Emily and Kyle
June 23, 2004
Wedding: Christ the King Lutheran, Menomonee Falls
Reception: Silver Spring Country Club, Menomonee Falls/Sussex-ish

Emily and Kyle's wedding took place on a Friday complete with awesome weather and close friends and family at hand. I like the dynamics at smaller weddings because you really get to know the people at them and how they know the bride and groom. And with 100 guests, it's not like the wedding was small, but with the average Wisconsin wedding being 250+ guests 100 guest makes it feel more like an exended family reunion. Which suited Emily and Kyle's personalities perfectly!

At most weddings guests know I am the hired photographer. I have cameras hanging off every conceivable spot, I am dressed very simply in black and have a large waistpack on. People generally ask me how the couple hired me, if I have a website, things like that. Polite dinner chit chat. But time and time again I was asked at this wedding "So, how do you know Emily and Kyle?" When I would explain that had met them a few times and they hired me to photograph their wedding people seemed confused. So each and every person took this as a opportunity to tell me how special this couple was and how fabulous they were and what they meant to them. And as I spent more time with the guests I could not help but think that Emily and Kyle are mighty lucky to have so many people who care so much about them that they wanted me to know that this was one special couple.

But even if they had not told me, I would have known. I saw it all day from the people who surrounded them with love. A big shout out to my pal Uncle Bruce, who did the video and who kept me laughing all day. You know who to call when that pretty daughter of yours who caught the bouquet gets married :)

Click on the link below for a slideshow of Emily and Kyle's wedding!

Click here to see a wedding slideshow of Emily and Kyle's day!

Weddings Southern Style, Joy and Dan

June 17, 2006

Wedding : First Baptist Church, Marietta Georgia

Reception: The Atlanta Country Club, Atlanta Georgia.

So, say you are a wedding photographer. And you by chance have ONE Saturday off in 5 months. What would you do? Well, if you are me, you fly to Atlanta to shoot a wedding. Am I nuts? Actually, it was a great experience. I was a second shooter for my friend Emmanuel Neiconi from Neiconi Studios in Birmingham, Alabama. He was in a bind and needed a second shooter and posted on a professional internet forum I am on for wedding photographers. So I grabbed the kids and hopped a plane to the deep south. My mom and sister live in Atlanta, so we turned it into a mini-vacation!

Second shooting is a blast. All of the fun, none of the pressure. It’s the best way to learn and grow as a photographer. Every time I have done it, I have learned something new from the people I shoot with. And shooting weddings out of Wisconsin is always interesting because they have very different customs than we do. In the south, weddings are generally either early in the day followed by a luncheon, or later in the day followed by a more informal dinner. The wedding I photographed started at 7pm! I kept saying, “But when is dinner?!” Almost all of the formal photographs were done before the ceremony The bride and her family and bridesmaids first, then she was squirreled away and the groom and his family and groomsmen. Endless, endless amounts of formals…ugh. I was glad it wasn’t me doing them! It’s a bit more traditional in that area in that way. Then the ceremony, which was about, oh…6 minutes long! More formals, then off to the reception where they had food stations set up for the guest. The guests go to the reception and start eating, and when the bride and groom get there, they are “announced” in and go directly to their first dance. After that, the cut the cake, and then the grooms cake, another southern tradition. I made a perfect fool of myself when I remarked to the groom that he got the colors wrong on his groom’s cake. You see, it was in the shape of a dog bone and had a big “G” on it that looked just like the Packer logo. But it was black and red. Apparently that is also the logo for the Georgia Bulldogs, his alma matter. Whoopsie. I needed to remove my cheesehead blinders. And to make me pay, he made me “Woof” during the song “Who let the dogs out” at the reception.

The reception lasts about 3 hours and at 11PM the bride and groom make their “Grand Exit”. Huh? No partying until midnight? No chicken dance? No polkas? Nope. They leave in a rush of flower petals and streamers, sometimes sparklers thrown by all the guests and get into a limo and they are off.

A few other things I learned while in Atlanta. Just because a word has a “g” in it does not mean you need to pronounce it. I learned that I was not “Going to shoot a wedding” I was “Fixin’ to shoot a weddin’” My name has two syllables! “Key-um”. And when one nice guest asked me where “my people” were from I had no idea how to answer. For future reference, my people are from Wisconsin. All the little kids called me “Miss Key-um” and answered all my questions with “yes m’am” something I found charming and tried to make mandatory for my own kids. It didn’t stick.

Enjoy lookin’ at the pitchers, and slideshow y’all!

Click here to see a wedding slideshow of Joy and Dan's wedding!

The Georgia Aquarium

While in Atlanta I took the kids to the new Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta. What a cool place. I'm not one that is usually impressed by fish, but this aquarium is really beautiful. You can walk under a wall of water while stingrays, tiger sharks and all sorts of beautiful fish swim overhead. They have Baby Beluga Whales that look like they are doing a ballet in the water. And it was awfully nice to see my kids transfixed by something not created by Nintendo or Pixar.

Meaghun and Jon
June 10, 2006

Wedding: St Patricks, Madison Wi
Reception: Overture Center, Madison Wi

I don't know why, but I get the cutest brides. EVER. Take a look at Meaghun, even if you don't know her, you can practically hear her giggling in the photos. And she giggled. A lot. The weather was awesome, the bridal party fun, and who doesn't like walking around the capitol taking pictures with giant plastic cows everywhere?

And the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison is a wedding photographers DREAM. The light! The architecture! I sent an image of this venue to another photographer friend who lives out of state and she emailed me back and said "I would have peed my pants when I walked into that place. You suck. I was at the Elk's Club this Saturday".

In the slide show be sure to check out the creative cake decorations placed on each table. I was confused for a moment until I remembered that Meaghun and Jon work for General Motors. Brilliant!

Congratulations!!

Click here to see a slideshow of Meaghun and Jon's wedding!

Amy and Amin, June 3 2006

Ceremony: St Hedwig's Parish, Milwaukee WI
Reception: The Town Club, Fox Point, WI.

Two brides. Getting married. Within two weeks of each other. At the same church. Both live in Illinois but are from the Milwaukee area. Both have THE SAME LAST NAME, and not a common last name! But are not related. Both hire me.

Are you confused? I was!! And both Amy and Melissa were so sweet to me when they called or emailed making sure I knew which one they were. It was really comical. I mean, I can hardly keep my kid's name's straight!

And so my challenge for this wedding as a photographer was this: Going into a church I was just in. How do I make images that are different from the ones I produced just two weeks ago? I mean, it's the same church...the same basic Catholic ceremony....until I got there. And as soon as I started photographing Amy and her bridesmaids getting ready it was not a concern. I think that is what is so cool about weddings, they are all so different. I would not matter if I photographed in the same church 6 times per year, the feeling, the vibe, the people.... You just can't replicate that.

Even if you do have the same last name :)

And, FYI, Amy and Amin met in kindergarten. Check out their unbelievably cute school pictures in their slideshow.

Congratulations!

Click here to see Amy and Amin's wedding slideshow

Thirteen.

How can this be? How can I be the parent of a TEENAGER? Tomorrow my oldest, Caleb, turns 13. He's taller than me. He's growing his hair out and is starting to preen in the mirror and does this gawky self concious hair flipping thing. He kinda sorta hugs me goodnight , but it's in a sort of restrained, I don't know how to tell you I am not sure if I want to hug you anymore way. He has his life planned out. He is going to go to school at Marquette High, and during high school he will work at Ted's Restaurant on 64th and North. Maybe even at Blockbuster. When he graduates from high school, he's going to Marquette University. He'll either major in being a cartoonist or a veterinarian . I haven't the heart to tell him that they don't have those programs at Marquette. When he graduates, he is moving to California. And he doesn't know this, but he's taking me with him.

Last week a girl called him from school. After I give him the phone I hear this:

"Yeah"
"I dunno"
"Uh...Nothing"
"I guess"
"Yeah"
"Uh"
"Yeah, I did that"
"I dunno"
"Okay"
"Bye"

He looks at me, and rolls his eyes. I say "What did she want?" And he says " I don't know. It was stupid. She had nothing to say. I don't even know why she called, she has the home work assignment"

I've just contributed yet another clueless male to the world.

Sue and Brian May 27, 2006

Wedding: St Joseph's Parish, Grafton WI
Reception: Country Inn and Suites, Port Washington WI

I first met Sue and Brian last year when they came to Wisconsin to meet with me about photographing their wedding from their home in Seattle (Sue is from Wisconsin) . First of all, Seattle is one of my favorite cities on earth, so I think I yammered on and on to them for a good 15 minutes about how I looooooooooooooved Seattle, why would you possibly want to get married here, couldn't I just go to Seattle for their wedding? Couldn't everyone just come there? And when I meet with potential clients, I take notes. Those of you that have booked me,know this, that when I meet with you, I take notes. I scratch down info on the venue, the time line, the bridal party...stuff like that. Part of it is my superior professionalism, part of it is my advancing Alzheimers.

But when you leave......*insert evil laugh* I write the good stuff. My impressions of the couple, the vibe I got. Just stuff. Some times it's cool info on how they got engaged, what they do for a living, key things that will spark a memory for me when they call months later to book me and I've met 20 more couples since them.

This is the first time I have divulged the super secret stuff I write after the consult, but for this couple, it just seems to fit. On Sue and Brian's info sheet I wrote about them "She is an aerospace engineer and she is cute as a bug. Very laid back and really sweet. He is a train conductor and was pretty quiet, reserved, until we got on the subject of their dog, a Golden Retriever named Hannah. I'd marry a man who talked about a dog like that. "

Congratulations Sue and Brian :)

Click here to see a slideshow from Sue and Brian's wedding!