Rockstar Couple: Billy & Christine

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.

James' photo featured on The Pioneer Woman's photography blog today!

Today we woke up to find James' beautiful photo of his sister Maria featured in Group 2 of the Pioneer Woman's Your Best Photo challenge! Pretty awesome!!

Rockstar Couple: Mike & Andrea

Mike and Andrea are the kind of people that you instantly relax around. Our job is an amazing but nerve-wracking gig sometimes and couples like Mike & Andrea make us wonder what we ever worry about...our couples rock!



These two have been together forever...and I mean forever...and they just radiated love and happiness all evening. They almost made me totally forget that just before the bride walked down the aisle, my Canon bit the dust.



See that? That was my last frame...but it is one of my favorites this year. Andrea's face is pure excitement!

One of the many reasons James and I come as a package deal (aside from his obvious decorative qualities) is for situations like this. James didn't miss a step taking over and I became the light technician for the event. We had a great time collaborating on images and I got my camera back a couple of weeks later with a brand new shutter!

Formals were a blast with this crowd.



The sun was high, unfiltered and hot but a little collaboration (possibly a little inner-cursing) and a lot of battery power bent it to our mighty will and gave us this dramatic, almost cinematic light.



Did I mention they were fun?



The reception was wild, Mike and Andrea's friends waited a long time for that wedding and they got a rockstar welcome as the golden sun lit up the entire reception room.



James took this while laying in a spilled drink on the floor. My guy has dedication!



Some couples just have it...and James and I are lucky that they take us along for the ride!

Julie & John's Garden Engagement Session

Julie & John are tying the knot in style in historic Salem, Massachusetts next March and opted to do their engagement session in a beautiful garden created and kept by John's parents in Barrington, RI. The garden was beautiful and despite the humidity, it was a beautiful day!





James and I rushed from spot to spot in looking for the light while Julie and John patiently waited and John's parents looked on from the window. When we settled on a few places, we abadoned our bags in the grass (you'll see why this is funny later) and went snap-happy with our adorable couple laughing together.



About halfway through our session, I was holding a light boom-style for James and struggling to shuffle all the gear in my hands so I ran over to our backs to put my camera away and ran right back where I came from as our bags were absolutely swarmed in winged and unwinged ants. I'm not talking a dozen ants...I'm talking THOUSANDS of ants.

Luckily, only 50% of our staff are terrified of bugs and James went to work moving the crawling bags of horror over to the pavement in the hopes the tiny beasties would bail. Julie and John joined in moving backs while I squirmed and retched a safe twenty or thirty feet away.

We went on shooting and snapped some beautiful rim-lit and sunflare beauties at the end of our shoot. Julie and John were starting to wilt in the humidity at this point and I wanted to go home and take a shower in boiling hot, ant-murdering water.





Bug horror aside, we had a blast capturing Julie and John's smitten smiles and can't wait for March when we'll spend an evening at the Lyceum Restaurant in Salem, MA for their wedding! Till next time!

For more pics from this session click here and here.

Welcome to the blog!

James and I are really excited to start a companion blog to our website at http://altaredvisions.com! We plan to use this blog to tell the stories of our clients and their wedding days as well as show off images. We think it's important to get to know us if you want to work with us, so while it may not be a purist's definition of "professional" to put ourselves out there...we don't care.

We adore our clients and typically keep in touch long after the big day while we plan out printing and future sessions and of course as our clients pay us the greatest compliment in the form of referrals to their friends, family and co-workers. Because of this long relationship, we think it's crucial that we mesh and a big part of that is getting to know us as well as we will get to know you!

We're not the couple for every couple, but we might just be perfect for you!

As I write this, I'm fumbling through working a blogger for the first time in a few years so excuse the mess if you've found your way here before this "official" launch!