It’s wedding season, y’all. It’s wedding season, engagement portrait season, bridal portrait season …….. it’s summer! Here’s more proof: Sweet Kendra Green Bell married her beloved Nathan just last weekend on May 20th. We shot their fun engagement session at Piccione vineyard and these bridal portraits. She was as alive and glowing as the landscape and it was a pleasure to capture how radiant she was on this day.The setting for this session was a relative’s historic 100+ year old farm and property in North Wilkesboro NC in late March of this year. Kendra loves the southern charm and old world style both outside and inside the home. And this wine and Avett Brothers lovin’ girl had the elegance to just float beautifully in the shots we took inside the house and then the boldness to stand in a cow field and outside an old grain silo for a few of the outdoor shots.
Kendra seems to the manor born, doesn’t she? She is so pretty, comfortable in herself and in this place, it was a perfect setting to get portraits of her before she became a wife. We cannot wait to show you those wedding pics in the coming weeks.
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.
Our hearts go out to the parents of brides and grooms. I think about this every time that Ryan and I shoot a wedding. God Bless the parents. They are exhilarated and stressed, proud and nervous, but mostly in love with their kids – who are no longer kids. How do you go from diapers to driving and then big decisions? How do you go from watching them choose a sport in middle school to a spouse for life? And with grace? To the parents, this must feel like it happens in 72 hours rather than a couple of decades. We honor the parents and love watching them love a celebration of their kids.The tender moments included watching Ashley’s father place a pearl necklace around her and seeing them both in tears. The mind goes to the number of times they stood that close together as he watched her grow up and now, here she was: a bride.
While Ashley Caudill and Oscar Orozco married young (please read about their engagement to learn how they met), their wedding showed astonishing wisdom, love and faith. Prior to the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom were blindfolded and they joined hands while Oscar prayed for them. I (Misty) was the only other person in the room and it was incredibly touching. I wish that there was a recording of the words in Oscar’s prayer for them, because they were filled with humility, grace and wisdom far beyond his years. Both Ashley and Oscar agree that the best moment of the day was seeing each other for the first time. Neither of them could hold back crying tears of joy and reflect on those moments whenever they look back and talk about their wedding day. A lasso binding ceremony is part of the Orozco’s culture. A beautiful rhinestone cross lasso was placed around Ashley & Oscar by their parents symbolizing a binding unity as they prayed together and said their vows. We would love to see how the lasso will be used in future generations as an heirloom.
Another outward gesture of unity and symbol of their faith was a binding of three cords which Ashley & Oscar created and performed representing the scripture verse from Ecclesiastes 4:12 “Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Oscar’s family is from Mexico, and they speak Spanish primarily, but it was amazing to see how these two families, two cultures and two language barriers were brought together in love. They combined elements from both into the wedding ceremony and the reception.When asked, Ashley and Oscar said there isn’t one thing that they would change about their wedding day. The most memorable moments for them that they want to hold on to forever included performing the cross ceremony during the wedding, spending time with each other during pictures after the ceremony and of course Oscar said the vision of Ashley in her wedding dress.Ashley and Oscar both recall laughing when seeing Oscar’s car covered in toilet paper after their reception exit.
Ashley was the couple’s wedding planner and she also hand-made all of the flowers, bouquets and center pieces, but their other vendors included:
Wedding Attire: Bridal Traditions
Ceremony and Reception Venue: Thanks Be To Calvary Baptist Church, Elkin NC
Cellist for the Ceremony: Steve Holman
Caterer: Oscar’s Father
Desserts: Kathy’s Creations in Sparta
Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brid
“Love is the answer”… and there are at least 2 comic endings to that sentence, but you’ll have to look ’em up.
I love a good sonnet as much as the next person, but this month – as I highlight the anniversaries of the couples we’ve photographed – I’m returning to humor. I don’t think we can ever get enough, do you? Just sayin.
“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet service to see who they really are.” – Will Ferrell
“Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you’re in.” – Richard Jeni
“Being a good husband is like being a stand-up comic. You need 10 years before you can call yourself a beginner.” – Jerry Seinfeld
“My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on.” – Joan Rivers
“Obviously, if I was serious about having a relationship with someone long-term, the last people I would introduce him to would be my family.”- Chelsea Handler
“Love is a lot like a backache, it doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.” – George Burns
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.
October is one of the more beautiful months for weddings in our area. It’s a month of seasonal transition which means you take a chance with weather – as with April and May. We cannot recall an October wedding that wasn’t amazing. Sometimes, the weather drives us indoors, but when the temperature and setting are on your side, it can be golden, … pardon the pun.
Here’s a toast to all of our October Anniversaries. And to many more! We love you all!
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of all three.”
– Stanley Horowitz
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
– George Eliot
“It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.” – B. C. Forbes
“Autumn’s the mellow time.” – William Allingham
“October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!”
― Rainbow Rowell
“Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.” – Lauren DeStefano
“In autumn, don’t go to jewelers to seek old, go to parks.” – Mehmet Maret Ildan
“I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod.” – Helen Hunt Jackson
“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.” – John Burroughs
“Autumn came, with wind and gold.” – Unknown
“But these are days that we dream about when the sunlight paints us gold.” – Martha Schuster
“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” – Emily Bronte
“Autumn. The year’s last, loveliest smile.” – William Cullen Bryan
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.