I met with Lindsay & Tyler last fall for their mini-session. They brought along their adorable black labrador puppy Lily, who was an absolute hoot. Lily had me cracking up the entire session. Big thanks to Everlee Farm for having us to their incredible venue for these photos!

You may remember from my last post that I am officially a Knoxville based photographer! I’m really excited to finish settling & get going with Knoxville mini-session photography. I offer mini-session spots to my newsletter subscribers first, so if you’d like first dibs, join the newsletter! I’m so excited to be announcing spring mini-sessions soon!

Enjoy these adorable photos of this sweet family :) Thank you Lindsay & Tyler for coming out!

You may have noticed it’s been quiet around here… that’s because I’ve got big news!

DRUMROLL PLEASE!! ……..

We moved to Knoxville!

Alright, you caught me. That’s not a photo of Knoxville, but I am super excited to be closer to Cades Cove!

So what’s the deal? 

Jeff & I decided last fall that it was time to be closer to friends & family so we made plans to make the move from Chattanooga to Knoxville. We haven’t lived in our hometown of Knoxville since we both left for college. We went from Nashville to Chattanooga… and now back to Knoxville. We are so excited for this change!

Oh no! How does this affect your business or booked weddings?

Nothing is changing except I’ll be available for more Knoxville portrait sessions. Being from Knoxville originally, I have not been a stranger to the local wedding scene. Last year I shot about a third of my weddings in Knoxville. I’m excited to dig in deeper!

If you are an already booked wedding client, nothing is changing on your end except it might be a little bit harder to arrange in-person meetings in Chattanooga. Of course there will be no additional travel fees added or anything like that. You are completely golden! Clients, please let me know if you have any questions.

I’ll still be booking portraits & weddings in Chattanooga. It’s a quick drive!

What can we do to help your transition?

It’s always scary to move to a new-ish market. I worked hard to build my business up in Chattanooga so it will be a transition. Many of my bookings came from local Google searches. That’s going to take me some time to build up but I am feeling positive! If you’d like to make the move a bit easier on me, I’d *love* for you to recommend me to anyone getting married in the East Tennessee area, especially if you think they’d like my work.  You’re the best.

That’s about it for now. I’m sure I’ll have more developments later, but for now, I’ve got some unpacking to do. <3 

Everyone knows about engagement or bridal sessions, but post-wedding sessions? Nah, they aren’t that well-known. I’m here to tell you all about them & give you the knowledge to decide if having one is right for your wedding.

So what the heck is a post-wedding session? Post-wedding sessions are just like an engagement session but you’ve got your fancy wedding day attire on. There are so many reasons why post-wedding sessions rock. Continue on for my top 5 reasons for a post-wedding session!

You want lots of wedding portraits but you’d rather spend your wedding day with friends & family

One of the best things about a wedding is seeing all the people you love in one spot. You get to hug, dance, drink, & cheers to your favorite people! It’s truly a unique time in your life & you will probably never see all those people together again.

That’s why I completely understand when some clients want to skimp on the portrait time so they have more time to spend with their family. You want to go to the cocktail hour & visit with guests? Heck yeah, I’m all for it! But if you value your wedding portraits, you should definitely make time for them. With a post-wedding session, you make time days, weeks, or even months after your wedding!

Spend most of your wedding day with friends & family and get a large amount of wedding portraits? Yes! You can have your cake & eat it too.

You don’t have to worry about getting your wedding outfits dirty. And you can let your hair down!

The worst thing about bridal sessions before the wedding is that everyone freaks out about getting the dress dirty. Let’s just admit it, being in your dress just means it’s going to be dirty. Walking on clean floors, sidewalk, anything, is probably going to affect the bottom of your dress. You might surprise yourself by how much you care about this.

After the wedding is over? Who cares, right? The dress is already dirty from your day & if you plan on preserving it you’ll have to get it cleaned anyway. So let’s go make some beautiful portraits in a dirty field or alleyway.

When I say you can let your hair down, I mean it literally & figuratively. Post-wedding sessions are much more relaxed because you don’t have anywhere to be or a schedule to follow. Lots of brides opt for wedding day hairstyles that can withstand the heat, rain, and dancing to the YMCA at the reception. Many clients opt for a more natural look for their post wedding sessions because they can! No worries about making sure your hair & makeup last 10+ hours.

You can go to great locations you could never fit into your wedding day logistics

Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Biltmore? That little state park you visited when you first started dating? The options are endless. Maybe you are getting married at a church but you prefer lots of greenery in your photos. Or maybe you are getting married out in a barn but want to celebrate the downtown where you went on your first date together.

We have so much time & freedom to go anywhere for the session.

You’ve planned a destination wedding & want to take advantage of the location

If you are planning a wedding in a spectacular location, post-wedding sessions are great ways to take advantage & get great photos. If you’re flying me somewhere or you’re flying here, you might as well get lots out of it! Just make sure that book your post-wedding session as soon as possible so we can schedule it within our travel dates & make sure we have accommodations.

You couldn’t take many portraits on your wedding day for a variety of reasons

There are many things that might affect the amount & type of wedding photos you receive from your wedding day. For example, maybe you plan a wedding after dark. That is common for fall & winter weddings. Maybe it’s freezing outside or hot as hades. Maybe it rains cats & dogs.

I’m always able to find ways to take portraits even during the craziest of circumstances, but they might not be the type of photos you imagined if you love my outdoor portraits. With a post-wedding session, we can control the season, weather, and schedule. We can postpone the session if it calls for rain. We can mold the post-wedding session to fit our wants & needs*!

* Unless you are planning a destination wedding with travel. We will have less flexibility then but we’ll still rock it.

Are you ready for your rad post-wedding session now? Let’s plan it! Even if I didn’t take your wedding photos, I bet we can make some magic.

I met Mariah & Mark for their Nashville summer engagement session on a blistering humid day in August. And when I say it was humid, I mean it was one of those hot summer days that hits you in the face the moment you step outside. But Mariah & Mark rocked their session & we made some incredible photos & memories. And their dog, Mr. Roosevelt, is SO cute & full of personality

One of my favorite things about photographing in the summer is the bright, deep greens. The bare trees of winter are bothering me a bit, so this engagement session is getting me into the mood for spring. Thanks for looking!

2015. I can’t believe it’s come & gone. As a wedding photographer, I have a strange connection to years. How many weddings did I book this year? How many do I have next year? Should I book this wedding for 2017? I can hardly imagine the year 2017!

2015 use to be one of those far off years that I couldn’t imagine and now it’s gone and here I am reminiscing about it. Just like they say time flies when you get older, it certainly feels like it flies when you are a wedding photographer. I arrive at weddings thinking “didn’t I just sit down with this couple for coffee? Oh wait, that was 14 months ago.” Never before have I been so aware of time. Was that too weird? Oh well, new years always seem eerie to me.

Damn. What a year. I photographed more than I ever have before. I delivered a whopping 24,372 photos to clients this year & pressed the shutter button about 4x more than that. I photographed my first wedding under a live oak tree in Beaufort, South Carolina. Two incredible artists flew me to New Hampshire for their wedding. I photographed a couple with a llama. My pants split at a wedding (and I don’t think anyone noticed). I was rained on. I stopped a kid from lighting his hair on fire with a sparkler. I found myself all over the south photographing joyful days with joyful people, stuffing my face with cake when I had the chance.

Lots of cool stuff happened this year, but I’m still finding myself back where it all begins: the moments & the joy. From the meaningful to the weird to the hilarious… those are the types of photos I’m always drawn to & the ones I work tirelessly to photograph for my clients. Weddings aren’t perfect & neither are my photos. They’re real & they are full of all sorts of ridiculous things, like a groomsman stuffing his face with barbecue or a dad embarrassing himself on the dance floor.

The best part of 2015: marriage equality. I photographed so many same sex elopements, weddings, and sessions this year, many of which where completely set into course by the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling. I photographed three ceremonies on the first say of same sex marriage in Alabama & two on the first day in Chattanooga. I photographed friends finally able to marry in their state! It was such a historic year & it was a privilege to feel so involved, even in such a small way.

To my clients, thank you for your trust and your vulnerability and your weirdness. Thank you for the cake, pies, cookies, buffets, and everything else I nommed, Thank you for your kind reviews & sweet emails. Thank you for helping me make 2015 the most productive & exhilarating year in my career.  <3