Why Every Couple Should Do An Engagement Session!

As a wedding photographer I understand why a couple should have an engagement session . . . but maybe you are wondering why you should have a session and what is it's importance? I am excited then you stopped by!! An engagement session is so much more than having your photographs taken.  It is a time that our clients can begin to experience what they can expect from us! Also, it is a great way for us to connect even more with each other! We believe that your time in front of the camera should be fun, easy going and relaxed. So here are a few reasons why you should have an engagement session!

Engagement sessions are a great trial run! This is the time for you both to just relax and get comfortable in front of the camera. An E-session affords you the time to learn posing, gain confidence and have fun doing it!  It usually takes a couple about 15-20 minutes to warm up and after that, everything clicks beautifully. On your wedding day, you shouldn't have to try to learn or worry about posing, you already are a pro from the engagement session! It is amazing then how everything flows together and the bride and groom are showing off with the best poses!
 

An engagement session lets us get to know one another!  An engagement session is a fun and relaxed time in which you get to know more about me and how I flow, work, but also have fun! I also have this time to get to learn more about the two of you and it the love story began. By the end of the session, we all are comfortable with each other and ready for your big day! By getting to know my bride and groom, creating a connection between us, it allows me to truly capture their personalities!

Boost your confidence for the wedding day! Besides learning to be more comfortable posing as well as in front of a camera, this time will help you build confidence. Once you see your engagement photographs, you will have confidence to pose without us even helping and know how to rock in front of the camera! If the session is taken at the wedding venue location then you could remember your favorite(s) spots you loved! You will remember what your favorite poses were, be a PRO, and it will feel like a piece of cake! You won't even need to worry about anything when it is time for your romantic session images.

Images to use! Don't get me wrong, Sara takes a lot of pictures of us all the time and I do love them! But I really do love when we have professional pictures taken of us. Isn't that the same with you? You probably have tons of self-taken images of you two, but when have you gotten your images professional done together? The quality of these images are what add to memory of the image, even still viewed in digital form! With quality photographs from your engagement session, you can do some many things with them! You can hang some beautiful prints on the wall in your home or to keep one your desk at work! You can also include these photographs into your wedding by creating “Save the Date” cards, at the wedding have an engagement book for guests to sign, or even a photograph to display at the reception!

Still wondering if you should have an engagement session?  Oh, YES! (In all caps too!)

I highly recommend it, so much so that we have some big changes coming! So keep posted as we will be sharing that quite soon!

Invitations Inspiration

When you're planning your wedding, you have everything in the world to think about! The dress, the colors, the invitations, the decor, the venue (either one or two locations), the cake, the flowers, the photography, and the list never ends! But honestly, don't worry!! Taking it one step at a time and asking for help is a wonderful thing! Also, professionals in the wedding field are a great resource for you to use to help you!! Not to run over your dreams, but to help make those dreams a reality.

One of the first thing your guests will see a preview of the wedding is the invitation! It sets the stage of elegance, beauty, and how timeless your wedding will be. Pasha Davis, with Davis Design LLC, has created beautiful invitation sets from Charlotte, North Carolina. Pasha sent us a few of her favorite invitations she had previously created for her past brides. The invitations held so much beauty and each one was unique in their own way! Different fonts, colors, sizing, and shape! It makes my head spin with how creative she is when designing these!

Pasha took some time to share her thoughts with you:

 1. Why should a bride have her invitations professionally done?

A bride should have her invitations professionally done for many reasons. The biggest reason is because her time and effort is valuable. A professional ought to be able to take a bride's vision and create a stationery set that showcases the personality and style that the bride wants, which takes stress off of the bride. Just like with their floral arrangements and table setting, a bride ought to be able to find the stationery set that they love and a professional ought to be able to replicate it while personalizing it for the happy couple.

2. How far in advance should she begin working with her professional?

Depending on what stationery pieces a bride wants will depend on when she should begin working with a professional. For those brides that can't wait to send out engagement announcement, they ought to begin working with a professional soon after the engagement. For those that are sending out save the dates, then she would ought to start working with a professional 9-11 months before the big day. For those brides that are just sending out invitations, then she should begin working with a professional 6-8 months before the big day.

3. Can you tell us about yourself, what you do, and why you love it?

I'm Pasha Davis, co-owner of Davis Designs. We're a small design boutique located in Charlotte, NC; but we serve clients worldwide. We love working with couples and bringing their personality and style out in the stationery we create for them. Everything we do is custom because we feel no two brides are alike and it should show in their wedding stationery.

While our website is being revamped, take a moment to check out our Instagram page for a look at our past work: http://www.instagram.com/thedavisdesigns


Sara and I really had a BLAST pulling out our cameras to photograph! If you are getting ready to start your invitation planning, here are a few ideas to help you along your journey!

Thank you Pasha for letting us photograph these gorgeous invitations!

We're On A Mission!

Our Blog Mission Statement.

Our blog has been rejuvenated, with a new look, new postings as well as more photographs of Sara and I.  You may have noticed that we have been posting quite a bit lately and now that we have gotten into a groove, I wanted to share with you where we are taking our blog over the next year by giving you our purpose or ‘mission statement” as to what you can expect!  
 
1.  God first! Why I may not always know where He is directing me, I trust Him first and foremost to do so.  I have felt for a long time that I have needed to find my writing voice again and share more, so I am so excited to start really blogging again. 

2. This blog will:

o   Be a community for all of our brides.  Where they can come to learn more about bridal education posts and sharing their images and stories.

o   Be a leader in our area to educate, inspire and help others. 

3.  The posts you read will be to:

o   Inspire

o   Educate

o   Share

o   Entertain        

If we are on a mission, this is what you can expect: 
 
1.  We're on a mission to post at least two blog posts every week!

o   The blog will be filled with all of the sessions we photograph; as well we want to provide education for our brides! We want to connect, inspire, and post helpful tips that you might need for your big day.         

o   We not only want to provide education for our brides, but for aspiring photographers!

 

2.  We're on a mission to encourage woman! We want to encourage them as they work in this busy lifestyle with helpful tips we have learned by owning a business. 
 
3.  We're on a mission to spice up your life by getting a little personal!

o   We want to show more of how Sara and I work together, but also how we keep our mother-daughter relationship fresh, fun, and laughable! #mommaandbabybearadventures         

o   Being Italian, you have to love cooking! And we cannot wait to share with you our love of cooking!         

o   Not only do we love cooking, but we also love decorating, painting, and gardening!         

o   We can show you all of these loves with how transformed our backyard into Sara’s dream wedding and so much more! 

 

4.  We're on a mission to show you what the first year of married life is like!   Sara will be posting on the blog too!  As a new bride/wife she knows what the first (and going on the second) year of married life is like. You will get to read all about #riversmarriedlife soon! 

Photo Credits: Katelyn James

Is there something special you would like to hear about? Let us know by leaving a comment below.  We hope that you will stick around for all the exciting new things as we CANNOT wait to share our next post!

A Love That Lasts

Your wedding day is a day that you will remember for the rest of your lives, it is true! And you hire a wonderful photographer to capture that day, but what about after years have passed? What about when life swirls around you and years later you own a home and you have kids? Spending time with your love is something SO important. It also is wonderful to celebrate the length of your marriage (no matter how short or long)! One way that you can do this is to go have a romantic and fun couple session to feel those butterflies again! Along with have a wonderful time, you also get pictures to remember!!

We recently just had a wonderful time photographing a fun, yet beautifully romantic, mini couple session with Doug and Susan. This past May, Susan and Doug just celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary! (Congratulations!!) Sara just loved this because she is close friends and church members at the same church with the couple! She actually could NOT stop talking about how excited she was to photograph it. And we really did have a BLAST.  First, they knew exactly how to flow with each other, and Doug just knew how to make her smile. It was too precious. Secondly, it was right in our backyard and that sun flare came right at the perfect time! Here are just few of our favorites! :)

 

Of course you have to get one of the kids in there. ;)  

 

LOVED this time we were able to spend together!

Just the two of us!

Celebrating the women in our life is so important! Sara and I have something unique, yes we are mother and daughter, but more than that we are the best of friends. I am so blessed by her and that I don't take that for granted, not one moment.  We believe that photographs should be cherished, that is why we recently put our cameras down (well sort of...we couldn't put them down all the way!) and had our photographs done!  I love that we have inside jokes that made us laugh when we were doing these images together.  When I look at these images of Sara, they show her heart as she is one of the most beautiful souls I know. She inspires me to be the best person (and mom) I can be! That is why at every wedding we celebrate and photograph that special woman in your life from your mother to your best friend.

The BIGGEST thank you to Katelyn James for these beautiful images! You truly inspire us!

Shabby Chic Country Wedding of Kimberly and Jim's featured on theknot.com!

We couldn't be more excited for Kimberly and Jim to have their FABULOUS Shabby-Chic wedding at Starlight Meadows be featured on theknot.com. You can check out all of their creative and wonderful ideas here:  theknot.com! 

Their wedding dream team:
Starlight Meadows  - Venue
Blossom Artistry  - Flowers and Design
Bridal Mart - Wedding Dress
BellaTrio - Hair and Makeup
Sounds Galore - DJ
Carolyn's Cakes - Cake

Photography: A Celebration of Life

Three and a half years ago, I (Sara) joined my mother (Michelle) in this business and it truly was the best choice I ever made.  As you probably didn’t guess, my mother and I are very close. We work together, we live together, we host parties together, and we have mother/daughter dates all the time. She can read me without even saying a word and visa-versa. We have secret inside jokes and we work so well together. Jake and his mother, Carol, were the same way. Carol, my then boyfriend’s mother, was such a darling woman. She was inspiring and humble. Jake was as close with Carol as I am with my mother and that is why I fell in love with Jake.  That bond was so important to me; I needed my partner in life to connect with their mother on that same level as I did.

Carol knew and was so excited for the journey that I was starting with my mom.  As Jake and I continued in our relationship, I began to get close with Carol, beginning to view her of more like a mother-in-law than just my boyfriend’s mom. I remember Carol taking me through bins after bins of pictures from when Jake was a baby through high school. It was soo cute! Of course he did the typical, “mom, please stop!”  These memories bring me joy when I look through the same pictures she showed me. 

 

Carol with Jake celebrating his 11th birthday!

I know you’re probably wondering why I am talking in the past tense when I refer to Carol.  This is because three years ago, on June 25^th 2012, Carol passed away very suddenly.  Carol had a very rare disease called Dystonia. It is a neurological movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. Even with the struggles and the pain, she pushed forward with creating new memories and spending time with those she loved. She always would have a smile on her face! And as time went on she was in more and more pain, and as she was getting ready for her doctors appointment, her muscles began to contract and her brain caused her heart to stop. On June 25th, she passed away. A death at any moment can cause heartache, but this truly shocked everyone as no one expected it to happen. Jake was only 21 when he lost his mother. 

I remember that day Jake and I’s relationship changed and it turned into something deeper and taught us to trust in a very different way. I think that it also changed my mother and I’s relationship. I grew to appreciate the time and moments I have with my mother. I also grew to love, adore, appreciate, and fall more in love with photography. Photographs capture memories yes, but they capture emotion and life. They hold and remind me of times that have been forgotten. Jake cherishes those pictures he has of his mother. You can see how much he still loves his mom, even cherishing each picture of her and celebrating her life. 

There are points in life where devastation is real, but that there is beauty in those memories captured. When you see photographs of that loved one(s), it brings joy to you.  It truly has taught me how valuable a picture is honestly worth because the life is treasured. I know that reading this, you can think of someone and you treasure every picture they are in. Everyone can, which is a real and powerful thing! The need for photographs should never diminish, but rather be cherished even more so. 

 

A photograph I keep of my mom and I on my nightstand and its our favorite!

“A life that is precious is filled with moments you cherish.” – Unknown