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.

When Carly and Jay inquired about their wedding, they told us that Jay really likes singing Usher for karaoke. They also told us that they like No Doubt and Horse Feathers. We replied to their e-mail stating that we weren’t quite able to rectify their love of those two bands with Usher, but that we’d overlook their discrepancy. They responded by challenging us to a heated debate and/or lightsaber battle to prove to us that 90s Usher is the best. We counter-offered by challenging them to a game of ping pong in our office. They lost. We won. No Doubt beats Usher. They’re still upset about it, but whatever.

They still hired us to shoot their awesome wedding in downtown Durham. Carly’s parents own the sweetest private residence of all private residences where they have a rooftop that overlooks the city as well as a thousand other super cool things about their house (a giant safe! a cool spiral staircase! a library wall with a Beauty and the Beast-style library ladder!), so they decided to get married there (it wasn’t a hard choice). It translated into an amazing wedding venue. And now we are super lucky to call Carly and Jay our friends, and despite their interesting fact stating that they hope to spend their lives together abroad, we’re pretty sure that they like us enough to stay here… or at least hide us in their suitcases.

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  • Date: June 20, 2015
  • Ceremony + Reception Site: Private Residence // Durham, NC
  • First Dance Song: “Walking on a Dream” – Empire of the Sun
  • Carly’s Occupation: High School English Teacher
  • Jay’s Occupation: Bartender and student at UNC
  • How You Met: Carly tried to get Jay to dance with her after a few too many beers. Jay politely turned her down…then asked her out the next night. They fell in love 2 hours later. :)
  • Interesting Fact: We lived in Korea and traveled around SE Asia together. We hope to spend most of our lives together abroad.
  • Honeymoon: Hiking, camping, and relaxing in the Canadian rockies and Vancouver for 3 1/2 weeks. Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.
  • Vendor Credits: Officiant – Reverend Ingrid Sagula | DJ – DJ SPCLGST | Florist – Gillian Rose Galdy | Cake – Amelia Smith | Caterer – Durham Catering | Hair/Makeup – Arrow Salon | Coordinator – A Swanky Affair (Amanda Scott) | Ice Cream – The Parlour

This was our very, very last shoot of 2014 and we have to say that it was a very good year. Soon we’ll be posting our year-in-review posts, but we had to put this up first to officially end our year right. :) We couldn’t have asked for two better people to round out the last twelve months with! Also, we’re kind of oddly similar. Apparently Carson just recently shaved his beard, or else it might be difficult to tell us all physically apart. My sister saw the sneak peek I posted of them right after the session, and had a strong negative reaction when she thought some other guy was kissing me (right before the holidays, no less!) and wondered what I had done with Geoff, until she realized that was not, in fact, me in the picture.

Virginia and Carson recently got engaged, and they also recently moved to Durham. Virginia accepted a position as a librarian at Duke and Carson is in law school, and Durham happened to be a great location for the both of them to do their adult job stuff. So they moved into an adorable house with their furry friends: cats Spike and Pickles, and Brittany Spaniel named QuiQui (who is, obviously, European). Virginia really wanted to have engagement photos, but she really didn’t want to have them actually taken, but she promised us she wouldn’t roll her eyes through the whole session, so we showed up at their house and went to work. And throughout the entire thing, both in their home and out on 9th street in the cold, Virginia didn’t roll her eyes once! In fact, her and Carson were just plain adorable. They cooked in their kitchen (mmm, cheese spread), played guitar for us on their porch (they are talented musicians and singers!), and were generally very receptive to cuddling on their couch with QuiQui and also posing by strange vans in alleyways. We had an awesome time getting to know them both, and we’re so happy to have been able to finish our year with this really cute duo.