James and I arrived at Christine's "getting ready" location with open jaws. We get to see some really beautiful homes in our line of work and this was definitely one of them. We share a "luxury condo" which sounds really great until you consider what "luxury" means in terms of Fall River rentals. It's more like a nice brick building surrounded by dilapidated urban ruins...a cubic zirconia in the rough, if you will. We were in full swoon over the high ceilings and the oceans of beautiful window light that laid before us in this beautiful Gloucester, MA home.
I found Christine in an upstairs bedroom, smiling nervously as her sister struggled to pin the panels on the back of her gown in place. James was off light peeping around the house and as per usual, the flower girl and I got aquainted. Flower girls are always my favorite kids to shoot. No one does honest expression like a flower girl.
One of my favorite parts of my job is seeing all the unique details put into weddings. Everything is painstakingly selected and you can immediate tell a lot about the couple by the details of their wedding. Christine hand-made these amazing bouquets, I must have taken fifteen shots of them alone.
And her garters matched my camera strap...girl after my own heart.
Christine's father couldn't wipe the grin off his face all day. Look at this guy, this picture makes me teary-eyed. I know, I'm a wuss.
Remember the light I was raving about above?
After a renagade chase to track down the limo we opted to follow that left us at a redlight (now what did we learn?), we pulled into the church and scurried over to catch Christine getting out of the limo with the classic "let's do this!" smile on her face. The moments in the back of the church are some of our favorites because everyone is wearing their anticipation on their sleeve and that's the kinda stuff we photojournalistic shooters live for.
This shot of Billy as he saw Christine in all her bride-ly glory is one of my favorites from James this year.
Christine and Billy wanted to do their formals on the beach and as luck would have it, we had the perfect overcast sky for them! A bright, cloudless day on the beach is the kinda thing we have nightmares about. We did a little light testing and took some of my favorite formals ever.
They chose the beach because way off in the hazy horizon you could see the Boston skyline, where they met. Add that sweet detail to the rocking sailboats, golden light and beautiful rocky coastline and it really was the perfect location, on a very perfect day.
The reception was held at the
Gloucester House and full of some of those great details I was talking about up there. There were candles for loved ones who'd passed on over the fireplace, a cupcake cake, a scavenger hunt for the kids to keep them busy and "rap sheet" cards for guests to fill out with memories and info to be combined in a book for Christine and Billy. There was even a spot on the rap sheets to affix the mugshot you could take in their self-assembled photobooth that naturally we had to test out!
The food at The Gloucester House was amazing and their staff was great. The dancefloor got lots of action and the whole place was buzzing all night.
We had a great time with Billy and Christine and wish them a lifetime of happiness together. Thank you to both of them and their wonderful people for treating us so well and allowing us the privilege of being their photographers.
