Posts Tagged: Pixels On Paper
a classic southern summer church wedding ~ read: HOT & lovely
If you were hoping to get a piece of cake with Clemson paws on it, see a completely glamorous bride, and a husband who cannot stop smiling, you missed it. You missed the cake. The rest is below. Jason, Jessica and their nearest and dearest gathered last month to celebrate them at their wedding at St. John’s UMC in Rock Hill, SC. It was fun, tender and hot as blazes, but we took the images that made them the happiest. The couple shared this: “We are blown away at the moments you captured. We are weepy just thinking about it. You created memories for us that we will always have and that we will return to for the rest of our lives.” Mission accomplished.
If you want to see what can be done with high heels AND mountain views, I hope you’ll check out Jessica and Jason’s engagement portraits. I can’t tease it any more than that.
Jessica told us that her favorite photo is of her with Jason as they walked back up the aisle as husband and wife. We agree. You can tell how crazy in love they are. We also loved the simplicity and classic nature of their wedding – the colors, the church, the flowers, everything was gorgeously understated, elegant and lovely.
St. John’s provided us with so many opportunities to shoot, but we love photos of these two outside especially. To wit: a lamppost was scaled in the making of these memories…. we suffer for our art.
The reception was held at Gettys Art Center in Rock Hill, because the bride and groom vibed on the old interiors of the place. True enough, it’s an amazing spot for a reception. One – air conditioning in July! Big plus. Two – beautiful stained wood paneling.
Jessica: “We cried when we danced with our parents. I didn’t expect my dad to dance with me. I was 100% surprised. It was quite possibly the best moment I have ever had with him. And I loved seeing the photos of Jason dancing with his mom.”
In the spirit of sharing the love for other wedding vendors, we ask our clients who they hired. Here are those chosen by Jessica and Jason: Wedding gown: Castle, Spartanburg, SC
Wedding coordinator /planner: Crystal Beck. Jessica told us that she was “a game changer.” The bride didn’t worry about anything.
Flowers: Jasn’e Creative Design.
DJ or band: Split Second Sound out of Charlotte NC. “Eric was the BEST! I would hire him again tomorrow if I had a reason.”
Catering: Essie’s Catering. Yummy food.
Cake and desserts: Carrie Shafer. “She is a friend- doesn’t do it professionally but they were DELICIOUS.”
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.
katie & tim’s twickenham house wedding
“We were so happy to see cousins we hadn’t seen in a long time, friends from Hawaii, Seattle, Colorado, all hanging out, chattering and later playing music for the ceremony. We loved our DJ, photographers and how much love we felt surrounded with. If we were to give a couple advice about their wedding, we’d tell them to get married in the mountains and make the wedding a full weekend, an inclusive event.” 
We photographed their engagement portraits at The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC so clearly these two adore the mountains. Even their sweetheart of a dog is named Saluda (google it). The wedding was small, intimate and personal. It focused on marriage, family and friends, the most important aspects. The day was an intersection of both elegance and personal touches: Katie’s Mom made the cakes, using recipes passed down through generations. A close friend of Katie’s “did” everyone’s hair and makeup. The same friend undercut her own hair with the couple’s initials surrounded by a heart.
Tim & Katie wrote the table assignments on their snowboards and a canvas candid photo of the pair with an I Love You message was used as the guest book. Finally, an artist friend drew and designed their can cozies to include Saluda’s profile. Those were only a few of the thoughtful details, gang. Katie plied her trade, big time.
The sunset could not have been better if we’d ordered back drops from Cecille B. DeMille. Watching friends gather after we’d photographed the couple, was one of the sweeter and more beautiful moments of a day filled with beauty and love.
We’d be nuts not to mention the other vendors who contributed to this amazingly cool wedding.
Katie’s gown: Jean’s Bridal – Charleston, SC
Wedding and reception venue reception: Twickenham House and Hall
Flowers: Flowers by Desi
Music/DJ: Dan with On Target
Caterers: Gadabouts
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.
Welcome to the adult life ~~ sloooooowly ~~~ pre-Quinceanera Portraits
The globe gets flatter and smaller (just ask Thomas Friedman) and that is a pretty exciting thing. Now, more than ever, we know more about our neighbors. Not just the “my grocery cart hit yours and OH, HEY! our kids go to the same school.” We know about our neighbors in other countries, our neighbors from different cultural backgrounds. The transition from childhood to adulthood is a biggee, no matter where you live or whether you call it a bar or bat mitzvah, a debutante or coming out party or a Quinceañera.
Vanessa Chaquea will celebrate her 15th birthday in September, and 15 is THE AGE when a young Latina celebrates the beginning of her entry into adulthood. We captured some of Vanessa’s portraits at and near our Wilkesboro studio for her to use on invitations and at her celebration in the fall. These sessions were all about showing her youth and beauty, her spirit and sweet personality.
Vanessa is the most adorable 14 year old we’ve ever met. She is bubbly, beautiful and bi-lingual. She is an athlete and a self-taught musician. She is a big fan of America’s Next Top Model and she rocked our photo shoot as if she was a pro model herself. We’re already dreaming up ways we can have Vanessa model for us in styled photo shoots. We’re looking forward to September and photographing all the traditional customs of a Quinceanera – a new thing for us.
It was refreshing to be around this season of youth …. the beginning of the next thing. We just recently blogged about 2 week old baby Sawyer who is at the very beginning of life. We photograph engagements and weddings, with couples at the beginning of marriage. Vanessa is in the full, cool, wild, tender, scary, heartening, thrilling, anxiety-producing BEGINNING of adulthood. Remember that time? Well, hers arrives in just a few months and we cannot wait to be there for this great young woman.
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.
Wedding Redux #6 ~ LeClaire & Raynor
Everyone ready for another wedding look-back? A little check-in with a couple who said their I Dos and are still together? Awesome, because here’s Wedding Redux numero 6 from Jessica LeClaire and Chris Raynor, married almost exactly 2 years ago. It’s free-ranging and VERY helpful if you’re planning or helping plan the wedding of someone close to you. Happy Reading!
Having someone help take charge of the wedding festivities who is not a family member is something I would recommend for anyone who has a family (like mine) who feels they need to be in control of everything & provide their opinion for every aspect of the wedding. I love my family, but hiring someone outside of the family help take care of things and make sure there wasn’t anything missing or going wrong made it less stressful for us!
Location… If you have guests coming in from out of town, our advice would be to have a location near a hotel for your guests to stay in or try to keep the traveling to a minimum. We loved having our reception at a hotel because it made it easy for our guests to be able to completely enjoy themselves without having to drive home. This also gave us the ability to spend time with our out-of-town guests after the wedding that evening and the next morning.
Getting married in a church was important to us, but we would have preferred not to have had communion during our ceremony. It was a requirement of our church and out of respect, we dealt with it, but if we could have avoided it to make our ceremony a bit shorter we would have. We loved the rest of our ceremony; it was traditional which is what we wanted.
It’s hard to decide who’s going to be in your bridal party vs. just being a guest at your wedding. As you start thinking about who you want in your bridal party, there are always more and more names that come to mind. We took the time to really narrow it down to who was closest to us, plus we made sure all our good friends were invited, so they were included in the celebration. We had 6 bridesmaids and 6 groomsmen.
With attire, we wanted everyone to be comfortable since we had a May wedding. We wanted lighter colors and Jess wanted the girls in short dresses because long ones would be too hot. Of course everyone’s wedding day is about the bride & groom, but if you have people in your bridal party helping share your day and you’ve asked them to spend money on clothes or shoes or taking trips with you, you should make sure they feel comfortable at all times on the day of your wedding. Our advice would be to include others’ opinions because it will make them feel even more included in your day.
Number of Guests? We had 150 people at our wedding and we were given a total of 175 by Jess’s parents & after responses it came down to 150. We send out 2 rounds of invitations to make sure we invited all family, our parents’ “requirements,” family friends and then our friends. We were able to have almost all of our loved ones (for those who could make it) and we were able to say hello to every single person that came to our wedding. This was the best part for us.
We had a spring wedding because we wanted good weather & pretty flowers and sunshine for our pictures which is exactly what we got. Additionally, we had a 2-hour window after the ceremony that gave us enough time to take great pictures and not feel rushed into our reception. Then a cocktail hour from 5-6pm, and a 4-hour reception which was a perfect amount of time for dancing and spending time with our guests. We wanted an afternoon evening wedding so we could party into the night.
We loved the food at our reception. We had a tasting months before the wedding which was extremely helpful and included Jess’s parents & sister & Chris’s dad. We wanted to have several people’s opinions to make sure we chose options that we felt all our guests would enjoy. The tasting definitely allowed us to decide exactly what we wanted.
We didn’t want to spend tons of money on flowers, as beautiful as they are; we felt putting more finances into other areas like our photography and having a photo booth was more important since we really wanted to create everlasting memories.
Having a DJ was no question. We love bands, but we didn’t feel it was the best decision for our wedding. We feel we got a better sound & dance feel from having a DJ.
We were very lucky and blessed that several of our vendors were friends of ours. Included were Ryan & Misty as our amazing wedding photographers who captured every beautiful moment from our perfect day; our DJ was a good friend of ours and our photo booth was done by one of the bridesmaids brothers (who we’ve known since college) and our wedding planner was a good friend of Chris’. Not only did we have great vendors but we had extra love coming from them because they were friends of ours.
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.
engagement portraits in Charleston, SC
Bonnie Hostetler and Amanda Walling met at their local neighborhood hangout one “beautiful fall day” and before long were in love.
Ain’t it the way?
One minute you’re hanging out with friends and the next you’re planning to spend the rest of your life – build a life, in fact – with someone who’s upended the cart you were peddling and made you crazy happy. They told us that they knew they were going to be an us “over Dim Sum brunch and mimosas.”
Bonnie & Amanda are one of those couples we want to hang out with on a regular basis. In fact Ryan and I have tried and we’re still trying. They love rambling around in the mountains and great outdoors in the camper they’ve nick-named the “Wallabago.” They’re adventuresome, athletic and they’re foodies. We met them to discuss their wedding and knew immediately that we’d all be friends and that we definitely wanted to shoot their wedding this fall.
The pair told us that not only are they excited about seeing all of their friends and family in one place for the weekend but jazzed about the celebration itself. While they aren’t writing their own vows, they’ve found a saying that fits their relationship perfectly and close friends are transporting an arbor that they built and used for their own wedding and are loaning to Amanda and Bonnie for their day. The details are coming together.
Theirs is a relationship completely grounded in trust and we find it more than a little sweet that the song they said would describe them is “You’re the reason I come home” by Ron Pope. Their favorite place to be together is their “Wallabago” – a home on wheels.
During a recent trip to Charleston to celebrate Misty’s birthday, we caught up with Amanda & Bonnie and photographed these engagement portraits on their own turf. The only requirement they had was for us to capture a picture of them with Amanda’s “mountain,” the Cooper River Bridge, in the background. The entire session was filled with fun and laughter which continued long after the sun set and our cameras were put away. We spent several more hours all together on a roof top bar eating Ritz crackers (another story for another time). 
In October, they will be married at On the Windfall in Lansing, NC among friends and family. On the Windfall has cabins where everyone can hang out and enjoy the scenery and the occasion for the weekend and then return for anniversaries and parties for many years to come.
From the shores of SC to the mountains of NC……… bring it, ladies. We can’t wait.
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.