Tom & Naomi's Wedding in Nant Peris, Wales

This wedding was featured on the Whimsical Wonderland blog on October 3, 2012.

Oh, my goodness. Being friends with fun, adventurous, kind people is something to be grateful for daily, but especially when those friends ask you to be their wedding photographer, AND their ceremony is in the mind-blowingly beautiful Welsh mountains, AND they are willing to climb hills in rain boots in their wedding outfits for portraits. Tom and Naomi are two of my favorite people on earth, and their thoughtfulness and love for each other came through in every lovely detail of their wedding, which felt like the whole village was a part of the party, and not without cause - the 90 residents of Nant Peris, where the groom's parents live, all played some role in the wedding, be it providing flowers for the entrance to the marquee, decorating the cake, and catering locally-sourced food, in addition to serving as the mountain rescue team (whose services in that role were thankfully not needed). Tom is British, and Naomi is Canadian, and they met at their international high school in Groningen when they were teens, and have been together for nearly 10 years already. As a friend, being at the wedding was a beautiful event to witness, but my talented fiancée' Elger (his photos are credited underneath) and I were even luckier to get to spend the most time with the bride and groom as their photographers. Elger spent the day of the ceremony with the groom, groomsmen and groom's family, all of whom performed in the various creative portions of the reception. Tom and Naomi are not only very creative people, but their families and many of our mutual friends are also expressive and generous, and there were musical and theatrical performances throughout the reception. It's almost impossible to describe every wonderful little thing about the wedding, and I am absolutely gushing and biased, but hopefully the photos can help to share the downright magical feeling of being there, with the misty green Welsh mountains in 360 degrees around the glowing marquee, and the love, and the music, and the lanterns, and the happiness! Congratulations, you guys :)

Naomi's bridesmaid, Johanna, gave Naomi a manicure of sorts while her hair was up in curlers.

Naomi's mom, Joyce, went along with her daughter to the salon and got her hair done for the day, too.

Photo by Elger Abbink - this was the point at which Tom, when he was beginning to get dressed, realized that, if the weather got warm enough to justify doffing his jacket (haha - it was pretty unseasonably chilly so that never happened), his shirt was a tad too transparent...

Photo by Elger Abbink - ...so Joe, Tom's brother, and Tom quickly drove to Bangor, about 20 minutes away, to buy an undershirt for the groom.

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

While Naomi, her bridesmaids and her mom were getting ready at the guest house where Joyce was staying, a hilarious moment of pure Welsh stereotype occured: a flock of a hundred sheep poured down the main road of the village and very briefly into the yard of the guest house. Some wedding guests were actually delayed in getting to the venue on account of the sheep traffic. Only in Wales!

The third photo in this series was featured on the excellent Moment Junkie site on September 13, 2012.

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

Tom's family's home has a well on the grounds, Ffynnon Peris, named after an early Welsh saint, Saint Peris, where Allan conducted a blessing for the couple to close the ceremony.

Sidenote: these portraits were all actually taken on the day after the wedding, when we had the whole day to scope out the most beautiful spots around Nant Peris.

I LOVE their boots! Naomi's have pink VW Beetles on them, and Tom, the British groom, has Union Jack wellies. It gets no more British than this, folks :)

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink

Photo by Elger Abbink - Northern Wales is the home of Mt. Snowden and the biggest mountains in the country, so there are tons of hikers around (including in the back yard of the groom's family's property), and Tom and Naomi volunteered to hike a little way along the mountain pass to take advantage of the awesome view, when some hikers naturally came along.

In the Netherlands, The Impossible Project has revived the development of Polaroid film after its production ended in the United States. Tom graciously let me use his Polaroid camera with some color film to add to our photo coverage of the day!

(Yes, despite knowing the frame is square, my SLR instincts still kicked in for this frame.)

As the tent made the transition from ceremony hall to reception hall, guests were treated to bara brith cake and, naturally, tea.

Tom and Naomi are both members of an improv group, Stranger Things Have Happened, and their fellow improvers created a show for them during the reception.

D'Arrigo-Wit family photo session at the Noorderplantsoen in Groningen

Cristina and Ernst met in a place neither of them were from, and this beautiful Italian-Dutch family that has travelled the globe is now calling Groningen home. Their beautiful and goofy daughters, Carolina and Isabella, made my work so easy on Sunday morning in the Noorderplantsoen. We got really lucky with some nice spring weather in my very favorite place in the city!

Newborn portraits with E. in The Hague

This is E., she is tiny, and she is very patient. Her aunt asked me to take photos of her newborn niece in Den Haag, and I was happy to oblige! E's mom is American, and her dad is Dutch, and these two actually met in the exact same way as my fiancee and I - she studied abroad, fell in love, and got her Dutch significant other much more into American college sports. They are a great family, and it was a fun time hanging out with them in their beautiful apartment, along with their four pet rabbits. One of the bunnies makes a cameo in the shoot, and almost every toy E. has is also a bunny of some kind, so it wound up being a bit of a theme.

Mother's Day Weekend in Zeeland

This weekend, I was a gift! My friend Jeroen, whose awesome wedding I shot a couple of years ago, was brainstorming about what to get his mom, Josee, for her 60th birthday and Mother's Day, and luckily he and his sisters decided to give their mom the gift of an afternoon of family photography. It was a really fun and beautiful time, the family rented a house at the Noordzee Résidence De Banjaard near the seaside town of Middelburg, and it was my first time traveling to this unique area of the Netherlands. I was welcomed warmly, with generous plates of pasta and Belgian pastries (dessert with lunch, now THAT is a vacation weekend), and was lucky to get to photograph such a nice family in this idyllic setting.

This scene really just felt like walking into a magazine cover, for a story about family and enjoying quality time and good food. It was awesome :)

Newborn portraits of Anna in Groningen

And so, a month after doing a maternity shoot with her mom and dad, I got to spend the afternoon taking photos of Anna. She is already such a laid-back and pleasant personality, much like her mom. I channeled a little Anne Geddes (hopefully in a good way), since there's is simply no way around the preciousness of a newborn, and I'm looking forward to getting to see her grow up!

Michelle's mom has been staying with the family since shortly after Anna was born, so we wanted to get a multigenerational photo while she is here visiting from America.

When Dutch families have a child, it's traditional to put up the congratulations cards up in the house on display, so I figured we may as well have a photo of the reason for all the cards. Congratulations, my friends!

Reichert - de Caluwé Wedding

This wedding was featured on the Dutch wedding blog Wedspiration on March 8, 2012.

Happy New Year! I am very excited to share my first wedding of 2012, Barb and Edwin's ceremony at the Stadhuis in Den Bosch on a gloriously clear day (which in the Netherlands is indeed a miracle!). This  international couple met in Canada, Barb's homeland, while Edwin worked at her company, and they hit it off immediately. It's always nice to meet other international couples, and seeing two people cross borders and oceans to find each other is a beautiful thing. The ceremony was, to use a great Dutch term, gezellig, with just immediate family and closest friends, and the wedding room at the Stadhuis was beautiful. Congratulations and gefeliciteerd!

Michelle and Jeroen Christmas maternity shoot in Groningen

Merry Christmas and fijne feestdagen! Today I'm blogging from the quiet Frisian village of Warns, taking it easy on tweede kerstdag, as it is called here. But, way back this summer, I was lucky enough to end up in the same level two Dutch class as another awesome American woman who's now calling Groningen home. Michelle and Jeroen were so nice to work with, they're just effortlessly photogenic and were very sweet with each other, and their soon-to-arrive baby. It was an unbelievably beautiful day in Groningen on Christmas eve, and I really enjoyed getting to be a part of this time with them.

Bounds-Picou Engagement

Nate and Alicia are a lot of fun. I actually knew Nate's sister better than I knew him, since she and I were in the same grade in high school, but last Christmas I met these two at an ugly Christmas sweater party - I really brought my A game, with snowflake-covered stirrup pants - and then six months later I had the good fortune to be their engagement photographer. They chose Old Salem for their shoot, a colonial-era Moravian area in Winston-Salem, which was a lovely location to explore.

Wolf-Sacks Engagement

Jason and Amber are two of my favorite people from Pennsylvania on the planet. Well, even among people not from Pennsylvania, they're pretty great. They met in college at Penn State and wound up in Danville, Virginia, where Jason worked as a sports reporter at the Danville Register & Bee, which is how I met him when I was working there as a staff photographer. We did their engagement photos at the Danville-Pittsylvania County Fair, which was just ridiculously fun - tons of color and lights, and a hilarious pair of friends.

Ruitje-Dommel Wedding

These two are not only beautiful, super photogenic and totally adventurous, they are also two of my closest friends, so it was so much fun to spend their wedding day with them in Harderwijk. Karin and Jeroen looked like movie stars, and her  glamorous red dress brightened up the cold February day. This was my first Dutch wedding, and I fell so in love with the gezellig atmosphere of the bride and groom's families enjoying coffee together before the ceremony. Adding to the lovefest, my fiancee Elger helped me out immensely by shooting the wedding with me. The whole day was completely relaxed and reflected their personalities to the smallest details. And really, what's not to like about a bride in a red dress?

Blackmon-Friedman Wedding

Bob and Randy! I had the amazing privilege of shooting the Biltmore Estate’s first ever gay commitment ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 17th, along with one of my best friends and photo role models, Lauren Carroll. Bob and Randy are both incredibly sweet guys who are clearly in love, they were both living in New York when they met ten years ago (but they met at Key West, coincidentally), and now live together in North Carolina. They spent the day surrounded by wonderful and supportive friends and family, from a fun rehearsal to an after party with catering from Bojangles. They were a blast to hang out with, especially during their pillow fight! Last year, they adopted a precious little boy, and Sarah Whitmeyer of Whitmeyer Photography did a shoot of their new addition. Congratulations and Mazeltov to Bob and Randy!

Reibold-Shaw Wedding

Jake and Sarah's fall wedding in the mountains was warm and friendly, in spite of the chilly rain throughout the day. Staying indoors was definitely a good idea, and the view of the beautiful Appalachian mountains from the Champion Hills Country Club in Hendersonville made for an etheral backdrop. Jake's father was the officiant for the wedding, making it an even more personal and meaningful ceremony. Thanks again to Sarah Whitmeyer, owner of Whitmeyer Photography, for the opportunity to share this day.

Bathurst-Helms wedding

This is the very first wedding I had the privilege to shoot, in Charlotte in May of 2008, and Jeff and Erin were such a friendly and fun couple to spend the day with. They met at N.C. State University as students, and their personal wedding was such a sweet ceremony - they were so excited to be married, that they actually began walking down the aisle before the ceremony was really finished! And their enthusiasm to head to the reception was totally understandable - they had a FUNFETTI wedding cake, and danced the night away. Now, three years later, they have just had a lovely little girl. I want to thank Sarah Whitmeyer of Whitmeyer Photography in Asheville, North Carolina, for having me as her assistant for this great wedding, and giving me my first experience with the world of wedding photography.