Key West: Amy & Alex Get Married!

After my previous post, we now come to Amy & Alex's wedding day! We started the day walking from Amy's mom's house to the salon where the bride, bridesmaids, and mother of the bride had our hair done; Amy and her mom also had their makeup done. They did a fabulous job!

Yes, that's a parrot - it was hanging outside of its cage outside of the hair salon. Too pretty to not take a photo of!

Then, back to Amy's mom's house to get dressed and do makeup before helping Amy to get ready. But first, champagne toast!

After helping Amy to get dressed and ready (if you want to see some of the other photos I took of the beautiful bride as we got ready, click on the highlighted link), we ladies piled into two cars and headed over to the wedding site. Amy and Alex did their first look photos a few hours before the wedding; while they were having their special moments together (with the photographer), we took this one of the wedding party. Aren't we a lovely bunch?!

As I wrote on my photography blog, I then drove Amy and Alex around Key West with their photographer to take photos at 4 different locations. It was a lot of fun to get to spend that time with them, and such a unique thing to do! I then drove them back to the wedding site, and chilled in the car with them for a bit - they were awesome and let me take this photo. I love it, and it's become the most viewed picture on my facebook page!

Then we headed over to the most gorgeous wedding site ever (really, look at the photography blog. Who wouldn't want to get married there?!). The ceremony was lovely, and we could not have asked for more perfect weather. I snagged this photo of the newly married couple with my phone.

And then my new friend Evonne (one of Amy's friends from New Paltz, and a fellow bridesmaid) grabbed a few sunset-lit photos of each other.

Our friends were nice enough to bring the bridesmaids a drink and some appetizers while we waited to take a couple more photos, and then it was a short walk over to the reception site. Everything was set up at the fort (the wedding was at Fort Jackson park), with the deck of the building holding the dance floor, bar, bacon buffet, DJ, and a photo booth (which was so much fun!). Our tables were down on the sand, and each table name was the name of two of their pets (they have a lot of them). Too cute!

I loved the lanterns hanging above everything!

After dinner there was a fire pit with make-your-own smores, lots of dancing, drinking, and photo booth fun. We had a blast, and Amy really did an amazing job planning almost all of it herself. I'm so glad I was able to go, and happy to take part in their special day! Plus, I now have a new vacation location to go back to - two days wasn't enough! It was beautiful there.

Key West: Arrival

Just before the end of 2013, I flew to Key West to be in the wedding of my very dear friend Amy. I was honored to be asked to be a bridesmaid! The wedding was a blast, and I managed to take more photos than I realized, the majority of which were on my phone. So, I thought I'd let the photos tell the story. Since I have so many, I'm breaking the trip up into two posts. First up: arrival and rehearsal night fun!

I had to get ready for the rehearsal dinner in the Atlanta airport during my layover. Here's the resulting hair and makeup, which promptly fell apart upon arrival due to humidity. But at least there's a record, even if no one got to see it in person!

My first drink upon meeting up with friends in Key West.

There are chickens everywhere - they're protected, and adorable. Especially the babies.

We all met up in Mallory Square for the Sunset Festival.

There were friends who were happy to be together

...and expressing our sadness at Evan not being there.

There were performers (who seemed to favor fire in their acts)

 

and even a bit of sunset through the clouds.

At the rehearsal dinner (at Amy's mom's house), there was delicious Cuban food, and even more delicious drinks. Lots and lots of drinks.

Which resulted in the bride and groom in the pool.

Ok, not really. There's a long story behind why they ended up in the pool (it involved a toilet getting clogged, and the groom getting ickyness all over him), but it's funny to imply that it was due to alcohol. Either way, they're adorable :) 

Vermont Wedding: Just Dance!

Finally, the last wedding post (on this blog, anyway)! I've gotten through all of the photos that I wanted to post here, so what does that leave? Oh, right - the videos I took at the reception! I had my Canon Powershot with me, and it takes fairly high quality videos at a much smaller size than my DSLR, so I like using it to record videos. Natalie was burning up the dance floor - it's all she wanted to do from the moment we got into the barn. How could I not take many, many videos of something so adorable?! I won't subject you to all 25 videos that we captured (I took most of them, and Evan took a few so that there was some evidence I actually attended the wedding), but I do have to put my few faves here.

Here she is being the center of attention, surrounded by some of Evan's extended family.

Enjoying some solo dancing time to "Ho Hey"

One of the bridesmaids took a huge liking to Natalie, and was so awesome about dancing with her all night. They even made up this super adorable dance

...which she was nice enough to do with Natalie many, many times! Turns out that I also recorded them doing the same dance many, many times - I won't subject you to it more than the once here :)

Then some dancing with Aunt Claire

Side note: how cool are those glowing rings? Amanda got them for all of the guests to wear, and they were a big hit! We all had them on.

Finally, I think it's not a modern wedding without a group-sing of "Call me maybe". So much fun!!

Vermont Wedding: Reception

The ceremony was lovely, the cocktail hour was fun...now, it was time to eat and party! The inside of the barn was absolutely lovely.

 Gorgeous, right? Why didn't I have colored hanging lanterns in my tent?

After a few minutes, it was time for the wedding party to arrive, followed by the first dance.

 

A little Daddy-daughter bonding time on the dance floor.

 Natalie was truly the belle of the ball at this wedding. She was a fantastic flower girl, and loved telling the family all about everything that was going on. I happened upon her "holding court" to some of the extended family, and could not resist snapping a photo. It was absolutely adorable, how she had these grownups listening to her.

 After a delicious dinner, it was time for cake! Out of love for Amanda & Scott, I decided to post this photo, and not the next one with their mouths wide open feeding cake to one another :)

 After delicious cake and cupcakes, it was time for more dancing! At that point, Evan and Claire took Henry and Theo back to the hotel to stay with a babysitter for the remainder of the reception. It was almost his bedtime, and the kid was done - no nap that day, and he'd been asked to do a lot that day. Natalie, however, continued to rule on the dance floor (I've got tons of videos to post next of her showing off her moves). She was so excited when Amanda came over and danced with her!

 I completely forgot that Evan grabbed this photo of me with my sister in law Claire (left) and Evan's cousin Kristen (middle). This was actually the first photo I had seen of myself from the wedding!

 Towards the end of the evening, Uncle Scott decided he needed some time dancing with his niece, so I had to capture that. It was now about 10pm, and after dancing all night and having such an amazing day, she was pretty much done for the night, in her daddy's arms.

 

What an amazing wedding, for all of us! I must say that for me, part of the fun really was seeing the wedding through Natalie's eyes. She loved being a flower girl, and I was so proud of the way she behaved all day - so very grown up.

Vermont Wedding: Cocktail Hour

 In between the wedding ceremony and the reception, there was a cocktail hour at the barn where the reception was located. It was overcast and a bit chilly (but not too badly), but an absolutely beautiful location, and the kids had a blast running around, snacking, and (in Natalie's case) holding court with the adults. The time and location gave me ample opportunity for some really great shots of both the kids, and the family in general!

 

The brothers! (with the beautiful barn behind them)

 At the end of family photos, we wanted to get some of the 3 cousins together. Henry started off extremely uncooperative.

(we were making jokes about this photo appearing in his wedding slideshow, when the time comes)
However, with everyone making goofy jokes and faces, he soon warmed up and allowed his sister and cousin to sit near him, resulting in some pretty great photos.

 Natalie was given one of the bridesmaid's bouquets, and was very excited to have even more flowers to hold.

 Henry spent time on and off through cocktail hour using my point and shoot to take some photos of his own. How cute is this little guy?!

 

Vermont Wedding: Wedding Prep and Ceremony

I can already tell this will be a multiple-post story. I have so many photos to share from my brother-in-law's wedding! I previously posted photos from the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner; now it's time for the wedding itself! In addition to posts here, there will also be photos from the wedding day posted on my photography blog; I'll try to link to those as I can. I think here I'll have 4 parts to post: the first here is wedding prep and ceremony, then photos from cocktail hour, then photos from the reception, and finally some fantastic videos of the dancing during the reception.

As I think I mentioned before, my now sister-in-law Amanda requested that I take some photos of her and Scott getting ready before the wedding. I didn't want to be in the way, so I spent a lot of time taking photos of her wedding dress along with the bridesmaids dresses, her shoes, etc - I love those types of wedding shots! It was a lot of fun. However, I also wanted to capture some photos of her and her bridesmaids getting ready. Since Natalie was in the wedding, she also got to have her hair and makeup done, which she absolutely loved.

I spent the morning sending messages back and forth between the bridal and groom suites, as well as trying to photograph at each location. The bridesmaids took an immediate liking to Natalie, luckily, and were so good about watching her while I was going back and forth (Evan was with the groomsmen, and Henry was being watched by my other sister-in-law Claire, which was so wonderful of her!). When I returned, I found Natalie happily playing on someone's phone.

So, it was back to the men! They of course were ready a bit faster than the ladies, and were very accommodating of me to take a few photos. (The panda hat was a joke from their dad. Don't ask.)

 One of the little touches that Scott added was brightly colored socks for all of the men. Love it!

 Then, back to the bridal suite! At this point, nearly all hair and makeup was done, and I was able to grab a last couple of shots of the bride finishing her prep.

At that point, I took Natalie back to our room to meet Claire, get the kids dressed, and finish my own prep. After doing my and Claire's hair and makeup, we were off to the wedding!

Natalie made a beautiful flower girl, and was more than happy to pose for me during the ceremony, after her walk down the aisle. She was sitting in the pew in front of me, next to her grandparents.

 I didn't have the best vantage point for photos, as I was behind two rows of people, but I did like the framing effects I was able to get of the bride and groom from between two of the bridesmaids!

 And the happy couple, at the end of the ceremony.

Coming up: cocktail hour!