Portrait » Connor Studios Blog

Jill + Todd | Wedding Photographs | Chesapeake Bay Beach Club, Stevensville, Md.

Friday, August 13, 2010 at 11:42am

When the Saturday one week before Jill and Todd’s wedding registered over 100 degrees, I was a bit worried about the next weekend’s outdoor wedding. Luckily, Jill and/or Todd have it in good with some higher power and they got an 83 degree day with low humidity at the end of July. Near D.C.!

The day started off at the Loews Annapolis Hotel where they got ready and then everyone headed over the Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club for the ceremony and reception. It’s hard to go wrong at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club. It’s so beautiful, so easy to get to and so relaxing for weddings.

The bridesmaids were a lot of fun and wore awesome green dresses and yellow wedge shoes that were so summery. Todd spared his guys having to bake in black suits in the sun and everyone wore light colored suits from J.Crew which looked great on the beach. I absolutely loved Jill’s dress – very simple and gorgeous and it even had pockets! Of course, the ring bearer kind of stole the show. He was so cute and had such a good time.

A tip to brides: If you want to use green and yellow as your wedding colors, look at how Jill used it. Bold greens and yellows are absolutely beautiful! ”Generally” stay away from pale yellows and greens as they tend to wash out your skin.

The ceremony was beautiful on the Bay and the Reception was held in the Beach House. Sunsets are always beautiful out there. We just finished up sunset portraits on the beach and they were able to make it inside and have their first dance as the sun made its final hoorah.

The dance floor started off a little slow but once everyone got warmed up, it never emptied. They even pushed it into extra innings at the end of the night with an encore set and then the guys sang “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” a la Top Gun to Jill at the end of the night before they left to a sparkler sendoff.

Posted in Ceremony, Details, Portrait, Preparation, Reception, Wedding | Tags: chesapeake bay, chesapeake bay beach club, connor studios, erin janes, great expectations flowers, green dress, inka browne, jangling reinharts, jill, jill and todd, michael connor, michael feehley, outdoor wedding, todd, wedding photography, wedding photojournalism

Kim + Beran | Wedding Photographs | Whitehall Manor, Bluemont, Virginia

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:36am

My favorite memory of Kim and Beran’s wedding was how excited she was while waiting to walk down the aisle. Excited is kind of an understatement! She actually apologized to me in case I thought she was being corny. What!?!

Watching her excitement was just awesome! There are a times we see brides getting ready to go down the aisle and all they can think about is the one detail that wasn’t perfect or a bridesmaid that said the wrong thing… Those are the times where they need to take a Kim pill so they can remind themselves about what they should be feeling at that moment.

It was a warm day. Ok, saying it was a warm day is kind of like saying Kim was ambivalent about walking down the aisle. It was a hot day! Thankfully Whitehall is in the midst of huge shade trees.

The ceremony was beautiful. Kim and Beran laughed a lot which always makes for a great ceremony. Kim’s niece and nephew were the Flower Girl and Ring Bearer and were so cute. The Ring Bearer should turn pro in ring bearing!

Whitehall is a great place to walk around for portraits. I absolutely love the old barns there. We were trying to make sure the portraits were different from the last time we were there and they turned out beautifully! And departing in a 1952 Bentley is a pretty classy way to make an exit!

All in all, it was well worth a little sweat on the brow!

Posted in Ceremony, Portrait, Preparation, Reception, Wedding | Tags: 1952 bentley, blossoms n bows, cameo video productions, connie's cake creations, connor studios, jonathan newton, kim and beran, michael connor, nace lanier, nate dougan, outdoor ceremony, perfect harmony, priscilla trimble, regal limousines, sparkler sendoff, summer wedding, the finer points, wedding photography, wedding photojournalism, whitehall manor

Michele + Tom | Engagement | Eastern Market, Washington, DC

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 12:32pm

Michele and Tom agreed to meet me at Eastern Market for a 7am engagement session. Morning sessions always turn out great because you have a lot of room to work with nobody in your photographs. I loved their clothing choices. Michele’s dress was almost a perfect match with our logo (somehow, I’m not sure that’s what was on her mind though!) and the sunflowers in the farmer’s market. Both were such great sports.

We had Eastern Market all to ourselves on a Saturday morning. I can’t remember that ever happening! One of my all time favorite photographs is this one inside the empty hall. Can’t wait for next April!

Posted in Engagement, Portrait | Tags: connor studios, eastern market, engagement photographs, engagement session, michele and tom, retro, washington dc, wedding photography

Liz + Matt | Wedding Photographs | Lansdowne Resort, Leesburg, VA

Monday, June 28, 2010 at 5:42pm

Liz and Matt had a beautiful day for a wedding (a HOT day for a wedding but it was beautiful!). It was our first time out to the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Va. and it is such a great location! There were parts of the ceremony that brought tears but it was hard to tell with poor Matt and the rest of the guys who got the side in full sunshine with their black tuxedos. Of course the girls in their dresses got the full shade — sometimes life isn’t fair for us guys!!

It was Memorial Day weekend so everyone was in the mood to have a great time and party all night long. The dance floor never emptied out. We had an absolute blast!

Posted in Ceremony, Portrait, Preparation, Reception, Wedding | Tags: andrew harnik, bialek's music, blooms florist, connor studios, dan goldman, lance orndorff, lansdowne resort, lindsay forseth, liz and matt, michael connor, virginia, Wedding, wedding photography, wedding photojournalism

Rita + Magnus | Wedding Photographs | St. Mary’s and Hotel Monaco, Alexandria, VA

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 5:02pm

I love it when bridesmaids from former weddings ask me to photograph their wedding! Not only do they like the photographs, but hopefully they thought we were pretty fun to be around. Plus, it’s always nice to see former brides and grooms.

When Rita contacted us last year, we were definitely excited to photograph her wedding. When I found out she was marrying a Swede, I was even happier! I’m always happy to speak the language when I can.

Their wedding was absolutely beautiful. The ceremony started off with the best entrance of a Flower Girl EVER. When mom let her go at the back and she saw dad with the coloring book at the front, she just sprinted down the aisle. Don’t get me wrong — she did not run. Run is definitely the wrong word! Sprinted is the perfect word. It was so awesome and I just laid down on the shutter at 9 frames/second. The only thing I was scared about was that because it’s a pretty dark church, we were shooting at slower shutter speeds — usually not a problem during a ceremony because there are no little Usain Bolt’s in white dresses breaking world records down the aisle! The picture turned out amazing and showed all the energy. I guess running into church is way better on your wedding day than someone running out!

Rita looked beautiful in her dress and had the coolest green shoes! After the ceremony, we were taking some formal photos in the church and a couple of the children spoke mostly Swedish so I just switched over to Swedish which caught some of the people by surprise. Someone asked how I knew Swedish and I just casually replied that I learned it for the wedding which got a laugh. I’m glad that wasn’t the case because I would have been lost speaking Hindi at last week’s wedding!

After the formals, we cruised down King St. in Alexandria, VA looking for fun spots for photographs. Memorial Day Weekend + Hot Weather + Rolling Thunder + Old Town = BUSY! We got a fun photograph of the wedding party with all the motorcycles in town for Rolling Thunder. When the wedding party ducked out of the heat for ice cream, one of the motorcyclists bought the bride and groom ice cream.

The reception at the Hotel Monaco (Alexandria) was beautiful and very laid-back. It think it was a mixture of Rita and Magnus, their guests, the weather and the holiday weekend but everyone just seemed to be having such a relaxed time!

Thanks (and Tack Så Mycket) to Rita and Magnus and all their guests for such a fun night!

Posted in Details, Portrait, Preparation, Reception, Wedding | Tags: alexandria, andrew harnik, black tie band, buzz cupcakes, chris wells, connor studios, hotel monaco, petal's edge floral design, photographs, photography, rita and magnus, st. mary's catholic church, stephanie hulbert, virginia, Wedding, wedding photojournalism, wedding planning worldwide

Beth + Luke | Wedding Photographs | King Family Vineyards, Crozet, VA

Monday, May 17, 2010 at 11:34am

Get ready for an eye-gasm!

Everything from the weather to the people to the place was INSANELY BEAUTIFUL at Beth and Luke’s wedding! When people asked me the next week how the wedding went, I “jokingly” told them that we could have dropped our camera and accidentally taken a portfolio picture.

The day was warm – actually HOT but I don’t think anyone complained too much. We started out getting ready in Charlottesville near the University of Virginia campus (where Beth and Luke met during school) and then moved to the campus to do portraits before heading out to King Family Vineyards for the rest of the evening.

Beth was stunning. I love the photographs of her seeing Luke for the first time on the steps of the Rotunda at UVA.

Beth and Luke both liked to keep things light and goof around during the portraits which made for some great pictures whether it was the fashion show on the green carpet runway in the vineyards, or Luke “behind bars” (Luke is a police officer so it was only natural). One of the funniest (almost tragic) moments was when Beth was letting one of the horses in the stables smell her bouquet and it almost ate them (that’s what Beth looks so surprised about in the sequence of photographs).

The ceremony was on the grounds at King Family Vineyards with the mountains in the background. Beth’s dad made the altar that they were married under.

The rest of the night was plenty of wine and plenty of dancing — meaning a great time. The first dance photographs are some of our favorites we have ever made. Beth’s dress looked perfect and I love the dip at the end.

With me all day was Andrew Harnik who did an unbelievable job. In the end, we averaged 11 frames per minute for 13 hours (you can do the math!).