Oyster Roast // Wilmington Family Photos

This family goes back so, so far with us and for that we are seriously grateful and humbled. We’ve changed a lot since we first started and to have them all stand by our side through all of our changes has been amazing! Dottie and Jon were one of our first ever wedding couples, and we bonded so well with both sides of their families at their wedding that we’ve all become Facebook friends and kept in touch ever since. :) So when Dottie’s parents (step-mother Betsy and father Donald) asked us to join them out in Wilmington for an oyster roast at Donald’s childhood home, we happily agreed.

Dottie and Jon would be joining them, along with their two children (Patrick and Ellie), and Dottie’s sister Mich and boyfriend Tony. Thug the Pug also showed up, sporting a sweater. Everyone hung around outside on a beautiful late winter day and let ourselves be amused by the (quite active and humorous) Patrick. Ellie was very cute, but gave me a profound frown 99% of the time (don’t let these pictures fool you – she didn’t like the camera one bit). Despite the baby not realizing that her family is cool with us, we had an absolutely wonderful time reuniting with this friendly and ever-happy group of people. It is SO COOL to see everyone’s family grow and change and to feel part of the family at the same time. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for always embracing and supporting us, Betsy, Don, Dottie, Jon, and Mich… and to Patrick, Ellie and Tony – we hope we didn’t traumatize you too much, and we’ll see you again soon. :)

Heather+Garrett // Maternity Session.

We’d been looking forward to working with Heather and Garrett for such a long time, but even more so when they added a rug into their nursery with dancing Chewbaccas on it. Heather is the very talented artist behind Remember November, Inc., where she uses her badass graphic design skills to make even more badass printed signs and paper products for weddings! Sooo if you’re getting married and you need any signage (invites, table numbers, menus, programs, etc), she’s your girl (visit her Etsy shop!).

In addition to being really talented, she and Garrett also really like Star Wars. In the happiest of all happy parental coincidenes for Star Wars fans, they also named their kid Finn before they knew he was the name of the main character in The Force Awakens. Heather also makes really adorable embroidery as a hobby and has been working her way through a Star Wars alphabet that I’m pretty sure we might just straight up steal from their kid’s bedroom. Until then, here are pictures of us following Heather and Garrett around on a lovely evening in Durham where we talked tv shows and movies and music and discovered that we’re not the only ones watching Bates Motel.

Ashley+Michael // The Cloth Mill at Eno River

Ashley and Michael have been talking to us for such a long time that our inbox is going to deeply miss them, but we were so excited to finally meet them in person and they did indeed live up to their e-mail personas (which were quite charming). Originally they had emailed us and were planning an Asheville wedding, but eventually decided that they wanted to scale it down to be very intimate and personal to the two of them. Choosing Leap Day as their anniversary like the clever people that they are, their larger Asheville wedding had turned into a wedding sans guests at the Cloth Mill at Eno River – a cool new industrial wedding venue in Hillsborough, NC. We were stoked to serve as witnesses for the second time this year, and even more stoked to take pictures with a glitter beard that Ashley brought.

Michael was described to us as “a huge nerd – but in a fun way!” who likes space, dinosaurs, Legos, and video games. So basically he’s us. He teaches faculty at Elon learn how to use their technology better in their classroom. Ashley’s in the classroom herself teaching middle school kids and probably having to deal with a lot of Snapchat references that I don’t understand. They’re both really cute, a perfect match, and brought explosive confetti in the form of a push pop.