But Seriously...

We have to make a pit stop for an e-session in St. Petersburg, Fl on our way to Chris and Lorana's wedding, which just so happens to take us through Pensacola. Which just so happens to be where Harmony and Sunni live. Who just so happen to be really good cooks and have invited us for an early Thanksgiving dinner...

BOO YAH!! We love you guys.....

Then to Atlanta for Chris and Lorana's wedding at the Panda Veranda at the Atlanta Zoo. I mean seriously, how cool is that.

I was going back through their e-photos and found some that I thought really captured the true spirit of love in it's deepest form. The absolute depth of emotion between two ......ok actually it's just pictures of them being dorks. But they're cute pictures of them being dorks.

The biggest dork,

Brett

They were in love, so we shot them....

Lindsey and Jon..a beautiful couple with a beautiful wedding.

It was in fact, the only wedding I've been to where the bride actually had a cow.

The bad part about shooting a couple with a cow in a field before the ceremony, is that every small field-dwelling insect known to man will lodge itself somewhere inside the many layers of the wedding dress, and surprise the bride..and everyone else..throughout the evening.

Stay tuned for picture goodness.......

For something completely different.....

Tell your mothers to leave the room. Hide any nearby children, set newspaper under the dog, and for heaven's sake keep the goldfish away from me. 

This is not your normal engagement picture.  And quite frankly, I'm glad it's not. 

From the very beginning, I have always said that if I simply do nothing more than recreate what everyone else around me has done, I have really done nothing at all.  However, if I'm able to take a couple that is so desperately adamant about not wanting "normal" engagement photos, and give them something that they can look at several years from now, regardless of what family members think, and say " Hey...that's us. That's our personalities, that was us having fun..", then I have done something I can be proud of.  

Now I'm not saying there's not a place for traditional photos. And Kyle and Stephanie have some really, really beautiful "normal" shots complete with scenery, kisses, and Buddy the poodle. Or...Buddy's butt anyway. It was a cool shot, but then the dog moved....long story. 

I've had five couples in the last four weeks sit across the table from me and basically beg for their engagement photos to be different. Crazy, psycho...out there. Again, we are totally capable and love doing the soft, romantic and fun shots for engagements. But by golly if someone comes to us and wants to whack her fiance' over the head with a baseball bat in an empty parking garage complete with fake blood, we are so totally there. 

I can't even begin to describe the projects that are coming up in the next few months. We seriously have work to do in trying to figure out to get some requested shots and not blow our couples up at the same time. 

So fear not, all of our sweet and mushy couples. There's plenty of smoochy, sun shining behind you, birds singing in the background-kinda-shots left in us for you guys :o) But for the rest of you....bring it on. 

Getting in touch with his dark side,

Brett

A blog, by any other name

I must first apologize for the lack of picture goodness with this blog. The routine is to shoot an event, edit photos, post a blog about the event with photos.

Stories with pictures are always cooler.

But I mentally can't retain everything that happened yesterday for that long...so it's all coming out now.

First and foremost, Teresa Martin we love you! (and Matt-Matt) Teresa was the wedding coordinator for Nikki and Matt's wedding yesterday, and the whole wedding went beautifully. The decorations, the transition of a huge room full of chairs into a beautiful candlelit ballroom with dining tables and dance floor..in a matter of minutes...everything was perfect. And for the occasional doofus with a death-wish that attempted to inform her how they thought the wedding should be run, I'm not entirely sure what happened to those people.

We arrived early at the location and helped Teresa set up, because we're cool like that. One of my tasks was transferring 10 goldfish into these really cool little bowls that were going to sit on the tables. A really neat and different idea...and so I did. Same temperature water (really), everything was great. 10 little fishies, swimming around, loving life in their new little bowls.

And then they died. I'm not really sure what happened, but I killed all 10 goldfish. It had to be the water. Branson, Missouri water...not the greatest. Thankfully we had backup floating candles, but I wasn't allowed to put those in. I would have managed to kill those as well most likely....

Skip ahead to the middle of the ceremony. I'm in my sniper-hiding-under-the-chairs position at the front of the room, scanning the faces of the groomsmen through my lens...and I notice this one guy is seriously just not looking good at all. We're talking, pasty white, sweaty, glazed look. Pretty much me on our wedding day. And then, the magic happens and I see the guys on either side of him grab his jacket to prop him up, and down he goes. He's down for a few minutes, then back on his feet.
This was during a song someone was singing, and when the soloist finished, the gentleman that fainted said " That was quite a song".......cue laughter and applause from the crowd. Back to the vows, 5 minutes later the guy goes down again, this time he's propped back up in a chair and finished the wedding sitting down.

We seriously have to shoot that guys wedding.....

Towards the end of the night, when the really beautiful cake had been cut (and eaten..*cough*..), "Ice, Ice, Baby" had been rapped on the dance floor, and I had updated as many friends as possible in a mad and frantic text while eating....the most wonderful thing happened; I danced with my beautiful, wonderful, sweet and totally amazing best friend/partner in crime/co-conspirator/make out buddy/baby-momma/business partner/wife.....and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect end to a perfect wedding.

Nikki and Matt we love you guys and wish you all the best in the world. And Teresa, I'm sending you a box of Goldfish crackers.

B

What do cows and weddings have in common?

I'm still not quite sure, but they are starting to become a regular occurrence for Birdsong Photography.

A couple of weeks ago we shot Lindsey & Jon's wedding in Marshfield, Missouri.  Lindsey is the 2005 National Guernsey Queen! From what I've read about it, it's a pretty big deal.  And, in case you didn't know a Guernsey is certain breed of cow. See, you learn something new everyday! There is a Guernsey cow named Dana who, if I am correct (please tell me, Lindsey, if I'm not) Lindsey has been showing since Dana was a small calf.  So guess who came to the wedding? No, Dana did not come inside the church - but she was there at the church for us to take pictures with.  We had fun!

Jon & Lindsey were a gorgeous couple and I can't wait to show you all of their pictures. But for now, here's a teaser....

J

Angels With Dirty Faces

This is what happens when our lovable little monkeys get in front of the camera. Well, ok, this is what happens when dad's behind the camera and encourages it. 

I have no idea where they get it from. 

 

Really. 

Doog Si Efil

I'm not sure how Chris and I turned Life is Good into Doog Si Efil..and then found it funny..but it happened. 

For that matter, I'm not sure how we came out alive from some of the parts of Atlanta we drove into. Part of me wanted to leave as quickly as possible, the other part wanted to look for deals on cheap cameras.

One of the more memorable spots of that day was Olympic Park in Atlanta. We were shooting in this open area where streams of water would randomly blast up out of the ground. Dodging those while taking pictures was really interesting. We also ate at the Varsity that day, which is awesome cheeseburgers and onion rings drenched in 5 gallons of grease. Mmmmm..tasty!

We're on our way out of town yet again for a wedding this weekend. So very excited...

To Harmony, our resident blog-stalker.........do you feel special knowing our big secret? Hmm? do ya? Huh? Huh?

That's right. We have a big secret. *insert evil laughter*

And I'm going to leave you all hanging with that....

Brett

You know what's better than key lime pie on the beach?

Okay, okay... so I love it all! Peanut butter cup wedding cake, varsity burgers and key lime pie on the beach!!! (especially when it all happens within 2 weeks time!)

Yes, three blogs today! THREE!! The reason? Because we had 3 big events within the matter of about two weeks! Whew! Our computers have been smoking for the last few weeks from finishing up the Branson wedding (Whitney & Doug) and getting to work on these last three jobs. But, we are now caught up and ready for the next 3 weeks (a wedding a weekend until the end of October).

So....meet Harmony & Satchel. Harmony contacted us all the way back in April to ask us to do her wedding in April 2009. Of course, we were happy to oblige... that and she lives in Pensacola, Florida and any reason to be near a beach....

What we weren't prepared for is how close we would get to Satch & Harms over the course of the last few months. We always seem to develop a bond with all of our couples, I think that you really have no choice (not that I'm complaining - I love it!!!). A couple put their absolute faith and trust in you to capture their day and that trust gets reciprocated. When we went down to shoot Satchel & Harmony's engagement pictures, it felt as if we had already known them both for years!! Needless to say we had a great time (and Harmony makes one mean absolute homemade key lime pie! - she also happens to be our resident blog-stalker! HI HARMONY!! :o)

I'm sure that Brett will have a thing or two to say at some point and will catch up on blogging later. I've just been determined to get this all finished tonight!!!

Okay...will ALL the memories about our fun (FOOD) times - I now have to go... well, probably eat something...


J

You know what's better than a burger and onion rings from The Varsity in Atlanta?

That's right....nothing! (well, that WITH the Peanut Butter Cup Wedding Cake from the previous blog would be perfect).

While we were in Atlanta, we were able to go out and shoot an engagement session with Chris & Lorana.  They will be getting married in November at the Zoo in Atlanta! (Do you even know how excited I am for that?!)

We had so much fun with them!  My sister lives in Atlanta, and Lorana (and I would assume Chris as well) are friends of my sister.  But wouldn't you know it that the one week that we are in Atlanta, my sister was in Washington - so I got to visit with my sisters friends and didn't even get to see my sister! 

Chris & Lorana took us all around downtown Atlanta.  What a cool place! And the best part, yes it involves food, was getting to eat my first Varsity Burger.  I think I still have grease floating around in my arteries from that - but it was mighty tasty!!

And for having THOSE memories, I now must go running!

J

You know what's better than a peanut butter cup wedding cake?

That's right, pretty much nothing!

Shayna & Craig were married a little more than a month ago in Atlanta, Georgia (actually, it was Dahlonega, Georgia - though I still can't pronounce that right). They were married at this beautiful old farmhouse called Waters Mill. If you are getting married anywhere near Atlanta, GA - and you are looking for a more intimate affair - check out Waters Mill. Shayna & Craig also introduced us to an Italian restaurant named Buca di Beppo. That place is a blog in itself! And, their cake.... oh the cake! Are you ready for this? It was a chocolate cake with a peanut butter icing topped with a chocolate gnosh and sprinkled with chocolate peanut butter cups. Yes, it was... well... there are no words to explain it. Brett has some great pictures of the cake that I'm sure he'll post on here.

Now, I must go brush my teeth from even having memories of that cake!

Until next time,

J

Doug and Whitney sittin' in a tree....

Okay, actually I don't think that they sat in a tree one single time while we were around them, but they were just that kind of couple. Doug and Whitney were so fun to work with!! They were so easy-going and so fun!! I knew from the moment that we worked with them on their engagement photos that we would have a blast anytime we were around them!  So, here are a just a few of their photos!

J