photographers photo

Sarah & Jeremy Caudle, 4 years June 1st

Winters & Greg Androney, 10 years June 2nd

Erin & Brad Farmer, 6 years June 4th

Kristy & Rob McConnell, 7 years June 5th

Shannon & Lance Townsend, 8 years June 6th

Jordan & Chris Ferguson, 7 years June 6th

Jordan & Matt DeFlon, 9 years June 7th

Kirsten & Nate Smith, 6 years June 11th

Kelsey & Andy Schuster, 7 years June 12th

Amber & Clark Schlinsog, 4 years June 15th

So now to Sandy and Mark – our very first wedding shoot. Sandy and I were middle school youth group leaders together as well as friends. She watched for a few years when Ryan and I would take candid photos whenever we were with the youth group. When it came time for her own wedding she asked us a few times if we’d photograph her wedding. We kept saying “no way.” She finally put her foot down after asking four or so times. “You two are going to shoot my wedding.” She was sweet and we caved and it was on. The only complication is that her wedding was at the end of a week that we were chaperones for our youth group’s annual mission trip to the Pittsburgh Project. We left PA early to head to the wedding in Norfolk, VA with a car full of middle school girls who were also attendants in their wedding. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! With equipment that was far from professional, packed in suitcases with our mission clothing, we made it and photographed our very first wedding together. 12 years later Sandy and Mark (just below) still love their photos and we’re still friends. Sandy even hired us to photograph her oldest daughter’s wedding years later.

Sandy & Mark Sherrill, 12 years June 18th

Katie & Tim Mahon, 1 year June 18th

Candace & Ken Bloch, 9 years June 20th

Robin & Nick Schroote, 8 years June 20th

Vicki & Brandon High, 3 years June 21

Vicki & Brandon High, 3 years on June 21

Looking through these June weddings makes me smile. Each one represents a day that changed the trajectory of that couple’s lives forever and there we were, pulling those indelible moments out of the air and making sure they made it on film. So many stories!

Erica & Andrew Walecka, 6 years June 25th

Adrian & Banks Church, 1 year June 25th

Hali & Jim Pyles, 7 years June 26th

Jone/Johnson Pixels On Paper Photography Wedding portrait photography photo

Sherae & David Johnson, 2 years June 26th

Neely & Eric Westbrook, 9 years June 28th

Bride and groom on hay bails for wedding photos at outdoor country mountain wedding at big red barn in west jefferson nc photo

Lauren & Patrick Allen, 3 years June 28th

Meghan & Jeremy Arnold, 5 years June 30th

By my count, that is 22 and we added new ones to the list this year. Happy Anniversary to each one of you. Thank you for letting us be a part of your lives and keep celebrating! We love you!

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