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photographs: Gia Canali; handmade folder and stitchin’, Tiny Pine Press

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The great thing about bridal portrait sessions, as opposed to weddings, is that you have the real luxury of having time to make portraits, slowly.  I mean: I love the challenge and the rush of making portraits happen in the swirl of the events and obligations of a wedding day (what wedding photographer doesn’t?!).  And Jess’s session was slower than most because we intentionally sought to make images on our slowest, most deliberate cameras.

Bridal sessions are about the bride and certainly also about her exquisite refinery.  Jess’s dress was designed and lovingly crafted by Suzanne Hanley of Atelier des Modistes.  Sue is a genius designer and I feel lucky to count her among my friends.   I particularly love the lace chevrons (though, seriously, I can’t fathom how much time it took her and her team to make those) and the bustle, which reminds me so much of the wild, wild west.  Jess’s bridal session is also featured {here} on 100 Layer Cake today, with an interview from Jess about the custom dressmaking process.

Neither one of us could have known that Jess’s wedding day would bring rain (or rainbows) and mud or that the slow moments in the day could be counted on the fingers of two hands, so I am extra grateful we made time early in the summer before her wedding to make these portraits.

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Jess found other value in making these images.  This is what she wrote:

“I thought it was really helpful to do the portrait session before, because it was an excellent introduction to you and Matt, and how you like to work. It was also great for me to hear some tips from you on posture, how to stand, how to act, etc., before the “main event,” so to speak. It was certainly a little more challenging to take photos alone, as opposed to how much more natural and easy it felt when I was with TJ.  But I think for people who haven’t been photographed much before [their weddings], it’s a great introduction. Plus seeing these initial proofs, I could then say to myself—well, I like it when I smile like this or that, and I love how my hair and makeup looks in these photos, and so on—so it was a great dry run overall.”

photographs: Gia Canali

gown: Sue Hanley, Atelier des Modistes, whose little shop in San Francisco I featured awhile back; hair and makeup: Sharon Tabb.

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I consider myself a collector of stories (sometimes a creator of them, but not in this case).  In this case, the story is even better than I’d imagined when I first came across this veil of exquisite beauty in the tiny bridal room at Stanford Chapel the morning of Louise’s wedding.  As she and I conversed (both there and since), and I learned more about the veil, I thought you folks might love this story as much as I do.

Connecting with the things our forebears have done for centuries is a powerful reason people get married and have weddings (and why it is an institution in all our human culture).  But getting to so tangibly, so physically connect to that past is one the rarest and most extraordinary privileges.

Plus: don’t you kind of love to imagine ladies with excruciatingly delicate fingers embroidering this lace by hand … over 150 years ago?!

From the bride:

“My grandmother grew up in San Francisco, and lived in an apartment building with her mother. They became close with Mrs. Kane, a woman down the hall who had no children of her own. When my grandmother was engaged, the neighbor loaned her a lace veil that had been handmade for *her* grandmother on her wedding day, but the neighbor never wore since she eloped.  The veil is well over a hundred years old! My grandma wore the veil when she married my grandfather in San Francisco in 1949. When they had three daughters of their own—Katie, Nyna and Mary Lou—Mrs. Kane decided the lace veil should be passed into our family permanently. Katie wore the veil when she was married in 1975; Nyna, who is my mother, wore the veil when she married my father in 1977; and Mary Lou wore the very same lace veil on her wedding day in 1980. From generation to generation, the antique lace will continue to be passed down to brides in the family, and I wore this same veil on my wedding day in March 2011.  My cousin Carrie will wear the lace next for her wedding on July 4, 2011.”

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This adorable wedding can be found over on {snippet & ink} today, and {here’s} a link!

Someday soon, I might post more images … might.  I don’t want to make promises I just can’t keep!

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S & E’s wedding embodied all the most elegant and magical things about wine country and we were thrilled that it was featured in this year’s C Weddings. So we thought we should offer a closer look at the wedding in its intricate and well-designed detail. Below: the bride’s ceremony-ready updo; bouquet of peonies and garden roses by Sharla Flock (complete with mint and dusty miller Sharla plucked from her own garden!); ceremony set in the ruins of an old winery. During the recessional, the bride and groom were followed out by a New Orlean’s style jazz band (!).

A ceremony design note: wide aisles are wonderful, and afford excellent vantage points for photographers and guests alike.  If you have the space, make a wide aisle.

During cocktails, Stacy McCain and her crew oversaw the transformation of the ruins area into a dining area.  We love the centerpiece design by Sharla Flock.  (I also worked with her on this inventive wedding last spring).  Meanwhile, the bride was transforming her look, too.  The bride and groom had a busy schedule, but we were happy to catch them here and there, in between the various parts of the day.

Dessert, dancing, and self-portrait-taking in the barn followed dinner.  If you look closely above and below, you’ll see some of the many musical ensembles that contributed to the festive mood of the wedding from beginning to end. One thing we loved about the wedding was how very different each part of the day looked and felt.  Musical cues were as important as visual ones.  We also loved how personal the food felt.  The groom’s family contributed produce from their farm, including almonds for badam kheer, a traditional Indian dessert drink (that I am now mildly obsessed with … and have started making regularly on my own!).  The couple departed the reception in a vintage Packard. I love the grand exit as a photo op (even if I am, as I was here, the only one there to witness it).

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photos: Gia Canali; planning & design: Stacy McCain Events; floral design: Sharla Flock; music (!!): Ed Ivey, Bay Area Booking; bride’s gown, Vera Wang; stationery, Hello!Lucky; lighting, Got Light; venue: Annadel Estate; catering: Paula LeDuc Fine Catering

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Two looks are better than one!  This bride had her hair redone during the cocktail hour.  I love how something so simple as letting one’s hair down really makes for an entirely different look (and a relatively budget-friendly one, compared with buying two frocks, for instance).

photos: Gia Canali; hair, Dano Abriol

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Not to mention that lace and water seem to have a lot in common.

photo: Gia Canali

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Meeting your expectations is (relatively) quite easy.  Meeting our expectations is what you want to empower us to do.

(Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of wedding photography expectations floating around from you and your parents and your grandparents, and while these expectations also are exceedingly important to us, we understand them easily and well.  We’re going to meet them and then some. We’re just saying: even so, do everything in your power to make sure we can also give you the photographs we’re imagining for you.  We’re not aiming merely to meet your expectations.  We’re going for extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, ethereal, take-off-the-top-of-your-head photographs. And that’s what you want to empower us to do.  If anyone has great expectations of us, it’s us. Learning to play that to your advantage is what I’m hoping to teach you to do.).

photo: Gia Canali

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