Kristina and Chris found us online, scooped us up, and away we went to Jordan Lake for their engagement session where they ran around in the woods and in the water and didn’t complain about the mosquitos that were eating us all alive. Probably because they are adorable together and very clearly adore each other and it is the most wonderful thing in the world to hear them talk about their relationship despite me not being a particularly gooey-love-story sort of person. The way they tell it, they’ve been best friends since they were eleven, living in upstate New York. And they always liked each other, but they were still always in the friend zone, and always dating other people. But still secretly liking each other. But still not doing anything about it. Kristina went to college in South Dakota, and Chris went to college in New York City but ::insert dramatic romantic movie music here:: they never forgot about each other, reconnected after college, and the rest is adorable history. They are both super outgoing, friendly, cooperative, hilarious people who were the best subjects! We had a great time working with them and dodging the incredibly huge turkey vultures that were definitely stalking us in the woods.
You know you have the right client-photographer relationship when you show up and the maid of honor that you’ve never met is really excited to present to you a dozen little miniature hands for you to take ring shots with, and then you proceed to also use the bride’s floral binder and Pantone color samples you find lying around and find out that the wedding is floral and Pantone themed. With little hands. Then someone casually suggests hanging the bride’s dress on a pointed hand that’s jutting out of the wall, but it’s facing the wrong way, so the bride gets up on the counter with a hammer and a drill and proceeds to move the hand. Then they tell you that all of the bridesmaids have temporary tattoos that are scented. These… these are my people.
I won’t say too much about Molly and Trevor because they already know we love them, and they already know how fantastic they are (they are the only clients we’ve had to put their photos on a potato), and I already went over some of that from their engagement session (their apartment which is super fabulous and was published on Apartment Therapy, is now going to live on in our dreams as they’ve just recently bought a house which will be, I have no doubt, equally fabulous). So now I’ll just concentrate on their wedding which was pretty incredible. They wallpapered everything. The bar, the seating sign, the aisle runner, the band’s backdrop! Everyone’s table seating had Pantone colors with their names printed on them that doubled on the back as postcards! The kids had matchbox car boutonnieres! I could go on and on for a while but I’ll just stop with Molly’s dress which was incredible. It was floral. It was fantastic. And it was totally a prom dress from Nordstrom’s (we’ve already had a lot of people ask us, so there you have it folks). She said she wasn’t sure when she’d wear it again, but I assured her that she should just wear it all the time because why wouldn’t you.
• Date: April 15, 2017
• Ceremony + Reception Venue: Duke Gardens // Durham, NC
• First Dance Song: “You’ve Got a Friend” – James Taylor
• Molly’s Occupation: Children’s Museum Exhibit Designer
• Trevor’s Occupation: Biochemistry PostDoc
• How You Met: World Wide Web
• Interesting Fact: We have the exact same glasses prescription.
• Honeymoon: Eventually Norway.
• Vendor Credits: Officiant –Meghan Benson. Band – Liquid Pleasure Band. Florist – Pine State Flowers. Cake – Sugarland. Caterer – Chapel Hill Catering Company. Coordinator – Grace Beason of Grace Leisure Events. Molly+Ferry’s Hair: Stephanie Boettcher at Arrow Studio. Molly+Ferry’s Makeup – Pam Hung from OnLoKation Makeup. Bridesmaid’s Hair – Posh Studio. String Musicians – Save the Date Music. Photobooth – Zimzoom Photo Booth. Transportation – Greenway. Ice Cream Truck – The Parlour. Lighting – GetLit Special Event Lighting. Spray Tan – Tansformations.
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.