Trash the Dress at the Florida State Fair!

Kori met us at the Florida State Fair after we all spent several hours stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and were terribly late getting started. But, it forced us to be more creative once we quickly lost all available daylight. It was a frigid evening and Kori was quite cold but we did our best to warm her up inbetween shots and she was a real trooper! We had a lot of fun and got some awesome, creative shots and we didn't really even hurt the dress that much! :-)

As always, here are my favorite photos from the shoot!

I get permission to shoot at awesome places and to use interesting things for my photo shoots sometimes. Many of my clients have kind of come to expect it and while it may not always be possible, we often are able to gain access to somewhere really cool for some awesome photos or convince people to let us use things.

A trainer was out training this beautiful horse and I got him to stop for a minute to allow us to get a couple beautiful bridal shots of Kori with the horse. This is my favorite one!



Then we headed into the barn for some photos real quick while we still had beautiful daylight wrapping inside.















And everyone knows how much I love COLOR! So outside we went to play and roam around at the fair and discover the vibrant colors everywhere! I felt like a kid in a candy store!













The guy who was running the ride was really hesitant to let Kori on the swing with her big poofy dress but a lil' convincing did the trick!







And on to another ride we go! Watching Kori hold on tight to her veil and scream was quite amusing!







Ok, so you remember the helicopter that was flying over Kori's head for those perfectly timed shots a few photos back? That is the official batcopter that was used in the 1960's TV series of Batman. They had it at the fair as an attraction! The guy who was running it wanted to know if he could take a picture of Kori. My bargaining chip was that if he got us out on the tarmac and let us shoot some photos while they were refueling the Batcopter that I'd let him take her photo. It was a win-win situation although I think I got the sweeter end of the deal! :-)









Did I mention there were tons of people in line waiting to get on the historic Batcopter? They all thought we were celebrities or something since we were granted access out on the tarmac for the shoot. It was pretty awesome!

And then as the light died, the pretty fair lights came on and I felt like I was in heaven. We've spent so much time recently experimenting with night time wedding shots and gotten quite good at it so we were well prepared for this when the time came. I absolutely love how Kori stands out in the scene of crowded people. She sure is a stunning bride!







Hands down - this is my favorite shot of the day. The motion was perfect, the lighting, everything... just adore it!! :






Loved the reflection of the fair in the water from across the fairgrounds. Absolutely beautiful!




Thanks again Kori for rockin' it out with us at the Florida State Fair in your wedding dress! We had a blast and you were awesome to photograph, as always!!!

Until next time....

Published on Rocknrollbride again!

Kat at www.rocknrollbride.com published us again today. This time, she featured Jennifer's amazing goth themed bridal session. (Featured below this post). We are so honored to be published there again as we totally love rocknrollbride and could spend hours on there looking at everything over and over again! Kat chose a ton of our images to feature so if you have a minute, head on over there and check them out. It's a blog and by tomorrow, we might not be on page 1 anymore so here is a direct link to the post on rocknrollbride so you can visit it anytime!

http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2009/10/happy-halloween-gorgeous-goth/

Hope you enjoy them. And thanks to all of my clients for being so fabulous!

Since Halloween is around the corner....

I thought I would share a bridal session I did around last Halloween for a wonderful past bride of mine, Jennifer who got married on Halloween in 2008. I've never blogged this before because I didn't even start blogging until this year.

Jennifer is beyond awesome in my book. She was willing to do anything we wanted her to do in her wedding dress and this session was BEFORE the wedding day! We just adore it when a bride gives us free creative control and completely trusts us and our artistic vision.

Jen got her amazing wedding dress from Brides Against Breast Cancer to support their cause. Unfortunately, the designer names weren't released to the brides who bought the dresses so we don't know who to credit for this ridiculously unique, awesome wedding dress but we do know that it made it's debut in a runway show in New York before Brides Against Breast Cancer picked it up.

(Side note) - As most of you are well aware, my mother passed away from Breast Cancer in early 2004. I cannot stress enough how amazing it is that a foundation like BABC exists in the over-saturated wedding market. Every gown given by a designer or another bride to BABC is a gown purchased from another bride in need and that money goes to try to find a prevention or cure to help other women like my mother, but who may still have a chance at survival.

Girls, don't let your dress hang in the closet for 20 years hoping your daughter will want to wear it. 20 years from now, it will be out of style and she most likely won't want to wear it. Instead, donate it to Brides Against Breast Cancer and help make someones wishes come true while giving back in an enormous way.

Okay, sorry for getting all mushy on you... back to Jennifer!!

Jen's connections with a friend in Mount Airy, North Carolina landed us at this awesome property FILLED with whimsical eye candy, cool props and an awesome stage for our shoot. Oh how I wish I could stumble on something like this here in Tampa, Florida. I'd be in heaven!

Here are some of our favs from Jen's amazing Bridal Session!!

We started off in a bamboo forest where I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Somehow or another, Latanya and Jen managed not to get bitten much but I was covered in bites. Not very fun but definitely worth it in the end!






Then we wandered over to this awesome gazebo, one of the most unique gazebo's I've ever seen in my entire life. We got some pretty sick stuff there.












And then into this abandoned shed...




And they even had a water windmill. We used a garden hose and held our hands over the nozzle to make a spray mist come out and the lady who owns the propery spun the wheel and hid out of sight. :-)


My infatuation with bold colors led me to use this awesome hutch


Then we headed off into another shed where we noticed a skull head and I just so happened to have a little lantern in the car so we decided to do something a bit more spooky since Jen was getting married on Halloween!


Jen is officially awesome for doing this next shot and totally rocking it out without a care in the world about how insane she looked or how much grease could leak onto her wedding dress before she got married! We love you Jen!


Then we found this awesome hallway of old doors and of course had to get some shots there!






And then we ran into this guest house area that was covered in ivy. So pretty and whimsical!




Last stop, we made our way to the train tracks. They were covered in sap and I didn't even want to sit on them in my regular street clothes but Jen plopped right down and put her bare bottom on the tracks so she wouldn't be sitting on the actual dress.






We hope you enjoyed these as much as we still do every time we look at them!

Until next time...