Shelby and Zack Engagement at Liberty Gardens

Last weekend I got to meet up with Shelby and Zack for their engagement session. We ended up with perfect weather! We walked around Liberty Gardens, which is one of my favorite parks in town. It's small, but it's got some great spots for pictures. Here are some of my favorites from their shoot.

We got their beautiful Husky in some shots.  

Can't wait for their fall wedding!

Wade and Tracey's Small Intimate Tennessee Wedding at the Crown Winery

Wade and Tracey first contacted me a few months ago about having their wedding in March. We chatted through email and booked the date, and I was so excited to work with them! Then over the holidays, I got an email saying they just didn't want to wait that long, and they wanted to simplify and just have immediate family present. Of course, I was on board, so last weekend, I met them at the Crown Winery to document their super sweet ceremony! I thought it was adorable that they were so anxious to be married. I remember when I was engaged, 6 months seemed like FOREVER, so I think a short engagement makes total sense.  Anyway, it was a beautiful afternoon, and I enjoyed getting to document this special time for them and their new family.

I got a couple of photos of Tracey getting ready, then it was on to the ceremony. Tracey walked down the stairs to the patio where Wade proposed. Her two sons escorted her down the steps. They were perfect gentlemen! After meeting Wade on the patio, everyone went inside the Queens Pavilion for the ceremony. It was lovely and included a sweet sand ceremony involving all four kids. The sun was streaming in the window giving them the most beautiful glow.

After the ceremony, everyone toasted champagne (or cider for the kids), and we took some family portraits. I also got a few dancing photos and cake cutting before I left them to spend time with their family. It was such a low-key shoot, and I loved getting to meet these folks! I wish them so much happiness with their new family of six.

So, obviously, this was the first wedding of 2015 for me, and it was a great one to start on! My goal for the year is to shoot 20 weddings, and I'm already up to 13 booked with 2 more meetings this week. Things are going so well, and I couldn't thank you guys enough for supporting me and spreading the work about my business. I have the best friends and clients!

Practice Bridal Shoot with Area Photographers, Woody & Pearl Jackson Tennessee Wedding Photographer

Oh hey, guys! Remember me? I had some downtime on this lovely (though quite hot) Sunday afternoon, so I thought I'd blog these photos from a practice shoot. I am involved with a group of local portrait and wedding photographers on Facebook. We encourage and help each other as much as we can, and it's kind of the best thing ever. I LOVE the folks in that group, and it is so much fun when we can get together and just hang out and do what we enjoy. One of the photographers, Tracye, organized a little practice shoot at her church with one of her former brides. It was a way for us to work with some lighting setups as well as find interesting places to do a portrait in a church with limited lighting. 

I tend to use natural light or a single flash unit, but I broke out the Alien Bee with my huge Octobox for some of these. It was fun! It's probably still a little much for me to set up at a wedding (as if I don't have enough things to think about already), but I want to incorporate lights into bridal shoots more often for sure!

LOVE the drama in this one 

So far this has been the only photoshoot that the group has done together, but we do try to get together for meals and "workshop" type learning sessions when we can. We also end up shooting weddings together a lot, which is fantastic! Can you tell I love my fellow photographers? I look forward to many more years shooting in West Tennessee alongside them. 

Wedding Photography - Improvements

For the longest time, I've had a very simple package (if you can even call it that) for weddings. I shoot as a supplement to my full-time job, so I try to keep things pretty simple. Lately I've been wanting to branch out and make my wedding package more appealing, so I looked into some extras I could add on. One of those is a USB drive with a gorgeous custom case. This will come with the base wedding price at no extra charge, which means EVERY BRIDE from here on out will get one.

As much as I would love to push more prints, I know how important it is to be able to flip through all of the images from your wedding day. The little forgotten images that I stumble upon are the ones that make me smile (like me and Rhett booking it through the rain), not necessarily the posed ones that I have printed.  I wanted a way to give these images to the couple in an attractive way that they could display instead of a cd to be lost in the desk drawer for 2 years. When I came across these cases, I knew this was what I would want for my own wedding photos!

The case is about the size of a double disc cd case with a magnetic closure and foam inside to hold the USB drive securely in place. The drive has the couple's name engraved on one side and my logo on the other. It's simple, but it's exactly what I was looking for as far as image delivery. I'm so excited about offering these that I'm running a special on my wedding package! For the next five weddings that I book, I'm offering a FREE engagement session, or if engagement photos aren't needed, $100 off of another product.

I'm also doing gifts for referrals now, so if you refer me for a wedding or portrait session you'll get a gift card to your choice of local restaurant or store!

I know that's a lot of business info, but I just had to share! I'm so excited about the changes I'm making, and I just feel so energized and refreshed when I work on this stuff. My friend Lauren got me started when she encouraged me to work on a business plan. Just writing everything down and doing the math really got me going, and I've been on a roll! If you have a second, please go like my Facebook page for updates on ALL my photography, including my Etsy shop.