September 24, 2014

Mint wedding decoration - For those who plan

Here is a post for those who plan.
Occasionally I get asked about good ways to incorporate personal style in a wedding day. There are so many splendid ways to do that! My tip is to focus on one or two things that are important to you, that is part of your journey as a couple. Limit your color scheme to three colours which brings more calmness into the decoration. Let the schemes and elements reappear in different places.
To show you one wedding which I fell in love with this May I selected my favourite details shoots from Sarina&Tim´s wedding
Sarina is a designer & takes great delight in arranging details.
Their most prominent color was mint. Oh yeses! I loved it like nuts! She had many great & also inexpensive ideas and I don´t want to hold them back any longer ;)
ENjoy!


September 22, 2014

4 Things I should have learned by now - Monday post

You would think that after shooting my fourteenth solo wedding this summer, there would be some kind of routine. But really there isn´t. Or at least not in many respects. After almost all my weddings I sit down and do a small evaluation of the day. I jot down things I learned that day and things I want to improve. Here are some things I should have learned by now...

1. Never, ever rely on the weather. As in EVER. Summer in Germany was friggin cold and I constantly wore the wrong dress and wrong shoes. Now it is mid September and I thought to myself. I will not let this happen again. Not this time. I checked the weather app in advance (yay) and picked out a warm long sleeved dress for last Saturday. Like I said. Never trust it. Even when checking the weather. It turned out all so much better and warmer. I, of course... melted and took the most happy sunset images on a dusty vineyard road which beautifully resembled to a tuscan country road. Gladly there where sandals among the shoes in the back of my car. 

2. Every wedding morning starts a bit the same. I worked on my routine and prepare all the packing the night before. Still I almost exclusively leave the house in a panic. Jumping over the bags, while munching down the muslie with one and doing my make up with the other hand... you get the picture. I am glad to say... I surprised my sister Viola by not having the panic mode on this week. We are getting there. ^^

3. A goal of mine is to get some grip on the amount of sleep before a wedding. This is such a hard one to tackle. No matter how much camomile tea I down, I never wind down early enough and it has gotten normal for me to wake up like one hour before the alarm goes off... and then I usually wait till it goes off  waiting for the day to begin. Because I am so excited for it to be a new day of my dreams. 

4. I way to often forget to take selfies. Why is that so? I want to take more wedding selfies. Not that I intend to run around with my own face in front of my lens while I am working.   I just mean one or two won´t hurt. This way I have some images to go along with the Monday posts. ;)

Here are some instagrams to go along with the story. Maybe next week I will have the wedding-selfie down ;)



This moment when I was finding my way to the location... 
my heart skipped a beat. 
I mean seriously! 
This was such a gorgeous moment of knowing, 
today I will be up there!


Have a wonderful new September week! 















September 15, 2014

When you are stuck - Monday Post

I checked the parking lot sign again. Not sure it could be trusted. I was just approaching the hilltop farm where the wedding would take place later that Saturday. The sign was pointed at a pasture of green. Of wet, soaked in days-of-rain green. I hesitated but then opted to follow that piece of wood still having in mind all the other times I had not followed signs... So I thought to myself this once I will do the German thing and followed directions. As it turns out it was the worst parking lot decision made in... uhm, forever.
After a bit of trying back and forth I felt the wheels turning without moving an inch and jup... I was stuck. Like literally. In the mud. 

Horror scenarios of the unfolding wedding day where forming in my head. You see, this location was not the only one I had to go to. We would start in the village & then go up to the hills. I was just checking everything out up front. My phone had no reception... naturally...
My head started pacing as I slowly started climbing out of my car. I felt my hands shaking as I walked up the hill. Not a good sign. 
The first guy I came across must have read the desperation in my eyes because he offered to take over immediately. As in subito. I handed him the key to my precious car and he said he would give it a try (bless him!!!) if this would not do it, he would get the tractor. 

This was only the first shocker moment of the day! The wedding was planned as an outdoor wedding and as the ones of you currently in Germany might have guessed, this time Plan B kicked in. As in cozy barn wedding plan B. We - bride, groom, me - in my car. Back up on that hill after the first shooting, now heading to the wedding ceremony. As I entered the ceremony barn only moments before the couple was to follow and found it was not just a little cozy dark it was pitch black in there... I literally wanted to scream a loud and audible **** (fill in whatever you want). Oh hello desperation again. 
I went down the isle with all eyes on me, dropped my bags next to a bale of straw and started bringing out the flashes. Nervously I adjusted the settings and held my breath for what was to come. I mean I use flash and I have exercised a good deal... but only for the party part of the wedding day. Using them spontaneously still makes me a good deal nervous. 

Fast forward to the second portrait session of the day. We were in yet another barn filled with straw and hay. The groom had found a rope and was literally swinging across the barn from one bed of straw to the next. I mean in suit and all!
Oh what a day we had. The bride & I laughed our hineys off as Tarzan leaped for Jane.

This was most certainly a new Saturday adventure of mine. At the end of the day, the ceremony images turned out a lot better than visioned in the adrenaline over kill brain of mine and the car was restored to former glory by the friendly stranger on that hilltop farm.

Do I need to add that the group picture was snapped from a dangerously high stack of straw bale?

Oh and there were cake pops!


This picture was taken near Roma, where I had travelled the week before. 
You know, to escape the rain. 
More from that will come to the Blog.



Have a lovely new week, friends!













September 10, 2014

Best Way to End a Wedding Day - Christina & Jacob Part II

For me, as the photographer, an excellent wedding day ends with a sunset session. And when there is a sunset like this one, unexpected, after heavy rain and just splendid... well, I´m in heaven.
As I mentioned in Part I of Christina & Jacob´s wedding, this day was full of surprises.
The time which this wonderful couple made for me, just as the light was right, was one of them.
An equally outstanding but totally different surprise waited for all the guests as we returned to the tent. 



September 1, 2014

Married: Christina & Jacob Part I



It all started in high school as Jacob asked if Christina would be willing to go out with him. This was ten years ago.

Where to begin? A wedding I have been part of as a friend and as a photographer. A wedding which is still fixed in my memory like hardly any other. A day full of surprises. All of them gorgeous and most happy turns of a day unfolding into the unknown. Like asking out a girl in the high school public unsure what her answer will be. 

We started out at Christina´s place, filled with friends from all over Europe. Both had studied abroad several times and have relatives from four different countries. Just imagine the lovely hum of languages mingling <3!

Christina had her dress designed and crafted by our dear friend Marta, which carefully followed instructions to wave a bit of red into all the details.
 Just like the rest of the day. Tipped of by bright red. 
With great love.

For the portraits we continued to one of the most romantic rococo gardens I know so far, right by their house. Oh my, the whimsy in every corner!! Needless to say I went a little crazy on the hyperventilating... 
And then the weather took a turn for the dramatic and started to pour. Like it was middle of October. I remember Christina describing the plan of the day to me... and as I asked for the Plan B, you know... every German outdoor wedding neeeeeeds this Plan B... she said, we don´t think of Plan B.