Liz and Tim’s wedding was the occasion of our first Worthington family car trip with baby.  I wanted to take a picture of the car loaded to the brim with photo gear, diapers, and other assorted baby related items.  The problem was that I couldn’t get to the cameras beneath all that baby stuff!  We dropped off Lil’ Fiver at GiGi and Grandpa’s house and headed on up to New Jersey.

There was a lot happening on Liz and Tim’s wedding day.   For one thing it was Halloween and trick or treat time comes early in Liz’s adorable hometown of Haddonfield where she was getting ready.  While preparing to depart for the church, Liz was kind enough to share her big day with a few others who were also dressing up that day. In many years of shooting weddings I have never seen a bride handing out Halloween candy so Liz proved to me that I have yet to see it all!

It was also the third game in the World Series for the Phillies that evening.  So as to lessen conflicting interests among die hard fans attending the reception, a lone television was pulled into the main hall.  I never had the heart to ask how the Phillies were doing because it didn’t look good but with I figured that with a bar and dance party close by, where else could you possibly want to be to escape your sorrows?

Speaking of partying, check out the Worthington Photography bride sandwich going on here… Beth, Stephanie and Liz you know we love y’all:

We’re so honored that Liz and Tim invited us to be a part of their wedding, they are such a fun and happy couple.  Here’s a slideshow with our favorites and if you would like to see their online gallery, click here.  Congrats, you two!

Posted by Mel @ 5:44 pm, in Weddings | No comments | Permalink

Actually, he’s been walking for awhile… pretty much since his first birthday.  We postponed his walking shoot until I was back from maternity leave and then every time we tried to reschedule the skies would open up and it would rain.  This happened 3 times before we were finally about to get the weather to cooperate with all our busy schedules.

To call Baby Brayden a baby, while technically accurate, is a little misleading because he’s grown into Little Boy Brayden.  He moves fast and he is busy-busy-busy!

Since I started shooting Brayden at 2 weeks we have always sat him in a chair in his room for photos.  Not such an easy photo to take this time around: wild man didn’t want a shirt and certainly didn’t want to sit!  I can admit that my first reaction was panic: we have to get this shot, we always get this shot.  And while I did get a shot of him sitting in that chair and others, as I worked through the edit I realized that I was looking for the wrong shot: this is a little boy we’re talking about here.  He shouldn’t be sitting still in a chair, looking up at a camera angelically, he should be running around digging in the dirt!  And clothing should be optional.  Here’s the way the sequence was meant to be all along, ending in the action shot of Brayden springing out of his chair and running from us:

While Brayden is a professional biped on even ground, he’s still getting the hang of keeping his balance on hills.  While playing in the backyard he went from standing tall one moment to a face plant the next:

I love these photos of Amy and Jeff walking with him up the hill.  I love their hands holding on and then slowly, cautiously letting go and ready to catch him if he falls.  Its so symbolic.  Its exactly what this parenthood thing is all about.

This photo is also near and dear to my heart.  Its not so much the tricycle, its all the books and toys in the corner and all over the chair in the background.  I think that every pregnant couple swears up and down that their house is never going to look like so and so’s house with toys everywhere, no siree, not our perfect house.  But what can I say?  Kids change everything including the concept of our house, and definitely the concept of a living room.  Hopefully Amy and Jeff don’t mind me sharing this photo because its most certainly not a criticism, as my friend Jenn likes to say, it looks like a circus threw up in our living room.  We swore up and down that it wouldn’t but nowadays we wouldn’t have it any other way.  Its just life as it really is.  Its how we’re living.

I’m pretty sure than any and all family photo albums since 1940 include versions of the following photos, they are so universal and timeless.  You can give a kid all the brightly colored, electronic toys in the world and what do they really want to do?  Dismantle your kitchen cabinets and bang on pots and pans.  Sometimes you just have to give ‘em what they want:

Its been amazing to follow Baby Brayden through his first year and beyond, especially while anticipating and receiving a little boy ourselves.  Here’s a slideshow from this final baby shoot and if you would like to visit the online gallery click here.

Posted by Mel @ 7:39 pm, in Portraits, Wee Ones | No comments | Permalink

While shooting Roscoe’s newborn portraits last May, Jacqueline told me how much Sam and I were going to enjoy the process of preparing Fiver’s nursery.  She explained that she and Andy would spend time on Roscoe’s room as a way to connect with him before the birth, that it was a creative outlet for loving someone you couldn’t see or touch or hold yet.   Sure enough, our anticipation exploded into a flurry of paint, sculpture, and furniture last summer and I still love photographing the details of a baby’s nursery because I am reminded of the excitement behind every detail and decision.

I was excited to hear that some of the nursery photos from Roscoe’s 2 week session are featured today on Spearmint Baby, it remains one of my favorites to have photographed with its dreamy, muted colors and vintage wallpaper tree collage.  And of course, the famous knit bunny.  If you want to full scoop on the nursery, visit Jacqueline’s super fun blog, Marbles Rolling, and if you want to visit a great collection of creative nurseries for inspiration, definitely check out the featured nurseries on Spearmint Baby!

And yes (Carolyn), I will submit Fiver’s nursery one day.   If I can ever get all the toys picked up!

Posted by Mel @ 2:34 pm, in News, Wee Ones | No comments | Permalink

Christy and Tom wanted something less like a wedding and more like an elegant dinner party in a beautiful, outdoor setting.  Shawn of Beehive Events and Gay of A Pimento Catering put this vision into action on October 24th of last year where an amazing tent was constructed right outside the ruins of the old Barboursville Winery in Barboursville, Virginia.  My heart sank as we pulled into the vineyard in the pouring rain and trekked through mud to check out the hustle and bustle beneath the tent.  The bad news was that the ceremony would have to be moved from the ruins to the cocktail area beneath the tent.  The good news was that the sun made its debut shortly before the ceremony and brought with it a beautiful sunset for guests to enjoy as the reception began.

The tent by Sperry Tents Virginia was probably the most elaborately constructed we had ever seen complete with partitioned dining rooms, a 3-sided central bar with seating, a dance area and bare bulb lights strung throughout.  The warm palette of chocolate, royal purple and gold were fallish and inviting.  Shawn’s flowers were fabulous as always.  I have never seen persimmon included in table arrangements before and they made me think fondly of the persimmon trees we saw all over Japan last fall, oddly barren of leaves while brimming with ripe, bright fruit.  The food by A Pimento was a culinary delight that included a raw bar and 4 entirely different food stations serving organic, seasonal foods grown and raised by local farmers.   A table with several different cakes including coconut, red velvet, and cupcakes garnished with marzipan topped the evening off sweetly for those who had saved room for dessert.  Fire pits with couch seating behind the tent gave guests a great place to gather and enjoy cigars while taking in the moonlight.

The boutonnieres might have been my favorite detail as something near and dear to my heart.  Christy had the idea to use salt water flies to honor Tom’s love of fly fishing and Shawn ran with the idea to create these fallish fellows with acorn accents:

While we love Christy and Tom’s sense of style and desperately want an invitation to their next party (who wouldn’t?), we were most impressed by their warmth, their love of family and their sense of humor.  How on earth they ever found RC Cola to give away as favors along with Moon Pies, I’ll never know but we used that sugar rush to get us back home to Richmond in record time!

Here’s a slideshow with our favorites and click here to see their online gallery.  Congrats you two…

Posted by Mel @ 9:09 pm, in Weddings | 1 comment | Permalink