This week we hath returned from a few days in Nashville, Tennessee (by way of Louisville, KY & Cincinnati, OH) and are back at it! We have a Wedding Expo <physical competition> coming up THIS weekend in 4 days that is going to be a blast for the brides and the other competitors, so if you have ANY engaged friends in Chicago, Michiana, Southwest Michigan, or Northern Indiana, have them sign up for a FREE ticket to Bride vs Bride with our promo code: JENNYJASONPHOTO (all caps) at bridevsbride.com . The event will be held THIS Sunday August 5th from 1 to 4 p.m. locally near South Bend, Indiana! We hope to see some familiar faces as we HOST one of the games and also pull a winner's name from the box for a completely FREE photo Session with us!
This week amidst an immense amount of photo work, we'd like to share a shorter blog of some beautiful bridal portraits that we captured earlier this summer in Michigan of Asia! Asia just graduated from Western Michigan University this year a few months ago, so it's been a chaotic post-graduation summer for her. Originally from Virgina, she got her recent college degree in acting, lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and continues to act having just started working on the production of Shakespeare in Detroit.
Some of our favorite moments of the wedding day are the "prep" time: moments after the bride and groom are dressed and ready for the ceremony, but still in their respective "getting ready" spots. Often these "getting ready" spots are homes (bride's mom's home, their home, or another home), a hotel (2 separate rooms on separate floors often), the reception spot's separate prep locations, or at the ceremony spot's separate prep locations. We're lucky if the prep spot is neutral with very few decorations and we always hope the spots have large floor to ceiling windows! Most often there will be a bed directly in all of the photos since it's often a bedroom or hotel room that the bride gets ready in, though there are also bridal suites and other suites in general that have large non-bed rooms attached OR are a room specifically for wedding prep and have NO bed, rather just beautiful decorations, seats, and a plethora of mirrors. This spot at Stonegate Manor (in the manor itself) was absolutely gorgeous what with all of the white, the beautiful antique bed, and the room not covered in a million things or intense colors/ patterns!
There's such a serenity that often comes after the bride & groom are ready, dressed, and in separate locations pre-ceremony. It's the best to photograph especially if everyone gives them space alone for a second to process what's happening. If the schedule for the day is made well, there's generally a semi nervous calmness that washes over each of them since they've spent hours, weeks, months, and years getting ready for this moment (but there's still a little bit of down time before they have to rush over to the ceremony).
Often (almost always with our couples) a card and/ or small gift (one from the bride and one from the groom) are sent to the room that their other half has gotten ready in. The bride and groom will receive their gift, then often cry and/ or laugh while reading their heartfelt cards from the person they're about to marry (in t-minus 35 minutes) which is a beautiful thing to capture. All of the stress and planning has come to that point and reading the words of their loved one puts them at ease and makes them really take in how special the moment is.
Most of the time all of the men get ready in about 10 minutes and have a lot of time to relax, so Jason will take them outside of the prep place, ceremony location, or reception location and get all of their Groomsmen portraits taken with the groom! The brides on the other hand often start getting ready at 6 a.m. for professional hair and make-up and the ceremonial getting the bride's dress on at the end (with close family members and bridesmaids), so it's rare that Jenny ever, ever gets to take the bride and bridesmaids outside prior to the ceremony for portraits and formal photos of the bridesmaids and they must then wait until after the ceremony and formal indoor bridal party and family portraits. It's always a huge treat to be able to make it outside with the bride (even just for a second!). It was so worth it to take bride Asia outside of the prep indoor Manor this summer in Michigan! It really is the best to be able to get that full natural light, fresh air, and beauty of nature in if even just on the porch!
A little more Asia: Asia is a fierce, independent woman with drive. She's also very laid back and it was a pleasure to photograph her in her beautiful, sort of edgy wedding gown with a sheer lace top (from Detroit Bridal House)! It was a bit cold since Spring was pushed back a full month this year weather-wise and summer had an odd weather start (colder than usual at first with tree buds not coming in for a long time), but she was a trooper so we could get some photos of her outside on the porch after the prep photos inside! Luckily her wedding planner Darion Longmire had allotted enough time for this bit of time, so we were thankful for that (and thankful for the gorgeousness of the flowers- Flowery Art florist created all of the beautiful bouquets!). Like we said, it's always wonderful when we're able to get even a few photos outside of the bride and groom even on those immensely hot or frigidly cold days. We SO appreciate that our couples put up with us begging them to just step outside for a second for us to capture some classic portraits that will last for a lifetime! Thank you so much Asia for bearing with us outside and for genuinely laughing when you had goosebumps!
Upcoming Work:
We hope you've enjoyed these portraits of bride Asia out in Michigan (just across the border from us here in Indiana) as we have many more weddings to go this year! This month of August will also be full of Family Portraits, Newborn Sessions, the expo, and a trip to Alaska by way of Seattle and Canada for us, so this month is bound to fly by! We've made it to 10 states and 2 countries so far this year with 2 more to go with Alaska & Washington coming up at the end of August. In the meantime we'll also be printing photos for our clients (700 prints to go), creating the 4 more physical wedding albums for them, filling 4 wedding boxes to send out, etc!
Our upcoming blog posts this month of August walk you through the fine art glasswork we're creating this weekend, our recent photography work with the local Humane Society, Family Portraits, Infant Portraits, & Wedding Portraits! Next month in September we'll be back with a tiny peek of Alaska and more Wedding and Engagement photos from what will be the end of this summer! October proves to be a huge month's worth of wedding photos (5 couples to share with ya) and then we delve into more Fall Family Portrait Sessions in November that we can't wait to share with you as we edit wedding photos throughout the fall through December! We're so happy to have booked 2019 weddings from March 2019 through September 2019 and we cannot wait to book more 2019 and 2020 weddings throughout the Midwest, country, and world! We have 3 states books so far for next year's weddings and hope to get more international weddings as well in the upcoming years paired with our local favorites! (Our area is closest to Chicago, but we're on the border of Michigan here in Indiana- just 10 minutes away- and close to Ohio & Wisconsin as well, so our wedding couples generally extend out relatively far with couples from California to Boston also working with us!) We hope you all have a great weekend and we hope to see some of you lovely faces at Bride vs Bride THIS Sunday the 5th-!!