Posts Tagged: nc bridal portraits rustic
Spring Bridal Portraits will warm you UP
So much goes into choosing your wedding gown and once you have, once you’ve heard The Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet and said Yes to the Dress and gone through the process of making it yours, etc. it’s’ time to schedule your portraits. Granted, you’ll have fittings and want to try it on and twirl around and work out your hair and flowers, but once you feel like you know the path, we want to be there to capture photos that will become heirlooms. And isn’t thinking about this and planning for it more fun navigating the multiple layers of clothing we all find ourselves in this January?
We live in a gorgeous part of the country and so many of our brides want their photos taken outside and it always makes sense. From the Biltmore House and areas around Asheville to Blowing Rock, Boone, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Moses Cone Manor, Charlotte, Charleston, personal homes and important locations that matter to you – there are many more options that the standard and staid portraits of old. 
We’re already scheduling bridal portraits for the spring and summer, so contact us and let us help you scheme now so that you can have gorgeous heirloom portraits later.
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 weddings, brides, 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.
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A Bride by any other name | pixels on paper bridal portraits
… is still as sweet and will always be the focus of her wedding day, at least for part of it. People will remember the dancing, the toasts, the goof-ups and sweet moments, but her entry happens one time and all eyes are on her. Maybe this is why bridal portraits are so important. You get more than one look at her in her dress and in a meaningful setting that will last forever in prints and on film. We photograph weddings pretty much all year, but wedding season is really summer. As this summer rolls along, I looked back at some bridal photos that we’ve taken over the last decade. I realized how it’s true that every bride – like every baby – is beautiful. The gown, the setting, the glow are all offshoots of the glorious woman about to start a new chapter. Brides – we celebrate you!
Gowns and settings are as signature as the brides we photograph. They are classical, modern, some want to be princesses, some want to look like photographs of their grandmother, one incorporated book pages into her bouquet, others repurposed brooches or lace or another memento, some seem like complete originals and others timeless. Capturing that is the fun part.
Consider a bridal portrait along with your wedding photography package as a way to experience a “trial run” before your wedding day. It’s a perfect way to try a new hair style and see how your makeup will look. It’s also a fun girl’s day with Mom, your best friend or maid of honor. The setting and season can be totally different from that of the wedding and the environment and timeline is typically much more relaxed giving us extra time to capture those magazine style covers you’ve dreamed of. Sometimes the session is for Mom to have the large portrait of you that she wants to display on the wedding day and then for years to come in her home to share with loved ones and friends. We are happy to help you plan and create the vision of beauty that defines you as a bride.
Wedding & Bridal Shows coming up | See you there!
We’ve met more wonderful clients at bridal shows and expos than we can count. We’ve set up our area and then spent the day chatting with brides-to-be, their moms and friends and future mothers-in-law and booking weddings, bridal portraits and Quinceañeras. But honestly, we’ve booked all sorts of other events and portrait sessions, so if you’re planning an event in 2017, either of these shows would be worth your time as you build on ideas and search for excellent vendors.
Some serious lifelong friendships were born in little wedding expo booths, so we’re proud to announce two that are coming up in a few weeks. The Ashe Bridal and Special Event Fair is Sunday March 5th from 12-4 at Ashe County High School – less than a month away.
The Wilkes Wedding Expo is another special event we’ve loved to participate in and we’ll be there again this year. Join us on March 12 from 1-4 at The John A Walker Center in Wilkesboro. Click here for tickets to the Wilkes Wedding Expo.
Our pals from Bridal Traditions wedding & prom attire, 2015
Fun at the photo booth, Wilkes Wedding Expo
Later in April, you can visit us at The High South Wedding Expo held on Sunday April 23rd, 2017 at the Boone Mall in partnership with Savor Blowing Rock from 1:00pm – 4:00pm.
Even if you’re just beginning to plan, it’s never too early to start making connections with all the different types of vendors you’ll need for your wedding day and all of us are eager to hear your story and work with you to make sure that everything happens just the way you want it. We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these expos, but we’d also love to chat with you more personally, so feel free to contact us any time.
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 weddings, brides, 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.
southern belle bridal portraits ~ beauty among the botanicals
If you’re ever standing at a dinner party in, say, …….Prague… and someone asks you to describe a Southern Belle, Adrian Bridges Church should be your brain’s go-to reference point. We’re not talking the overdone, over-the-top caricature or the Ersatz Southern Lady one meets from time to time in the New South. Adrian is authentic – almost to the point of seeming as if she really is a belle from that era in the American South…….. minus of course, the strife and angst that comes from civil war and the fact that you can’t vote and whatnot.
Adrian’s belle comes out almost immediately in her sense of graciousness, sweetness and hospitality. She could have shown up for her bridal portraits in a hoop skirt and bonnet and we wouldn’t have blinked. Let’s just say she’d have given Melanie Wilkes a run for her money. When we were discussing her wedding photography (we’ll share soon!!), she mentioned that since her wedding was going to be more on the country/rustic side that she really wanted her bridal portraits to be more formal, elegant and in a blooming spring garden, filled with the lushness that comes with the season. There’s just one problem – the weather in the mountains of NC in the spring can be dodgy and sometimes it feels like late October. The solution? Head east toward warmth. And that’s what we did.
The botanical gardens near Winston-Salem were in bloom and they were absolutely gorgeous, making a perfect setting for this bride. When we can bend to make our clients happy, we do it and this was the case with Adrian. When she emerged from the car for her session in early April (after hours of travel for hair and makeup and then more time to get to the gardens), she actually squealed. The combination of her gown and glow, the green of the gardens, purple wisteria, moss and sunshine made our job that day a breeze.
Adrian told us that we’d made her dream of garden portraits come true by locating this spot. LOVE IT when that happens. This belle deserved a setting as genteel and elegant as she is, so we were thrilled to deliver.
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 babies and kids, engagements and weddings, brides 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.
bridal portraits – a fairy in the woods
The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~Joyce Kilmer
Painter Maxfield Parrish loved showcasing light, lush settings and often women of pure beauty in his work. Rebekah would have been one of his studies or models for sure. We love light in the mountains too and we took these photos of her in the gardens and forest in Blowing Rock, NC. It was a place where she roamed as a kid, running around and playing make believe.
We met Rebekah at the High Country wedding expo in Boone in February of this year and our conversation was not so much about wedding details as about travel, growing up in the high country of North Carolina, our shared love of the arts, Scottish roots (check out her tartan below), and dreams of woodland fairies.
In 2011, we photographed bride Erica in a forest in Banner Elk. Photos from this session have remained one of my all time favorites. I loved how magical the forest looked and the juxtaposition of Erica’s couture gown in the midst. One of the images is in our studio and on display at tradeshows. In passing I mentioned to Rebekah that I believed fairies lived there. Instantly we connected and shared our enthusiasm and she mentioned wanting a similar portrait for herself.
While Parrish was not our inspiration, our bridal session with Rebekah had that feel… lush, bright and magical. When we planned Rebekah’s bridal portraits, our goal was to find a magical location that reminded her of where fairies might live.
Do you have a theme or idea in mind for your bridal portraits? Please share it with us. We would love to recreate or create a look for your session.