dreamy lakeside love.
I am really, really truly lucky in life. Blessed.
Without giving away too much personal info for the couple, they met on a dating site. I know some people are still hesitant about them, but more often I am doing weddings from couples that met there. Message me to ask which dating site. :)
I love candid expressions.
Random photo probably only I like. Reflection of chairs outside and one person inside in the exact right position to look like she’s sitting on the chair. If you ever see me shooting and are like what the heck is she doing..I’m doing something like this. Not only does it entertain me but it probably beats me simply staring at you waiting for a moment. You know? It’s a little less intense.
While I’m rambling about me, it’s a tiny bit of a drive from Asheville to this location, but I’m used to that. I usually listen to music to get in the zone, maybe eat an M&M Blizzard or a Krispy Kreme for that sugar high. For some reason I decided on self help videos and water only for the two hour drive down so by the time I got there, I was really, like… ready for a nap. That wasn’t my best idea for pre-wedding.
If you can imagine it, as soon as I got on the property, ya’ll, I kid you not, I smiled. Like, I genuinely started grinning because it was GORGEOUS with the lake background and small pool and hot tubs and bar and palm trees and whatnot. Life is funny like that. The clouds were perfect puffy companions to a Carolina blue sky with the breeze whispering a promise of summer across the lake. I’m not joking when I say from that second I was teleported into someone else’s romantic heaven.
All that joy I felt was even before seeing anyone there. And when I did, my first glimpse was of a bridesmaids decorating corpses for the “till death do us” underlying theme (not shown here.. I also left out the tiny fake spider in the brides bouquet. I needed to cull some of the images from the blog post). It was like, ok, this is a gorgeous day with some cool people.
And it really was.
They both kept their eyes tight shut to save it for that moment at the altar. But they did want to make sure I got a photo of them touching per-ceremony.
The face that says I’m ready. I’m excited. Let’s do this!
Holy smokes! Stunning bride seeing her groom waiting!
Yes, they DID do their entrance to “I got chills, they’re multiplying” and totally admire one another while dancing up a storm all the way down the beautiful stone steps and up the stone walk to the waiting guests.
Somewhere around this image I started balling. I had to stop shooting for a second because my camera may not have been waterproof enough to handle it. Not sure. But you know what, this couple has the perfect balance of silly and passion and it just is inspirational. Big fan over here!
Ok, so when you love someone you make sacrifices, right? And this bridesmaid missed her own college graduation so the bride said well we are doing a little something something and they did a mock ceremony and I loved them all the more.
Ok, it is really easy for me to be like you know what you should do? Totally go in the water on your wedding day in clothes you spent a fortune of money and time to find. But these two agreed. THANK YOU BOTH! I Love love love couples that hire me to do my thing and then will agree to it. I kicked off my shoes and socks and joined them, rather pointlessly since I have the lenses to do it from the shore. But it was fun and they weren’t alone being cold and wet after that. In fact, I had sand in my socks all evening long because at a wedding you dont get time to clean up when you’re the photographer- you just jump right to the next thing.
Backlit by the sunset, super romantic.
perfect expression, Nicole! I love it.
fireworks! just a tiny bit of photoshop went into this image, but so worth it.
All my love and best wishes to the bride and groom! Your love and connection are truly beautiful. <3 Lacey