I met Paul+Emily at a party for one of our other client friends and I was so excited to hear from them when they had their second child! First, I must say, that the entire family is adorable. Like – ADORABLE. This was my very first session with an accordion AND banjo playing toddler. And when I mean banjo playing, I mean he can actually play! He knows songs! His strumming is far better than mine is! AND he does all of this while playing on his front porch in front of his vegetable garden. Literally all he needs is suspenders and he will be the cutest bluegrass child in the entire continental United States. He occasionally would get really excited and speak to me like one does to a very small cat that you’re extremely happy to see: high pitched, squeaky, squinty eyes. His name is Isaac, and I’m his #1 fan.

New to the family (and new to both accordions and banjos), is his little sister Clara. While she doesn’t have the fine motor skills to play old timey instruments yet, she DOES have banana pants, an avacado blanket, and a book called Frida Catlo which details Frida Kahlo’s life as a cat. I am 100% positive that she will also be into gardening and old timey instruments. She is super duper cute, and did a good job lying on various patterned surfaces while being adorable. The brother-sister shots on the quilt toward the end cracked me up. VERY CUTE CHILDREN. Also Ruby – the dog – also very cute, and excellent at smiling for portraits. So happy to have photographed this crew. Isaac played me a goodbye song on his drum as I drove away.

I’ve done work for the Downtown Raleigh Alliance for many years, and I still get asked questions about what they do for the city. The DRA is responsible for fun events that happen downtown (like First Friday, Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Week, and partnering with local artists to decorate storefronts and make murals) but they also provide Ambassador services! These (and many more) friendly folks wearing blue DRA ambassador logos patrol downtown, helping locals and visitors. They keep an eye on the cars in parking garages, provide directions and assistance, check on shop owners and local businesses, and they even jump your car for free if you need it! If you’re downtown late at night and would like an escort back to your car, you can call them and they’ll walk with you. They provide an immense and helpful service. I was happy to photograph the ambassadors in their new uniforms this year!

We are so lucky to have come across the paths of Nicole and Ben via one of our previous wedding clients, Katie+Tony. And we’re even luckier that both of those couples (whose weddings were out of state), now live in Durham! We love them all. When we had our first Skype meeting with Nicole and Ben, the first thing I noticed was her admirable forearm tattoo of their dog wearing a flower crown and I liked her instantly. Ben didn’t have a tattoo of their dog wearing a flower crown but I liked him too. Recently we had a chance to catch up at dinner and we realized that we have many things in common, and that Nicole actually has many tattoos. She also did the brilliant move of suggesting that we visit Salem, MA when we were up in Boston, and because of her incredible suggestion, I now have a Lost Boys dress and also four humongous art prints of bats dressed like old timey gentlemen hanging in our living room. We loved it. We also visited Fenway and got a foam finger for our baseball foam finger collection.

Anyway, we also had a wonderful time at Nicole and Ben’s wedding! It was windy, which I LOVE – shooting in the wind is a ton of fun and adds a lot of movement and is generally regarded by me as awesome – and we got to walk around really neat, historic spots of Boston that I’ve missed on previous trips. It’s beautiful! And they got married in an old jail (fun!) and had donuts and green glassware and specially grown peonies and all sorts of other glorious things. Plus Ben got Nicole custom portraits of their dogs as a wedding gift that delighted her to tears (literally). And now we have two new friends who like food and animals and cocktails.

Date: June 15, 2019
Ceremony+Reception Venue: The Liberty Hotel // Boston, MA
First Dance Song: “Crazy Love” – Van Morrison
Nicole’s Occupation: Human Resources
Ben’s Occupation: Finance
How You Met: We met through work and sparked our love for each other with a first kiss at The Pinhook in Durham.
Interesting Facts: We LOVE to travel and between us have been to Belize, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico and the British Virgin Islands with many more trips on the horizon.
Honeymoon: Martha’s Vineyard immediately following the wedding with a longer trip (Croatia?) in 2020.
Officiant: Kezia Bacon
Band: Ripcord
Florist: Wild dahlia
Donuts: Kane’s Donuts of Boston
Caterer: The Liberty Hotel
Hair+Makeup: ZenaRose
Videographer: Armor in Motion Films
Coordinator: Keri Ketterer Walter of Always Yours Events