park tavern
Here is part two of Andy and Rachel's Park Tavern wedding. Not surprisingly, Park Tavern knows how to host a good party. You'll easily see below that this wedding was quite the party. :)
Did I mention I was the second most talented photographer at the wedding?
I've posted before on Facebook that often when sitting at a coffee shop editing wedding photos, I find myself smiling back at Photoshop. Not because I love the program, my computer, or my coffee. I smile because for wedding editing, I'm looking through photographs of two people on the best day of their life. Almost every photo has someone smiling, laughing, dancing, and sometimes crying tears of joy. Maybe it's the dumb reflex part of my brain wanting to mimic smiling faces I see or perhaps it's that through the hectic 8 hours of photographing a wedding day, I only get to truly reflect on the event when going through the photos days later.
As a general rule, I'm not often outwardly emotional as my wife (who cries at sad TV commercials) would note. However, having been married and seeing Keri walk down the aisle in her dress and having family and friends there, I know what it feels like to be overcome these feelings on this occasion. I say all of this because I smile a lot at coffee shops, but the other day I found myself tearing up. I'm not particularly close to Andy and Rachel, though I have spend time with them prior to the wedding and think they are a wonderful couple, so it surprised me to feel the saltwater welling up in my eyes. It was the following two photos in particular that got me. Maybe it's because I was in that same spot a year ago and wish I looked as sharp as Andy in his tailored suit. For me, seeing these two photos of Andy as Rachel walked down the aisle really got to me. You can see the childlike reflex of pulling his hands from his pockets to holding onto his suit like a security blanket. He was overcome with this inexplicable emotion of seeing Rachel for the first time in that long white wedding dress. I'm glad I was able to capture this moment on digital film.
These two photos aren't the most photographically impressive photos, but to me they evoke more emotion than most. These two got me. I'll post one more that I thought was sweet, then get on to the rest of Part 1. This next one is pretty self explanatory of the mother-son dance, and to be honest I think explains a lot about the two photos of Andy above. (p.s.- Andy, I hope this didn't embarrass you too much).
Alright! Now onto the fun stuff! I have to first give a shout out to the vendors as they pulled of a beautiful and fun wedding! Simply Charming Socials did the day of coordination and lovely decorations, Pink Cupcake Dreams brought delectably decadent cupcakes (I took a few leftovers home to Keri!), and DJ Andrew Wrobleski lit up the dance floor (more of those photos to come in Part 2!).
My friends generally know that I often have busy weekends. However, this weekend was my first wedding double-header in a while- one Friday and one Saturday. On top of that I had a maternity/family session on Sunday and a 3-month baby session on Monday. Needless to say I was a bit nervous about it all week. My main fear, oddly enough, was that I throw my back out at the Friday wedding and was unable to shoot the Saturday wedding. That obviously didn't happen, but I did find out for sure that I have begun getting tennis elbow from lifting about 15 pounds of camera, batteries, battery grip, flash, and wireless flash trigger over 1,000 times each day with poor form by my right arm. Both nights I actually had to ice my elbow! I'm getting old!
Both weddings went great. If you were outside at all this weekend you know the weather was some of the best Atlanta has to offer. Blue skies, warm days, cool evenings- just about everything you could ask for in a wedding- both of which were outdoors! I'll give more dedicated posts on both weddings once I get through editing the photos, but I will say I had a ton of fun all weekend. Rachel and Andy had such a fun group of guests and bridal party at Park Tavern that I ended up spending most of my time on the dance floor!
Here are a few photos from Rachel and Andy's wedding:
Lindsey and Mario had a beautiful wedding at Donaldson Bannister Farm in Dunwoody- actually the very first one that the venue has seen! I initially thought they "just" planned the wedding (note: the word "just" is in quotations), but after the ceremony Mario told me the ceremony site- a beautiful grassy garden area on the property- was a swimming pool just about a month ago! He laid all of the sod and did the landscaping himself! Here are a few from their wedding:
Now here are a couple from the Sullivan family shoot followed by two from my sister's 3-month old- Hudson. I know I know- I'm an incredibly efficient blogger! I say that jokingly- more on these 4 events to come!
