Top 15 of 2015

It’s that time again! Time for my top of the year blog post! These are my top 15 moments of the year: different memories or moments that happened that I just loved from the year. With them are pictures paired with the moment. I have done this since 2012 and kept it up since then! I have loved this fun tradition of sharing from the previous year and the fun moments I had during the year. I had such a hard time choosing just 15 moments this year! I had so many good ones! I might have cheated and even did more than 15 this year…

In the next week or so, I plan on finishing up my 2015 recap posts. I’ll be sharing my favorite engagement pictures and wedding pictures from the year. I am so excited! I still can’t believe we are already in 2016. Does anyone else feel like you blinked and 2015 was done and over?

Well here are my top 15 in 2015! In no particular order, here they are!

1) An Uber Ride and Trolley Ride 

This year for Savannah and Eric’s wedding, we traveled on a trolley with the wedding party from the ceremony site to various locations in the city to take pictures and then to the reception. For Ben and me to ride with them and still have my car available at the end of the day, we needed to figure out a way to get my car to the reception site at American Spirit Works, so after we left the hotel where the girls were getting ready, we drove my car over to the reception site to leave it for the rest of the day. We had an Uber pick us up to take us to the ceremony site at Christ the King Catholic Church. It was super easy and really affordable! (I ended up taking Uber to and from the airport last week in DC.) After the ceremony, we got to ride around with the wedding party to our various picture locations and have a fun time hanging out with all of them! I’ll say that I spent more time with this wedding party as a whole than I have any before, and it was a blast!

At the Jackson Street Bridge where we took some of the pictures!

2) A Rainy Wedding… Who Cares?!

Blake and Derrick were the second weekend in a row in which we had a rainy wedding at Hightower Falls, but the bridesmaids for Blake’s wedding didn’t care one bit! They let us go outside and take some super fun and awesome pictures. They took some cute pictures with the umbrellas and then I had them do a “screw the rain and let’s have fun” picture- I’m pretty sure I used those words? Despite the rain and moving the ceremony inside, they didn’t let a little rain ruin Blake’s special day. They embraced it and we had a blast!

3) An Adventurous Bride

Can I just tell y’all how awesome Alicia is?? She is the perfect MMP Bride! It rained on her wedding day all morning, but cleared up right as we were ready to do her first look with Alex, so it was still damp and wet outside. The venue at The Mill at Yellow River showed us this awesome spot where we could go by the water and get some great pictures of the building as well, but the only catch— Alicia had to climb out of a WINDOW to get to it. Granted, it’s a tall window that acts as door, but still, she had to climb down in her wedding dress on a wet railing in heels. I told her that I understood if she didn’t want to do it, but she was all for it and I was soooooooooo excited! We got our best pictures of the day at the spot! At the reception, Alicia came and hugged me and told me that going down there and doing a First Look was her favorite part of her day. I love it! Their wedding was featured on Borrowed and Blue last year!

Ben captured this awesome picture of Alicia climbing down to the water
4) A Berry Connection

If you went to Berry College, you know how much fun it is to find someone who went there as well. Being such a small school (around 2,000 undergrad students), it’s not like running into someone who went to UGA or some other big school. We were at one of our bridal shows and got to talking and discovered that we both went to Berry! Jen was a senior at Berry when I was a senior in high school, so we never went to Berry together; but we had mutual friends and similar experiences that we got to share as we talked about going there. We didn’t take any pictures at Berry for their wedding or engagement, but that’s okay. They picked some gorgeous venues for their wedding and engagement pictures!

5) A Ring Shot Co-Star

For Catherine and Muraya’s engagement session, I found this little guy hanging out on the flowers that I had planned on taking some pictures with Catherine’s engagement ring. I asked him if he could hang out for a minute and be the co-star of the ring shot for me. He obliged and said yes. I am just in love with this shot!

6) In Pursuit of Something More

This year, I signed up to be the city leader for Atlanta’s Pursuit Community group. We didn’t have one for Atlanta, so I prayed about it and signed up for the leader position for Atlanta. Since June, I have planned and led various different events for the ladies in Atlanta. I have loved getting to meet new friends in the industry and pray for the ladies in the group! One of my favorite events I planned was our styled shoot we did in August at Little River Farms. It was such a fun experience! I can’t wait to plan another one for 2016!

Awesome flower and cake combo from Holland Daze Weddings and Cakes by Carissa 

More florals from Holland Daze along with decorations from Miss Milly’s

7) Back to Where it All Began

My very first session to start my business was at Marietta Square back in January of 2008. I had no idea what I was doing with my little Nikon D40 and kit lens. It’s amazing to see how much I’ve grown and learned since then. I went back to Marietta Square with Kristian and Lance earlier in the year and loved their session. I went back to that first session I shot and looked through those pictures. I loved comparing the growth I saw in myself over the eight years in business. I even wrote a blog post about it to share my growth. I loved getting to share how much I have learned over the years!

Kristi and Cole’s engagement from 2008!

8) A Rescheduled Proposal

Back in July, Craig called me to take pictures for his proposal to Nicki at Serenbe. We were originally supposed to have the proposal happen on Friday the 17th. Nicki was coming home to Orlando from a mission trip in Honduras on that Wednesday, but got sick while down there. Unbenwonst to them at the time, she had Dengue Fever! Neither of them actually live in Atlanta, though. Craig is here this summer for an internship and was having Nicki come up to visit for the weekend. Craig really wanted her up here for the proposal, so Nicki bravely pushed through it, packed her bags to fly up to Atlanta, and drove to the airport. Feeling absolutely terrible, she called Craig and just told him she wasn’t sure she could/should come up. They decided it would be best for her to go see a doctor and cancel the trip. Of course Nicki had no idea Craig was going to propose to her that day! But we are so glad she didn’t come up and got the medical attention she needed! They rescheduled the proposal two weeks later and I was there to capture the amazing moment! Their engagement was featured on How He Asked last year, too!

9) Hottest Engagement Session and Some Mosquitos 

Betsy and Brandon were troopers! Can I tell y’all how hot and disgusting it was on the day of their July engagement session? We walked a couple of miles total in taking their pictures because at Mason Mill, there are some awesome spots for pictures, but you have to walk along a running/walking trail to get to the various spots. Betsy had told me about these awesome ruins that were painted in graffiti that she wanted to take pictures of. We snuck back in the area to find it infested with mosquitos, so not only was it hotter back there because it was surrounded by tons of greenery, but we were getting eaten up back there. Back that’s okay! The pictures were totally worth it and I am so glad we went back there for pictures!

10) Indoor Engagement Sessions 

In being a natural light photographer, I like to take most of my pictures outside in natural light. That doesn’t mean I can’t do pictures indoors, I just choose to go outside most of the time. But in the course of two weeks and two engagement sessions in row, I had requests from Carly/George and Savannah/Eric to do at least part of their engagement sessions indoors. Carly and George wanted theirs in their favorite coffee shop location in Roswell at Roswell Provisions. Savannah and Eric wanted theirs at one of their favorite restaurants, The Wrecking Bar in Atlanta. I stretched myself to do pictures that I normally didn’t do and was so pleased with the results. I am so happy that they loved their pictures at these two sessions!

Carly and George’s super cute coffee shop session
Savannah and Eric’s brew-pub session!

11) When Friends Become Clients

Of all of my 2015 clients who’s weddings I shot and engagement pictures I did (this ended up being close to 30), Hailey and Matt were the only ones I knew ahead of time on a personal level. I love that my clients become my friends and that my business is built on a personal relationship with my clients; but I also love it when my friends become my clients. Hailey had always wanted me to do her wedding. In fact, just last week my TimeHop showed me a message she sent me five years ago saying “I need to find me a man so that I can get married and have you take my pictures.” I LOVED seeing this pop up! I sent it to her immediately and said “done and done.” She just laughed and reiterated how happy she was that I was able to shoot her wedding for her. I love it when my clients trust me to take their pictures. There’s something special about a friend trusting you to shoot their wedding. I loved getting to be a part of their Emory Conference Center wedding!


12) Unplanned Awesomeness

I call this next moment, “unplanned awesomeness”, because that is exactly what it was. We were at Stone Mountain for Tawny and Jacob’s engagement session; we had originally planned to go to the Grist Mill for some pictures and then ride to the top of the mountain for sunset pictures with the city in the background. When we went to park at the SkyRide, the parking lot was full. The next lot was a little ways away and walking over to the SkyRide and getting to the top in time for the sunset and enough light wasn’t likely. I pulled around the corner of the parking lot and happened upon this awesome spot with some exposed granite from the mountain, some trees around, and these awesome yellow flowers everywhere. I know without a doubt that I would be happier with the pictures we got here than any we would have gotten on the top of the mountain. This part of their engagement session is by far some of my favorite engagement pictures of all time.

This picture alone booked me three weddings and has gotten me a inquiries for 2016 since I have used this picture on a handful of Facebook ads. Recognize this picture, Kristian, Lauren, and Carly? 🙂

13) Shoot and Share Contest 2015

Last year, I participated in the second annual Shoot and Share photo contest. There are a number of categories and 40 pictures that we can submit. Last year, I wasn’t expecting much seeing as there were TONS of photographer and pictures, but this picture from Alicia and Alex’s engagement session made it to the finalist category in voting. We vote ourselves for each other’s work. It’s such a cool concept. I’m getting my pictures together for the 2016 contest that starts in just a few weeks! I can’t wait!

14) A Fire Alarm and Flexibility

Well, at Laura and Mark’s wedding, a fire alarm got accidentally pulled or hit or something at the Historic Dekalb Courthouse, and we had to exit the building for a period to get it figured out. Because of this, we had some of our schedule thrown off. Everyone was outside of the building because of the alarm, so instead of doing Laura and Mark’s pictures first (they already had their First Look at their house earlier) like we had planned, we went ahead and did the family pictures since they were all standing there and waiting! It worked out fine! What could have been a slightly stressful moment of the day turned out to be a convenient and flexible part of the day.

15) An Eno Engagement 

Elizabeth and Dalton’s engagement session at Sope Creek and the Paper Mill Ruins was so much fun! They brought a couple of outfit changes and a few props for the session, but their Enos were my favorite addition to the session. We had so much fun getting to take cute pictures of the two of them in their Eno’s! I can’t wait for their wedding this year!

15) (+1) A Sprinkler Makes for Interesting Pictures

At Lauren and Ned’s wedding this fall at Flat Creek Country Club, we had an interesting moment when were taking the bridesmaids pictures— all of a sudden there was a sprinkler spraying in the direction of the girls! We had to run quickly away from the spray and mist that shot towards us!!! It was pretty funny as once it was done, we went back to take more pictures, but had limited time until the sprinkler was back where we were! It was a funny moment to say the least. I’m glad the girls thought it was funny. 🙂

Make sure you check out my 2015 weddings here!

And don’t forget about those 2015 engagement sessions either!