Have you seen the new issue of Smitten Magazine yet?! It just launched this past Monday an it is so full of color and inspiration. I am incredibly honored to be the lead photographer and get to work with the creative director, Becky Hoppman, with whom I also share a studio space!
Here’s apiece we did together on “Trends to Try”. Now go download the magazine and check out the rest!
It’s here! The 1 year anniversary issue of Smitten has debuted.
I was thrilled to be asked to take the cover image for this issue. Ombre has been hot hot hot this year and our savvy creative director Becky Hoppmann wanted to honor that for the magazine’s one-year anniversary issue. Anne Bowen of Stems honed the palette and worked her sculptural skills to create this blanket of flowers on which to rest this plate form BHLDN and a tasty little number “1″, made by Ashley Bakery.
What do you think?!
I LOVE color, so it was exciting to see the most recent issue of Smitten, which is all about… you guessed it, COLOR! Becky Hoppmann, Smitten‘s cretive director and I got together to photograph the lovely baubles of color and debate which were our faves.
Lover.ly even shared one of the photos we took of the sparkly polish we used, that was exciting! Have you tried Lover.ly yet? So cool! It’s like Pinterest but just for wedding inspiration. It’s completely visual and you can even search by color.
One of my favorite projects for this latest issue of Smitten magazine was getting to photograph Stems‘ stems! We had done something before for the Stems website, but the creative minds at Smitten wanted to elaborate on that. They also wanted to know Anne’s “Fall Picks” on the best flowers to use as we transition into Fall.
There’s some great advice in there for those of you planning Autumn weddings and lots of gorgeous stems to choose from!
In honor of “Wedding Wednesday”, I thought I’d post a few spreads out of the latest issue of Smitten of Yates & Rebecca’s incredible mountain wedding! It took place at one of the most stunning and picturesque venues, Claxton Farm. Their ceremony looked out over the Appalachian mountains and there were views for miles.
My friend Jennifer Bearden and I teamed up and photographed their wedding together and we had such a great time. Rebecca is one of those gems that has a million friends and yet every one of them is very special to her. So it is no surprise that she had an excellent crew of friends follow her up from Charleston to help put her wedding weekend together! Hollie Wood Style helped styled the wedding and Stems, of course, did the amazing floral designs. Congratulations you two!
I thought it might be fun to give a little behind-the-scenes look from my perspective for “The Allure of Couture” feature in the latest issue of Smitten. I’m just going to come out and admit that this photo shoot was a rather defining moment in my career. I’m probably breaking all the rules of self-promotion 101 by admitting this, but I was scared sh*tless by this shoot.
I have photographed models before and countless brides, but when I walked into the Rice Mill that day and there were 10 models (up from 5, which was the original plan), I had one of those incredibly insecure moments where I thought… “What if I just walk out? I’m not sure I can do this.” The pressure, people, the pressure!
Not only were there 10 models there, one which came all the way from Raleigh with her mom, but there was a huge team of creative artists whom I really admire and did not want to disappoint. (See the bottom of the post for a list of the talented(x100) ladies who put together this shoot). I walked out to my car to catch my breath, called Bryan for a quick pep talk and then headed back in with the knowledge that if I could wrangle wedding parties of 30, I could handle this too. I was also very grateful in the knowledge that my friend and fellow photographer Jennifer Bearden would be there, ready to assist me.
While Pamela and Tanesha worked their magic on the models and created hair styles that I didn’t even know were possible, I scoped out the digs. A little intimidated by Lindsay of Maddison Row at first, I quickly realized her incredible skill of getting things done. Who else could wrangle up 10 designer dresses form the likes of Vera Wang, Carol Hannah and Anne Bowen for a shoot like this?! She is a girl who knows what she wants and had a shot list in mind.
I always like to start with the hardest shot, which not only gets it off my plate, but also gets the momentum rolling. Do you know Hollie Wood, of Hollie Wood Style? She is a character unto herself. Incredibly resourceful and with a finely tuned aesthetic, she helped to prop the shots not only with furniture, but with her personal vintage jewelry collection. And Della, the ever positive head honcho behind this shoot is a dream. She’s a catalyst. The fact that she trusted in each of us to do our jobs and let us be as creative as we wished is a pretty big allotment from a magazine editor.
In order to give this shoot my “all”, I started to remind myself of certain things. Namely, it was the fact that this was an incredible opportunity and a full-on fashion shoot is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I channeled my inner Annie Leibovitz and went for it. You know what I learned? Models are really awesome to photograph. They require very little direction and just intuitively move their bodies in interesting ways. Fascinating! I learned a lot from them that day.
This is starting to run on, so I will wrap things up with a nice little conclusion for you and that is this: You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations in order to grow. Sometimes the thought is hard to bear, but it will make you hardier and more dimensional, and you sure will feel good about yourself when it’s done!
The Team:
Della MacNicholas, Editor of Smitten & Head Honcho
Lindsay Nowak of Maddison Row, Expert on bridal fashion, forward thinking and go-getter
Allison Cobb Long of Bella Bridesmaid, dream stylist
Hollie Wood of Hollie Wood Style, This girls’ got it going on! Vintage jewelry- check!, Furniture and Props- check!, A killer aesthetic- double check!
Palmela Lesch, An exceptional makeup artist with a heart of gold
Tanesha Dupree, Hair artist who creates coiffures worthy of an art show in itself
The Models, Unfortunately, I do not have their list of names. But WOW! I was very spoiled and thoroughly enjoyed working with these talented ladies!
The Rice Mill, historic building on the Ashley with a killer view that you can dress up or down!