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At the end of the night, Helen and Dave mentioned something in their speech that really resonated with me. Well, it was Dave speaking on behalf of the two of them as Helen has a history of breaking down midway through - which you would never guess form the same-day edit. 
Back to their speech, Dave said that he loved how we became their friends very quickly, that we captured all the raw emotions, and that we kept them that way -raw. It is that connection that we have with our couples that really allows us to get inside and see things that are often shut off for most of the world.
Helen and Dave’s wedding couldn’t have been a more fitting day for the comments he made. Their morning was in two words, pure pandemonium. As much as we plan, prepare, organize, and storyboard, weddings are unpredictable beasts that take on a life of their own. While I don’t think our bodies could hold up to shooting weddings like this every week, it certainly is refreshing to have so much going on that you simply can’t cover it all. When that happens, nearly all the planning goes out the window and it becomes a very instinctual art. At one point in the day we had a band, Dave, and about 50 family members dancing in Helen’s driveway while she was thirty feet away, just inside the door about to put her dress on. As it started to pour (both the rain and Helen’s tears), the dancing just got more intense.
As much as we want to always have the perfect lens choice and angle for every shot, it is days like this that even the 30 seconds of thought it takes to work through that is time you don’t have. It is a different way of shooting and it is certainly a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed.
The irony of the whole situation was that after all of these intense events, everyone rushed to the church to make it on time. As things started to settle down, a confusion set in as nobody could find the priest. He ended up arriving about 40 minutes late, and as difficult as it must have been for Helen and Dave to sit and wait to be married, I think everybody appreciated the calm after the storm.
With that Dave + Helen…
Liesl Clark from Claris Photography gives some great advice on scheduling your wedding day formals.
One of the most important but sometimes least favorite parts of the wedding day are the “planned” photos - the “formals” as some may call it. This portion of the day, while essential, is often looked upon as a “grip and grin” section of the wedding that a bride and groom want to just “get through”. At the same time, most everyone will agree that without this part of the day, some very valuable photographs of family and friends would be overlooked and later one may have regrets that they weren’t captured.
This part of the day doesn’t have to be dreaded. With proper planning (ie. scouting of the locations, a thorough shot list provided by the bride and groom, and a detailed photography schedule) the photography needs of the couple and their families can be met without any headache, frustration or confusion.
Too.Much.Good.Stuff. That sums up this wedding and this post! 
When I was able to review the hundreds of proofs from this wedding, I told photographer, Travis Hoehne, that I was unable to narrow it down beyond about 50 photos (I usually pick only 20-30 max from a given wedding). Even for this post, you’ll see that I could barely get under 40 photos to feature. It’s just that everything about this wedding was so photogenic! From the gorgeous bride and groom, to the sleek and stylish venue, to the colorful and funky décor… Travis had a field day with this event!
I previously gave you a sneak peek on this wedding but there is still so much to share. You can revisit that post for a recap on the vision for the event. Today, let’s allow the amazing images to speak for themselves, as they transport you to the fabulousness that was this wedding! Much love to Travis for these dazzling photos; he is a great talent and a great guy. Can’t wait to work with him again soon!
I think there was a point when beach weddings became cliché. It just seemed like they all started looking the same, and they lacked originality. But lately there is this resurgence of beach weddings that are anything but mundane. I am absolutely loving this ethereal, subtle elegance that these photos evoke. They are totally original and absolutely stunning!
I knew Jess and Nat’s wedding was going to be fantastic the moment I met Jess last year at a coffee shop in Portsmouth. We immediately gabbed like old friends, spent a year furiously sending emails back and forth as their plans came together, and even met again for lunch at one of my favorite places in Boston, Wagamama. So on our drive down to Beverly the morning of their wedding, I really felt like we were going to photograph a friend’s wedding (which is often the case, I’m lucky to report!).
I met Jess and the maids at an adorable salon in Marblehead, the town Jess grew up in. It was perfectly shabby chic with lots of pink and sweet, sparkly details.
{Images via Stina Plant Photography}
Last summer, Rich and I attended the wedding of two of his close friends from law school. Attorneys by day and musicians by night, the couple used record album covers as their table markers. “We must do this at our wedding!” Rich declared. Mind you we were not even engaged at this point, but I filed it away.
Once we were engaged, I started collecting milk glass vases for our centerpieces and thinking of flowers…completely forgetting about the albums. However, the musician remembered. Album covers are perfect. They display our love of music and they take up a decent amount of space on the tables, therefore I do not need giant vases full of flowers. Now I am focusing on smaller milk glass vases and bud vases to put on either side of the albums. The best part of all {in our opinions} is adding at least one song from each album to our playlist. When the song plays, that table needs to get up and get down, get down! MSWeddings had this idea in the Summer issue as well. Fun!
I have been waiting for a while to post this uber-fun wedding! I knew when I first met the couple that this was going to be very creative and beautiful wedding! They had such fabulous ideas and weren’t scared of putting in the extra time to pull off a one-of-a-kind dessert display. Not only were they super creative, but their wedding planner and my personal friend, Jesi Haack of Jesi Haack Weddings, is one of those people who is so talented and loves pulling off gorgeous, yet unique events! Thanks so much to my other friend, Adrianne Bonafede, who is a great photographer and came along with me to help capture a lot of these yummy images. Their wedding photographer, Juan Posada, of Posada Photo shot some lovely images too and was kind enough to share them with me!
Remember this save the date? Well, the invitation just went out, wine stains and all. 
This is a mixed media piece, the wine stain is digitally printed by me and then letterpress printed by Spark. I love the simplicity of the border but it is spiced up with the wine stain and some more silly wording on the reception card and the rsvp….
Shannon and Jason’s wedding was held at Kairos on June 7, 2008. What an awesome day it was! We’ve had so many perfect days filming weddings this year! Shannon + Jason planned an amazing wedding. All the guest were so nice, and they made our day that much better. The sunset in the evening was spectacular! We were able to shoot with Shannon and Jason for a few minutes and it made for some of the best shot’s I’ve ever seen. Watch their trailer below.
Shannon + Jason’s Super 8mm Wedding Trailer from Joe Simon Wedding Films on Vimeo.
Delivered to client and on their way to guests, I’ve been dying to show off these custom envelope liners I designed for a recent wedding invitation.
The couple, Shira and Loren have very strong family ties - and Inspired Goodness has been working hard to find creative ways to showcase the love they both share for their family.
When working on their invitation suite, I knew a printed liner was going to be part of the overall look, but was at a loss for a pattern that didn’t overwhelm the blind emboss and letterpress pieces that the other pieces featured.
And then it hit me to do a modified family tree. It was the perfect solution on how to incorporate their family into the set! Starting with an illustration from iStockPhoto, I modified existing art to work with the design and fit into the liner shape.
We printed the illustration on an uncoated paper stock in silver ink, to match the calligraphy and addresses on the envelopes. My amazing assistant (and husband) helped me cut each of the liners and we setup an assembly line of cutting, taping, inserting and collating.
The entire project took about 6 hours, but they looked perfect and hearing the client’s feedback made it all worthwhile!
If you want to tackle this project, here’s a list of materials you’ll need:
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