Honestly, I should have done this post a month ago. I truly fear that a whole bunch of you will see this and go "I want an album" and barrage me with orders that I will be hard-pressed to fulfill by deadlines. However! Albums are so pretty and such a great way to keep wedding memories and photos in your life, that I am doing this post anyway and will work tirelessly for anyone who wants to make sure they get albums before the holidays (well, ok, Christmas. Hanukkah is so darn early this year, I couldn't possibly hope to meet that deadline).
I see my photography coverage as a three-step process: seeing, capturing and editing. Many people choose to get off the train at the second stop and complete the edits themselves (in terms of telling the story, not actually editing the images), which is totally fine, obviously. But lots of other people never get to that step and just leave images sitting in desk drawers or in my proofing gallery. The wedding album is the way to keep your wedding photos in your life. Plus, they are just so beautiful.
I offer flushmount albums in 12x12 with leather or cloth cover options, with a standard 40 pages (20 spreads). My typical cover is a 3/4-bind leather with a vertical portrait or ceremony image, though I can do other options. My lab uses a paper that is both creamy and rich and very matte. Blacks are truly black and other colors pop deliciously. Everybody gets my before-booking price of $1325 (plus sales tax) for the next week but
if you want your album in your hands by Christmas, you must get in touch with me before Wednesday, Nov. 6. In addition, if you want to order an album but don't care when it gets to you, I'll throw in three extra spreads for the same price and we'll get to work on those after the new year. Here are some albums I've produced recently. My apologies for the stained carpet - we don't have one of those houses filled with cutesy furniture and stuff to photograph things on!
The process works like this: you can either tell me to have at it and I'll design from scratch, or you can pick out 20 or so images that are your must-haves. I'll build the rest of the album around those images. I also ask you to pick out the family images you want in the album and we'll discuss options for the cover. The whole thing takes about a month, start to finish, and another two weeks for shipping (ah, we're seeing why we need to get cracking right away!)
As you can see, I keep my designs simple and I love using big images. I'm showing a lot of big-image spreads, but your album will, naturally, have to have a lot of pages with smaller images, in order to tell the whole story and fit everything in. After I provide the first draft, you're welcome to make any changes you want.
This is a sample album, to show potential clients, so I got to do some spreads I probably wouldn't ordinarily get away with, like this one. If you are more into an artistic interpretation of your wedding, or just open to funkier stuff like this, please let me know!
Finally, I'm happy to offer a less expensive alternative to my big album, which I call my book. This is an 8x8 book with 60 images on 60 pages. It costs $550 for the next week for everybody. My lab produces these much faster than albums and ships them quickly, so you have about another week to decide if one of these is in your pre-Christmas future.
So get in touch with me as soon as possible if you want to order an album! I will probably have to limit the albums I work on to maintain sanity and keep promises. Drop me a
line!
We started the day at Fusion salon, which is an incredibly cool place. It was fun playing with the art and funky colors everywhere. Also, seems to me that if you work at a funky salon, there's mad pressure to have weird hair. I wonder if that's a burden or not.
Then we scooted across town to Tresca on 8th, the ridiculously atmospheric historic ballroom right in downtown Lynchburg. We don't really have places like this in DC, so it was pretty neat. The upstairs was very rustic and charming.
They had one of the sweetest first looks ever.
After formal family pictures, we scooted around just one block of downtown Lynchburg. Fortunately, we were in a great industrial / old / pretty / graffitied area.
You may remember this mural from their engagement session.
They made this backdrop.
Snidow Chapel actually has some natural light going on, a boon for wedding photographers.
They rolled for advantage in saying their vows. And I have no idea, honestly, what the post-apocalyptic reading was about (and maybe I don't remember things very well when I'm trying to take photos so it could have been totally not post-apocalyptic) but it was quite a diversion from the usual wedding readings!
We took a spin around Lynchburg College after the ceremony to soak up some of the fall colors (which are late this year!).
Apparently Tresca on 8th doesn't always have these sparkly lights up. I think they were a great addition.
This image and the one up top were taken within seconds of each other. Yay for my key light not firing.
Check out Dane's engagement ring - the top and bottom rings rotate and the gears move! It's one of the coolest pieces of jewelry I've ever seen.
We broke to head outside and light wish lanterns. I'd never photographed that before (though I have seen it on Pinterest, of course). They're neat.
A special shout-out to Liz, who came to help me with this wedding.
Congratulations, you guys!
Rachel and Dane's vendor team:
Ceremony venue: Snidow Chapel
Reception venue: Tresca on 8th
Caterer: Avenue Foods
Florist: Leo Wood
DJ: Dave, Official Entertainment
Cake: Coffey Cakes
Hair & Makeup: Fusion salon
Rachel's beautiful dress: Justin Alexander from Sealed with a Kiss Bridal in Charlottesville, Va.
Dane's dashing suit: Jos. A. Bank
Photobooth: Grinnin' Booth
Lighting: Castle Event Lighting
Centerpieces & paper goods: DIY
Etsy finds:
Custom atlas and cake topper: WTFCharms
Companion cube card box: PayPahChasa
Companion cube ring tray: Silver Ivy Designs
We started the day at a pair of townhouses their families had rented in Washington, DC. Caitlin's family was staying in a former convent - it was such a cool place.
Toldja.
Then we hopped over to St. Matthews.
I really didn't even know cathedrals like this existed in DC. This is the cathedral where Red Mass is celebrated each year.
Caitlin and Trevor hired a tour-the-sites trolley to take the wedding party around to the various portrait locations. The lady driving was really funny, giving everybody the full historical breakdown of everywhere we went.
Wanting to add some spice to their portraits, we hit up the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum to get in some funky modern art stuff.
Thankfully the government had reopened just a few days before, so the Lincoln was fully available for wedding pictures.
Then we took the trolley across the river to Top of the Town for some amazing views, and a raucous party.
Honestly, the floor-to-ceiling windows are really tricky to work with, but they can be used to some pretty cool effect, too.
Their centerpieces included binoculars for spying on tourists at the monuments (or maybe just taking in the view closer...), so I played with that a bit. Here I'm focusing on the monuments through the binoculars. I think it mostly worked, but it's also something of a selfie.
Many thanks, as always, to my tireless assistant Julia, who shows no sign of annoyance when I give her "assignments" like "go stand outside and take landscape photos so I can stitch them into a panorama." Pretty sweet view, right?
Congratulations, you guys!
Caitlin and Trevor's vendor team:
Ceremony venue: