It is great to be in Raleigh doing wedding photography. One of my joys about my job. This couple was so cute. It didn’t matter if they were dancing, gazing into each other’s eyes, hanging out with friends or sitting next to each other in the ceremony-they were always into each other. This bride and groom couldn’t have been more in love or in sync with each other. It was a true joy to photograph these two. Just beautiful! Here is a snapshot of the wedding photography of their special day! More to come later!!! Oh and the pictures are also now on the website if you would like to view them all. Just click YOUR PHOTOS and find their last names and follow the prompts from there. : )

It’s been a while since I put down a post. I have been very busy since Raleigh wedding photography season is full on now. I am even about 4 blog posts behind but I am hoping to rectify that after I finish my next wedding. I wish my job is as glamorous as it sounds to people but I probably only spend about 20% of my time actually shooting. It’s so funny because I usually have photographers that work for me that aspire to own their own businesses some day. And many of them have started their own businesses and gone on to be great successes. But inevitably I get that phone call that goes something like this “I had no idea how much you did!”   Yes, there are wedding albums to be designed, then changes to make, prints to be ordered and shipped out, lovely accounting and taxes to be filed (my most hated task).   And then burning and backing up all those shoots to protect them from evil computer viruses and hard drive crashes, then there is just plain old things to do list that varies from anything like spending an hour organizing your drives or figuring out a computer problem. It’s crazy how much work there is that goes into running your own business. I have had 5 albums to finish just this week alone. That is one of those things you can’t really plan for since you never know when your bride will submit their images. It could be 3 months to 2 years after their weddings.  And just backing up all my recent shoots took 5 hours alone -more than 1/2 day shot.  Answering emails usually takes up to 2 hours a day. Yes, 2 hours.  Giving your clients advice on how to dress, prepare for a bridal portrait or confirming all those important little details of the wedding day takes time.   Anyway, I am off to finalize a couple more albums and wrap up my last wedding so that is all the time I have to write for now.  So to sum up I MUST LOVE MY JOB to do all these other tasks and I DO.  It’s worth every minute of the hastle.  Here is a page from one of my wedding album designs this week.  Congrats again Suzanne & Jay!

TTYL! Diane

Submit ExpressReputation Management

Every once in a while I will shoot a corporate event.  Mostly I do wedding photography and baby photography and if it is commercial it is usually headshot photography.  But The Renaissance Hotel is one of the venues that I have shot weddings so when they needed someone to help out with their General Manager Award Event I was happy to oblige.  As usual they were gracious, the food was fabulous and how can you not LOVE that hotel. It’s beautiful.  They had the most awesome painter for entertainment.  You never knew what he was painting till he was completely done.  Everyone had a great time and congratulations to all the amazing award winners. I can only imagine how hard you must have worked to achieve such a great honor.

I love everything about beach weddings: the vibrant colors, the relaxed feel of the day, the bare feet in the sand.

Josh and Alberta’s wedding at Oak Island, North Carolina was simply lovely.  And full of love. Their love and respect for each other is as crystal-clear as the blue sky overhead.  Family and friends couldn’t stop gushing over how happy they are that these two amazing people found each other.

Photographing this wedding was pure inspiration from beginning to end. Alberta & Josh, congratulations on your beautiful day, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.

I have been DYING to post this bridal portrait. With the pollen being so strong this year we opted for an inside shoot with so a short time frame before the wedding. The cardinal club obliged us so we shot the beautiful bride Melissa there. The first thing I noticed was her amazing smile. Her loving fun personality totally shown through during the photo shoot. I just love her smile. That and the fact that she is drop dead gorgeous didn’t hurt either. We had so much fun shooting at different angles and different locations. I loved the print she chose for her bridal portrait too. It really shows off her amazing smile and unique beauty. LOVED IT! I hope you like it too and can see another side of bridal photography from an inside perspective.

Ah cute little Baby A. I have looking forward to photographing him since his arrival! He finally got to come visit Ms. Diane at 2 months old for his fabulous first baby portrait! He was definitely all about checking out the studio not wanting to miss a thing. Such a smiley little guy too! I have loved photographing this family and this one was particularly special since Daddy and big brother are leaving for Mexico for a couple of months for a long overdue visit to family. They will at least have these pictures to keep them a little closer during the time apart. And Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t be more proud of the new little addition to this family. Baby photography is such a joy, especially when you know it means so much. See you soon Daddy and big brother!

One of the most wonderful things about my job is getting to see families grow from the beginning all the way through to hopefully when they have grandchildren.  Although very few of my clients are to that stage unless I shot their wedding later in life.   After 10 years in business we are getting to the stage of multiple siblings in grade school but I am looking forward to senior pictures with them someday then their baby’s babies!   This photography session is one such family just starting with their first baby,  Baby M.  I had the joy of photographing Mom for her bridal portrait which we shot at UNC.   I remember it so well.  The weather was threatening but we were determined.  We got a couple of shots the the wind was just too much, sending her hair sideways.  So we rescheduled and the next shoot was perfect.  Then there was their amazing wedding.  It was set in the beautiful Fletcher Park.  I love photographing outdoor weddings. There is so much amazing color and you get to spend a lot less on flowers to dress up the church!  An added bonus for any wedding budget.  Sy and Emily looked amazing and had so much fun on their wedding day.  Next Emily came to me for her maternity session.  She was so sweet with her big belly and Sy was the perfect proud expecting Pappa.  It’s such an amazing time going through all the stages of pregnancy  reading about how your baby is growing.  I love that we caught that phase of the growth of their family on camera.  And then came Baby M!  What a little cutie!  I love how baby photography gives me my baby fix!  My children are 4 and 7 now so the days of cuddling that little newborn are gone but I love that I get my little baby cuddles in the studio on a regular basis.  Photographing newborns is one of my favorites.   They are so sweet.  Now little Max came in a little later that I traditionally photograph newborns but not too late.  I recommend within the first two weeks.  Mostly because they sleep between 14-22 hours a day.  YES, check with your pediatrician they can actually sleep that much.  And we make sure they are super comfy in the studio to help keep them asleep for all those cute sleeping baby photographs.  But when they get past 3 weeks they start to become aware of their world and don’t want to miss out on the fun by sleeping.  Such was the case with little Max.  He was about 4 weeks old and was very interested in the studio and the new faces.   But we did pretty good getting some sleeping baby shots thanks to Mom so we were able to get our sleeping shots as well as some awake ones.  Awake or asleep he was BEAUTIFUL.  Did I mention I love photographing newborns and babies?!!

I just love outdoor weddings. They are always so charming and beautiful.  Yes, I know it is a little more of a gamble with the weather but it makes it all worth it when it comes together (which it usually does)…   Megan chose a charming country house in the hills of Austin to have her wedding.  The dance floor was covered but had no real walls.  Instead they filled them with the most charming windows suspended from the roof.  I fell in love with them immediately.  But the wedding venue was only the smallest piece of charm to this wedding.  They added so many personal details that made it JUST THEM.  First was a beautiful stain glass circular window that was made by the bride’s brother.  Artists run strong in this family!  Being that Megan and Thomas were married on St. Patrick’s day one of their colors was green so the stained glass window included green as the primary color.  But they didn’t stop there.  The bride created the cutest wall of hanging portraits of all the places the bride and groom had been on their travels together.    She left two open frames for guests to stick their heads in then put a point and shoot camera on a tripod in front so that guests could take pictures of themselves. BRILLIANT!  I loved it.  It was quite a task too as she had to bring it in the house to avoid the weather until the wedding.  (It was not exactly small.)  Another beautiful detail that I noticed right away was the beautiful rhinestone broach in her hair.  I recognized it because her brother was married just last November and I photographed their wedding down near Galveston.  Amy her now sister in law wore this same broach on her dress.  I just loved it and it made the perfect something borrowed.  On the tables were pictures of all the places the bride and groom have on their list of places they want to visit someday.   On the sentimental side the bride’s bouquet was decorated with rosemary which not only smelt good but also signified remembrance.  The bride’s father passed many years ago and this was a little reminder to us all that even though gone he was still there with us.   Even the minister who presided over the funeral came up from Galveston and out of retirement just to perform the ceremony.  He did the same for her brother just 5 months ago making the union even more meaningful.  And another special touch was the diamond ring Megan wore durin g the ceremony.  It was her Mother’s diamond ring given to her to wear during the ceremony by her sister as a reminder of their mother as she was while they were growing up.  And my favorite part of the wedding???  The Groom’s cake!  It had me cracking up.  Megan and Thomas live in Austin which is a college town and so nights of sixth street with great bands or heading out to the many lakes to hang out with friends to have fun are no stranger to the Austin lifestyle.  So the groom’s cake is a little note to maybe one or two nights that most of us have had if not more.  ;  )  Regardless I vote for best Groom’s cake ever.  But the best part of the wedding was Megan and Thomas themselves.  They are so cute and having been dating for sometime now, just fit like a glove.  You can see how much fun they have with each other and how in sync they are as well.  They always seemed to be smiling and laughing with each other.  Congrats Megan and Thomas!  It was a beautiful wedding with a beatiful bride and handsome groom.  And I treasured photographing this wedding.  A good day in the world of wedding photography for sure!! I love you guys.   (And if you hadn’t guessed it by now, I am the sister to the bride.)  We have had a busy last 12 months in this family as far as weddings go!

In case you may not be familiar we have two types of logos you may recognize us in various groups, ads, posts etc.  Being a Raleigh based wedding photography company that also specializes in babies and children we like to get a little creative! So if you see any of these below it is us! And you can bet the photography is creative too!  :  )

This has been a crazy last two weeks between head shots for Step Up Ministries for over 45 people, shooting their annual report shots and the life skills class not to mention a weeding in Texas and my latest battle with my computer. I have barely had the time to breath much less anything else.  On a brighter note I lost a few pounds not having time to eat!  I think sometimes the hardest part about being a photographer isn’t about being a photographer at all.  It’s running the business.   When I plan a week to encompass x # of shoots = x number of hours editing then adding in the time to answer emails, meet with brides, blogging, answering questions and posting to Facebook, Pinterest and my blog which are all necessities then you throw in something like computer problems.  So I lose literally 4 days just backing up all my data (mind you this is my business data not my client data since they are on separate drives and backed up on DVD’s) but just to back up my business stuff FOUR DAYS!  Then another 3 days at the computer shop so basically a whole week lost for the most part.  I do at least have a whole separate computer for editing so the actually shooting and editing doesn’t get behind but the coordination of calendar and emails, filing sales and use taxes and about 100 other tiny things that need to be done LOST TIME that has to be made up somewhere.  On a brighter note my wedding in Texas was AWESOME! I got to be photographer and be a guest!  For the wedding photography I just shot the getting ready, ceremony and romantic shots, MY FAVORITES, by the way… Then got to be a guest at the reception so SUPER FUN! I will do a separate  post about this later then I had a killer bridal portrait session on Wednesday at the Capital Club that I WiSH I could blog… but soon!  April 15!   Tuesday and Thursday were doing commercial photography shooting for Step Up’s Annual reports, one of my favorite charities who do AMAZING work and really do change people’s lives.  I had the deepest respect for Myra Bradley and all the co-partners for the incredible dedication to the participants in a highly emotional goal.  And the participants themselves do the hardest work.  Literally having to throw out everything they thought and believed look at and act in a world in a completely different manner.  Re-evaluating their past, confronting their demons and taking responsibility.   Something I am quite sure most of us don’t do on much lesser infractions.  I find their stories so uplifting and make me proud to witness such change.  They have my utmost respect and I wish them all the best in their futures.  Ok… This probably could have been a whole separate blog post but now you see why I love this charity so much.  They REALLY make a difference changing one life a a time.  Emotionally exhausting work but so rewarding in the end.   I will try to post pictures when it isn’t midnight on a Saturday night.  Ciao! Diane