Rachel and Brandon got engaged! And then, while searching for wedding venues in New Orleans, they serendipitously stumbled across some weddings I shot down there and contacted me to do their engagement session in Durham where they live. They were super pleasant and friendly via e-mail and phone and I was already excited to work with them and their dog Jovie. But then, a few days before the session, Rachel casually sends me an email that reads, “And a heads up. We recently rescued a kitten, so he’d have to be involved here as well.” I like how she worded this: the kitten has to be involved… as if to imply there might be some sort of chance I wouldn’t accept?!?? Or would tell her, “NO. ABSOLUTELY NO KITTENS.” Rachel did not know me well enough when she sent that email but I think she does now. This is when I grabbed my Crazy Cat Lady cape from the back of my office chair, slung it around my shoulders and got to work converting her engagement/family session into 100% a kitten session without even trying or thinking about it. I did try very hard to pet Jovie the dog and hug Rachel and Brandon equally but let’s face it, I think they all knew I was there for Crash the Cat. Crash is really good at posing because he’s really good at sleeping when he’s not running full speed around the house. Jovie is really good at eating Crash’s cat toys and also entire Dominos pizzas when we weren’t looking. Rachel and Brandon are good at looking cute and adopting a lot of animals and eating pizza. I wish I was still shooting weddings so I could follow them to Nola, but these kitten photos were a good consolation prize.
Gold glitter/sequin/sparkle dresses are my favorite because they photograph so, so well. They turn into little shimmery magical fabrics of fabulousness in front of the camera and if everyone could just take a page out of this blog post and wear nothing but gold glitter dresses from now on, that would be great. It doesn’t even really have to be gold. Just any glitter or sequins. Basically, turn into a 1920s flapper and we’ll be good to go. Speaking of 1920s, does Tim here remind anyone else vaguely of Michael Pitt? We totally should have done a Boardwalk Empire themed engagement session with these guys, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t end up being particularly romantic since I’m pretty sure that show had at least one death per episode. Instead, Stephanie wore a beautiful sequin sparkle dress and Tim vaguely reminded me of Michael Pitt and we were graciously granted permission from the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham to shoot in their old bank vault in an un-Boardwalk Empire way (although the vault could have very well been from the early 1900s… and we did make Stephanie use a very old wall telephone… and they laid on a floor covered in fake money…….. you know what? Maybe this was more Boardwalk Empire than I thought). They posed dramatically, they cuddled for a while, they ate pizza while showing us the Stranger Thangs RIP Barb video. All in a day’s work. A special second thanks to Pie Pushers in downtown Durham for also graciously granting us permission to shoot in their shop.
Megan and Carly met at a gym when they lived in North Carolina (Carly went to UNC and Megan to NC State). They lived in Durham for a while and it still holds a special place in their hearts, so they packed up their backgammon game and adorable mugs and hauled themselves back here from Lexington, Kentucky to have their engagement session with us. We had this planned for a long time and they were already in from out of state when both Geoff and myself came down with fevers and a sickness similar to the plague, so we awkwardly waved hello at them from about 10 feet away when we first met them as to not spread the contamination. Our jokes were far more awkward and made even less sense than they usually do, and my already poor ability to give verbal instructions to my clients based on pictures in my head became even poorer, yet somehow Megan and Carly appeared to have a good time (or they’re at least humoring us).
Despite our illnesses, we still had a great time romping around the Bull City with these two. I especially enjoyed that Carly is barely 5′ tall and I did not need my step stool to photograph her. They handled all obstacles (and parking cones) in stride, and our biggest hurdle was them being cool with the new Ghostbusters remake while Geoff tried desperately to verbalize that the original Ghostbusters is a national treasure that should probably have at least a few monuments in its honor. We talked politics and dogs and they told us about their wedding and Carly wore really cute shoes while Megan made me want to cut all my hair off again.