Wow, what can I say? Jaimee & Sean’s wedding was as expected, off the hook. I mean I knew given Sean’s background and years experience with Glen Sanders would play a roll in this wedding but wow. All that plus Jaimee’s style and personality and boom you got yourself an awesome party. Seriously Glen Sanders outdid themselves on this one. I think some of the Mansion family might have gotten a little teary eyed watching one of their own tie the knot. I can’t wait for our wedding with Mansion Catering.

So April 24th 2009 was a lovely day to say the least. When we arrived at the house Jaimee & all the girls were ready to rock and roll. The photo op’s started upstairs in Jaimee’s room where her last three sisters stepped into their wedding gowns. Then it was downstairs where Mr & Mrs DiGesare awaited to watch their last of four girls take that walk down the stairs in her gown. Jaimee looked gorgeous in a wedding gown she had added her own personal style and touches to fit her personality, the gown was from Something Bleu Bridal and Bird of Paradise Boutique. Then it was off to the front lawn for some fun and relaxed portraits with videographer Al Woodard along side as well.

When we arrived at The Hall of Springs Sean and the guys we’re ready to go as well. I expected nothing but a punctual bunch since Sean’s a seasoned veteran at coordinating events for Glen Sanders. I was surprised how relaxed Sean was, I figured given his background he’d be delegating and what not. Surely the whole crew up there at the hall had it locked down. The ceremony was totally unique with a lot of different musical numbers and some readings sprinkled in as well. It was so obvious during the ceremony that these two were so happy to be tying the knot.

The reception was for lack of better words, crazy! The New York Players were on their A game all night. The hall looked like I’ve never seen it before, all kinds of different color washes throughout the night the keep the mood and atmosphere constantly changing. It was awesome to shoot with all this color and I love color. Renaissance Floral Design had the personal flowers and reception flowers looking awesome too.  Jaimee and Sean’s first was dance was super high energy and was great to shoot. After dinner Sean surprised Jaimee with a custom jazz lounge in the back where there was an array of milkshakes, cookies and other deserts and the guests were loving those milkshakes. All and all I expected a fantastic and wonderful wedding and Jaimee and Sean sure delivered.

Enjoy, leave love,

JP

We’ll start from the top of the stairs… I love this shot. It has such a behind the scene’s feeling.

Jaimee & her three beautiful sisters.. can you guess the twin?

What a great looking bunch.

The ceremony by Renaissance Floral Design

This ones kinda fun… I love throwing the focus in and out.

I told you they were happy.

I love this shot of Sean’s sisters…

The only reason I’m showing this photo is because when I took it I said to Sean, “thats not the first gown you’ve picked up” and Jaimee was like nah uh! I said it because from the hundreds of weddings we’ve worked with Sean at the Mansion etc he’d often be the guy to work alongside the bride and groom and help out. Jaimee’s expression is great though, isn’t it?

What a day, look at that buttery light.

And this light!

You all remember their engagement shoot, right?

My favorite shot of the whole day.

Ok ladies, take notes. Jaimee hooked Sean up with a nice timepiece as a wedding gift. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m into a nice time piece. In fact I have the same one and love it. So Jaimee, great job here and Sean, welcome to the club ;)

Again the room by  Renaissance Floral Design

And here is the great David himself putting some finishing touches on that awesome head table.

The first dance was awesome.

I love when I can shoot available light during the toasts.

The jazz lounge opened up after dinner.

And we’ll end with this. After the cake was cute there was one last color change. How great is the image of Jaimee & Sean with the orange and all the smoke, straight up romantic.

Oh no, this blog post isn’t over… he’s a little video piece Sean & Jaimee’s videographer and our friend Al Woodard put together of me and big Joe doing our thing. (editors note: Al supplied me with the clips, I edited them, he’s a way better editor than me for real)

When Kristin approached me to photograph her and her brothers I was like yeah lets do it. She told me her boyfriend Adam and her brothers fiance Carol would be joining us and wanted to combine a small engagement session and also a few shots of her and Adam. Little did I know, I would then after hear from Adam via email asking me if it was possible to capture this awesome moment. I was like YES! Lets do it! So I worked it out with Adam and the rest is history, very cool history I got to capture.

We all met up in washington park and the park looked sweet thanks to the warm weekend we just had. We walked around and took advantage of some of the beautiful things spring has to offer. It’s great that April isn’t yet over but the parks looking like mid May.

Enjoy the post,
JP

So here’s a nice little shot of Kristin, with her brothers Jamie & Mike.

Jamie and Carol, a newly engaged couple…

Although its spring this kinda looks like fall..

fun…

Who doesn’t love a goldendoodle? Kristin & Adams dog Matty.

A little group shot on one of my favorite staircases

This is my favorite shot of Kristin & her bro’s

So here is the setup. I told Adam I would find the right spot (which I did before the shoot) toward the end of the session. I made the family and Matty go hang off to the side by telling them they were in my shot. Then started photographing them walking, interacting and what not. I told Adam I would talk up the shot and how great the lighting was and how I was loving the stuff I was getting and that would be the code. I think I even said something like “yeah this is the spot, I love this spot”. Adam didn’t waste any time either….

I love that in this photo, Kristin has no clue what’s about to happen. No clue!

Isn’t this great?

Her reaction was awesome!

Yeah thats right Kristin, I knew about it. Capturing moments like this is why I love photography. I’m so happy I got to share this awesome experience with you both.

After a a bunch of congratulations and phone calls, we moved back into the shoot…

a little “bling shot”

but this is probably the most fresh out the box “bling shot” to date.

Oh yeah! I know I just changed it back in July but with the growing popularity of the blog it’s time to focus on one site. I used to update our website once a year but now I just thought  it’s time to combine these two sites. Sure I could have done this with the old skin but why not roll out with something bomb just in time for the 2009 wedding season? This beautiful new blog-site will serve as the new www.joeelariophotography.com so no more /blog so update your links and rss feeds! If your reading this in a rss feed you need to pay me a visit and see whats new!

The design and functionality was made possible by  Stephen Orsini, founder, lead designer and programmer of equali. In January, Stephen and myself began talking about what we should do to make this blog-site better than the last blog that he designed. Not to discount the last blog at all but I wanted to outdo it and we sure did! So really the construction began in mid/late February and hours were logged into making this thing tight. I can’t say enough good things about Stephen, his talents, his creativity and knowledge to make it all happen. This guy is really easy to work with, we’ve spent so many hours going back and forth, bouncing ideas off one another and we couldn’t be more happy with the end result. So Stephen, THANK YOU for creating this awesome blog-site.

I wanted some cool functionality and style so here are a few things to know about the new blog.

• Lets start from the top. You might notice as you scroll down the navigation bar stays with you. This was Stephen’s idea and it’s great. Should you be at the bottom of the page and want to navigate to another category or search for something than its right there waiting for you.
• I wanted to have some changing images up at the top of the page but I wanted it a little smaller rather than taking up the whole top so we made that happen. You’ll also notice to the left of that it says “Greetings…” thats not always going to say that. It’s up there as kind of a mini blog within a the blog. Say we shoot 2-3 weddings a weekend and I’m working on the edits so I can blog some images I might write something in there to let you know new posts are coming. Or say I post 3-5 blogs in one day (it has happened) I’ll let you know that as well. Just keep your eyes on that top area.
• Now this is my favorite! This is like the token thing that makes our blog-site different from the rest. The feature image on the blog post. Mostly all posts will receive an image at the very top before the text, kind of as a preview to the blog. It just looks better than the title of the post, the category and date. I’ve went back in time and added feature images to all blog posts from 2008 so go look for yours!
• You also might notice this little vertical bar on the bottom right. Here you will find a link to my twitter and facebook. Since social networking has exploded I decided to ad these two features to my blog. I’ve been tweeting and facebooking for some time now anyway so if you tweet, follow me and if your on facebook be my friend! I plan to do a little tweeting from weddings this season, when I have free time of course.  I’ll also be emailing all my facebook friends images from their blog posts, I’m encouraging you guys to share them with your friends. Back to that vertical bar located in the bottom right corner. A couple cool features are the arrows that simply by them you’ll find yourself at the very top or very bottom of the page, just trying to make it easy. And that little sun icon is called “lights off” basically it turns off everything so all you see is the images, pretty fun feature. Lastly you’ll notice my RSS feed is there as well.

This post is getting kind of long and I wont bore you with the rest of the new features. Just go poke around and see what’s new. There’s a new post below as well! Also be sure to check back next week, we have two awesome weddings this weekend and the weather looks pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Let me know what you think by leaving a little comment love,
JP

Yesterday we both shot some portraits of an upcoming 2010 bride & groom in the studio. Not to be confused with engagement shots these are just some fun and nice portraits. Kate & Alex are a super fun couple and real easy to photograph! We had a great time photographing these guys yesterday it was just too easy. I really look forward to not only shooting their wedding but also their engagement shoot sometime this summer. Kate and Alex have some great ideas as to where their shoot might take place be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that one.

Enjoy,
JP

We’ll start off with a nice well lit portrait.

We did have fun though. I put the fan on and told Kate & Alex to work it out. Actually I told them to be goofs and this is what we got…

Just an outtake with the Big Joe.

But now a few more serious ones…

What a great looking couple!

But there’s NOTHING like that good old natural window light. I enjoy shooting in the studio but I’ve yet to see a light source as nice as the available one outside.