This wedding was so beautiful and so elegant.  I love how the bride chose such classic colors and flowers to give it a light and classic look.  And the details such as the coffee bags and starbucks coffee barista after the dinner was a beautiful touch since they met at Starbucks.  And the sweetest was the the story board that outlined each memorable date on their dating calendar.  Each detail you can tell was chosen carefully.  The sun set streaming in through the windows added to the romantic feel of the evening.  The bride couldn’t have looked more beautiful or more happy.  And the groom as equally handsome.  Proud parents and family looking on and adding to the overall happiness of the day couldn’t be overlooked.  It was truly a joy to behold and this photographer was thrilled to be there!

This wedding is long over due!  Shot back in December I loved the lighting this venue created.  I just love all the color! And could the bride be any prettier?  She definitely has her own style and I love that she created the wedding that she wanted.  And as a photographer you just can’t get any more fun lighting to work with on any shoot!  My sweet moment of the day was when the groom hugged his Mom and my immediate reaction was to say “Te Dulci” as I shot the picture.  He looked back over his shoulder and said “Now that’s cool”.  Of course what would have been REALLY cool was if my spanish was a little better! ha ha!  But his family was so awesome to despite how I butchered it.  ;  )

Enjoy!

One of the great benefits of hiring a photographer is getting to have a professionally done wedding album! All you have to do as the bride is choose what pictures you want in the album. The purpose of a wedding album is to tell the story of your wedding.

All the bride has to do is choose their favorite pictures to go into the album and pick between an assortment of albums you want! But what is the purpose of a wedding album? A wedding album is the picture book of your wedding.  This is a keepsake not only for you but will be passed down to your children and grandchildren. I still have my mother’s wedding album and I treasure it immensely.  Especially since she and my father both died young and are no longer with me.  I design each wedding album individually and the albums come from all over the world including the US, Italy, and even Australia.  I have very traditional, very modern and some in between so I can accommodate any bride’s specific style.

When designing a wedding album, I try to correlate images and arrange them so that with every flip of the page you are traveling further into the day of your wedding. Be sure to check out the wedding album pages below! If you love them, be sure to use them as inspiration when choosing from your wedding photos! For you Facebook addicts (like me) you can add my Facebook page by clicking  here  and share the images with your friends. For you Pinterest addicts, be sure to pin the pages you LOVE  so that you can have them as inspiration forever!

This particular senior photography session was a joy because it was wide open. I loved Laura because she is a non-conformist. She loves photography and knew exactly what she wanted. We had so much fun running all over downtown finding fun, funky cool places to shoot. And of course some classic beautiful garden and earthy backgrounds as well. She will go far I am sure with her strong sense of will and outgoing personality! Thanks Laura!!! It was a super fun shoot!

Brad is athletic, fun and looks great on film (so to speak since we actually use digital).  But the camera does love him.  We had a ball running all over Raleigh photographing him for a modeling agency.  We wanted to show how Brad looked in a lot of different types of situations. Needless to say we had a lot of fun getting all these different looks!  I am guessing he is probably pretty popular with the girls at school.  Just a hunch.  ;  ) Great job Brad!

I must say this was a fun fun wedding. There were so many cute parts, from the bride’s amazing smile, who it was very clear she got from her father, to the tears at the toast, to rocking out on the dance floor.   This wedding had every emotion. The sappy photographers even cried at the toast. (Yes even after 10 years of weddings they still get to us.) Definitely one of those great weddings that had it all. Cydney Davis with the English Garden did the flowers and as usual she out did herself making them AMAZING. Nicole McMillen with Premier Party Planners, the wedding coordinator, was ON IT! Not only was she on top of everything but she also knew other peoples jobs and responsibilities so she could plan and advise accordingly. (This seems to be rare so if you on a lookout for a coordinator I highly recommend her.) The families we so kind and fun and it was clear they loved the bride and groom and were thrilled about the newest members of their family. The wedding party was a blast and we were just LOVING photographing this wedding. Not to mention we took them downtown to do some of those fun downtown wedding shots I LOVE!  I may have gone a little overboard on the downtown wedding pictures but I couldn’t help myself! Thanks Melissa and Mark! The wedding was AWESOME and I LOVED photographing it and spending your special day with you both.

Best Raleigh wedding photography hosted at Downtown at the Cardinal Club with Premier Party Planners and award winning photographer Diane McKinney.

I am not sure how old Emily was when I first met her.  I think 14 perhaps?  She and her sisters have lived behind us ever since we moved to the neighborhood.  I can’t count how many times she has saved me when I had a portrait I needed to run off to and my husband was running late from work leaving me needing someone to watch the little ones.  It has been wonderful to watch her grow into a fine person and I can’t believe she will be off to college in year.  You can see from the pictures how much fun and cute she is and what a great time we had shooting these pictures as a final send off for her senior year!  Congrats Emily! You deserve it girl!

These sisters hadn’t had a picture all three together since they little little… So they got together for a fun portrait session. I wish I had the before picture they showed me but they are just as cute now as they were then.

I am very fortunate in my job.  I get to do what I love-take pictures.  Mostly I do wedding photography, bridal photography and because it isn’t usually long before my brides and grooms start their families then I get a a lot of sweet little new borns to photograph.   How lucky can a person be?  Then there are those jobs that make you grateful you have a gift that can actually contribute to those less fortunate.  I have several charities I shoot for but this is a new charity and hits right here at home.  Last April 16th I was busy shooting a wedding.  It was a crazy day since the Tornadoes had knocked out the power at the church as well as the reception.  We all considered ourselves lucky since the Sheraton still managed to have all the food ready and beautifully lit by candle light so the bride and groom still had their special day.  What I wasn’t thinking about was all the homes that got hit and the chaos that those people would be facing not only during but long after.  It hit one of our less fortunate areas with a lot of people who didn’t have home insurance or other means to recover from such a devastating hit.  So with this said, when Mary Jane chatted me on facebook and asked if I would mind doing some publicity shoots for a fundraiser they were working on to raise money for these victims I jumped at the chance.  Just a few individuals started a grass roots movement to put together a concert to raise money for these victims  What I didn’t know was how FUN it would be…  I spent last last Monday like I was at an American Idol try out.  Now I know why we have so many finalist from the Carolinas!  WE GOT TALENT! They invited many well known bands but wanted to give local talent who had never been seen an opportunity and let me tell you there are some really great unknowns out there. The concert is July 30th from 10am to 10pm so come out and support your community!!!  Oh and have a lot of fun too!  Here are some pictures from Monday’s tryouts.  Thanks to everyone at ComeUNITYNow for letting me be a part.  If you want to check them out click here to view their facebook & Event page.  EVENT PAGE http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121118211308828 COMEUNITYNOW Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/ComeUnityNow

I can FINALLY post these pictures although she didn’t make me wait too long since we just shot them two weeks ago.  But I think that is the hardest thing about bridal portraits – waiting to show everyone!  Christie is probably one of the sweetest people you would ever meet.  She cares about animals and ALL living creatures. She has taken in 3 dogs herself.   She married Kevin last night and one of the most touching ceremonies I have been to in a while.  I will post more on the wedding soon!   But here are some her bridal portraits for now.