Lauren reached out to me about her wedding more than a year before the big day. She described the vision for her wedding as rustic-chic, with a sort of bohemian flair. They had picked practically the perfect venue for that vision—The Barns at Hamilton Station, one of our favorite venues, featured regularly on this blog. After an excited phone call where we got a chance to meet and chat, we decided to move forward together.
Lauren expressed that she and her fiancé Peter didn’t consider themselves naturals in front of the camera and that they’d need some help along the way. We agreed that an engagement session in advance of the wedding day, but not too far in advance, would be a big help. We planned that engagement session for the autumn of 2023, about six months out from their big day at the end of April the following year. When we finally got to the engagement session, perhaps to their surprise, they were way more natural in front of the camera than they expected. Sure, they needed a little coaching, but who doesn’t? We pretty much immediately clicked.
Peter and Lauren are very comfortable with each other, and perhaps with the mix of my self-deprecating humor and playful instruction, they got comfortable with me in short order, too. Having had a chance to get to know one another a bit, things were looking really good for the wedding day. Wonderful people. Amazing venue. Beautiful vision. It was coming together beautifully.
When the wedding day finally came around, Felipe and I pulled up around 1:00 pm—almost an hour before we were slated to get started. Even when it’s a venue we have been to many times before, we always try to arrive early to scope out anything that might’ve changed in our absence. The day was warm, but not oppressively so. The skies were just ever so slightly on the wrong side of overcast, which is not ideal, but not an absolute bummer either, and the threat of rain that had been hanging in the air the last few days had since dissipated, so we were counting our blessings. Of course, The Barns were as beautiful as ever, and almost everything was just as we had left it, save for one cool new detail, which I’ll come back to later.
While we were wandering around, we stopped in to say hello to Terri and Julie from Vows & Vines, who were planning the wedding that day. Then we popped over to the barn where the team from the Blooming Bohemian was staging their floral arrangements. Before long, we made our way to the farmhouse where Lauren and Peter and their sizable wedding party were getting ready. After saying hello and quickly recapping our plan and expectations for the day, we finished unloading our gear from the car and got started.
Getting Ready
Felipe took the first round of photos upstairs with Lauren and her bridesmaids while I took some of the accouterments, such as the rings and wedding invitations, downstairs. We tend to break up the responsibilities this way because I’m usually able to work detail shots faster than Felipe can, and Felipe has a real knack for warming up a crowd and getting them used to the camera. While I was downstairs with the details, he got a great shot of Lauren popping a bottle of champagne among others.
About 15 minutes later, I popped my head back into the room and took over for Felipe so he could go downstairs where the guys were toasting, and Peter’s mom was putting the finishing touches on an adorable cake that she had made for the wedding.
Back upstairs, I was capturing candids of Lauren’s bridesmaids helping her with her dress and shoes. I was sharing the space with Andrew from Compass Studios, the company that had come in to shoot the video. We’ve worked with this team before, and they have always been consummate professionals, sticking to their timelines, getting what they need, and acting as great creative partners in the process of documenting a wedding day—this was no exception. As we were finishing with the prep coverage and gearing up for a first look, I caught a nice shot of all the bridesmaids gathered around Lauren while her sister and maid of honor helped to put her shoes on.
The First Look
The time had come to get moving, so I ran downstairs and helped get Peter into position for the first look which Felipe, Andrew, and I had planned out, then I headed back upstairs to get Lauren. As we headed down the stairs, I noticed that Peter was positioned in such a way that Lauren would be able to take a peek at him from the window in the stairwell, and I got a beautiful photo of her getting her first look at him.
Her nerves were starting to fade into excitement. Peter was positioned on the side yard of the house facing the Barn’s tasting room, so she would exit through the front door of the farmhouse, come around the corner, and turn him around. I got a nice photo of their juxtaposition before she made her approach.
Lauren walked up with a kind of adorable timidity, holding her dress to keep it off the grass, reached out, and invited him to turn around. Felipe got a great shot of the angle on Lauren, and I caught the exact moment their eyes met. It was the kind of magic that melted into the affectionate release of the sort of tension and anxiety that always builds before a wedding. We gave these two a few minutes together, circling from a distance and capturing candid shots of the moment. Before long, though, it was time to get things moving again, so we led them to the back of the house where the wedding party was having some final touches to their boutonnieres finished.
The Wedding Party Portraits
We started out the portrait segment of the day with the full wedding party. For practical reasons due to the size of the party, and in the interest of using a part of the Barns’ property that is often overlooked, we did the photos with the full party on the side yard with the Barn in the background. I arranged a classic sparse setup with some playful permutations, which we then allowed to dissolve into a walking shot that Andrew wanted to use for the video. The full wedding party wasn’t the top priority in the portraits, though—that would instead go to the individual parties, and especially shots of Lauren and Peter with each of their bridesmaids and groomsmen, something that is special but also time-consuming.
Felipe kept Peter and the guys out front of the tasting room, working through the shots with the groomsmen and featuring the tasting room prominently in the background. Meanwhile, I took Lauren and the bridesmaids out back, where we would use the rustic barn as a backdrop. Do you remember earlier when I mentioned there was a cool new addition to the Barns? We found it on the side of the barn—a big, beautiful mural of grapes and vines that paired beautifully with the classic venue shot. We spent a few minutes with the mural and captured an image that highlighted The Blooming Bohemian’s bouquet arrangements before shifting things around a bit to focus on Lauren by herself in her gorgeous, understated dress and spectacular hair and makeup done by KC Artistry.
Then we returned to the full group, this time putting the Barn’s big rural field and pond in the background, and then finished up by going through shots with each of her bridesmaids. After we let the wedding party go, I was leading Lauren around the other side of the building to meet up with Peter for a round of portraits among the vines. Along the way, we came across a few more great shots of Lauren by herself set amongst The Blooming Bohemian’s showy ceremony decorations.
When we got around to the other side of the building, Felipe was just finishing up with Peter and the guys, and I went to grab him. We took a few shots framed by one of the venue’s wind-y, viney trees, then walked up the hill a little way for a shot with the pops of bright pink coming from one of their blooming crepe myrtle trees, and then made our way into the vineyard and got some great shots of the two of them walking down the aisles of vines.
The Ceremony
Right about now, we had busloads of guests starting to arrive, so we hurried Lauren and Peter back to the farmhouse to hide, and Felipe and I headed into the wine cellar where the setup of the dinner space was just about finished. We used the last few minutes before the ceremony to capture some details of what Vows & Vines had put together. It was gorgeous, as always.
The ceremony took place on the back lawn overlooking the Barn’s pond. The Blooming Bohemian had set up an absolutely stunning display for the ceremony.
Guests were taking their seats, and Tommy & Kim, a talented and thematically appropriate pop/folk acoustic act, who also happened to be good friends with members of the wedding party, were setting the mood with music in the background. As guests took their seats, Felipe, Andrew, and I coordinated where we planned to be during the ceremony. I stationed Felipe up front with his wide lens, and I would station myself behind the ceremony backdrop and shoot through the display with my long lens.
During Peter’s entrance, I got a great series of shots of him in his classic tuxedo, waving and blowing kisses to their guests full-on red carpet style. The rest of the ceremony entrances brought all the traditional fanfare for each member of the bridal party, culminating in the very brief (and anxious, and most adorable) arrival of Lauren & Peter’s best canine friends, Hank & Reily.
As Lauren came down the aisle, Felipe spun around for one more shot of Peter’s face as he saw the person he was about to marry and then acted quickly to get a great shot of Lauren’s dad shaking his hand.
The ceremony was touching and beautiful, but also very much Peter and Lauren—funny, playful, serious and sentimental, but not too serious and sentimental. When their officiant, a close friend of both of them, finally gave them permission to kiss, it was with the kind of release and enthusiasm usually reserved for the movies, where a photographer is usually inexplicably absent, but I digress. I was there, and even I felt the moment from behind my camera.
The two walked back down the aisle together, now husband and wife, as guests tossed flower petals—a dramatic visual, and an extremely fitting display given Lauren’s own emphasis on flowers and plants and everything that grows from the ground.
With the ceremony over and these two officially married, I sent Felipe inside to cover the cocktail hour while I stayed behind to capture some family portraits. In this case, Lauren and Peter didn’t want to spend a tremendous amount of time on family portraits, so they kept their list short and sweet. One of the priorities for Peter and Lauren was a photo with Hank and Reily, and that’s where we started so that their handler could take them back to the peace, quiet, and comfort of the Farm House. Then we moved through the most traditional family arrangements, with a merging of the two extended families smack dab in the middle.
Eager to get inside and greet their guests, and with a sky that refused to give us a sunset, Peter and Lauren headed inside to the tasting room to sample some of what Market 93 had put together for them. But first, Lauren stopped in the wine cellar so that her sister and one of her bridesmaids could bustle her dress, which led to a somewhat comical photo of the trio looking to the most reliable modern teacher to learn how to do so: The iPhone.
The Reception
The couple entered the tasting room through the stairwell for an informal introduction. I caught a great black and white with the shutter dragging that emphasized the impromptu enthusiasm of the moment. After spending some time mingling in the tasting room for what was left of the cocktail hour, and taking some photos with the bridesmaids at the Photo Booth, it wasn’t long before it was time to head downstairs for dinner and the formal introductions.
Jeff from MyDeeJay introduced the wedding party one by one, and then Lauren & Peter to great applause. Felipe caught a great shot of the two kissing at the bottom of the stairs.
Dinner opened with a toast from Peter’s dad, followed by Lauren’s dad, her sister, and Peter’s best man shortly after dinner was served.
Dinner was a plated meal of chicken and slow-cooked brisket with Market 93’s famous cornbread and roasted vegetables with mashed potatoes. It never gets old (I might have taken home an extra plate). As guests were eating, Felipe and I visited each table for a very quick interruption so that we could make sure everyone at the wedding was pictured.
The meal was lively, but people don’t generally want a camera pointed at them while they’re eating, so we ventured upstairs, where we found Andrew capturing some b-roll for his video, and we took the opportunity to piggyback on the project for some details that would soon disintegrate.
With everyone full of delicious food and getting antsy to start the party, guests and the wedding party meandered upstairs where Peter & Lauren went directly into their first dance: a classic choreographed wedding pirouette full of spins and dips and romance to “The Promise” by Sturgill Simpson. The guests ate it up.
Immediately following Lauren & Peter’s first dance, Lauren’s father stepped in for a touching dance together to a more subdued and sentimental “Carolina in My Mind” by James Taylor, and then to the tune of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, Peter and his mother turned up the heat for a dance that you could perhaps imagine was in the same lineage as one the two of them might have been spontaneously doing 20-some odd years earlier in the living room.
Without skipping a beat, Jeff from MyDeeJay opened up the dance floor. This group loved to dance. The floor was immediately rushed with guests eager to get moving. Jeff was utterly killing it at his DJ booth, masterfully reading the room and blending one song people were loving into the next song that people didn’t even realize they wanted to hear. Peter and Lauren spent a lot of time with each other on the dance floor, which is refreshing because it’s not unusual for dancing to be more one person’s thing than another—but these two were in perfect sync.
Lauren gave us a heads up ahead of time that at some point Peter would probably do “The Worm” on the dance floor, and he most certainly did.
After a while, and without much fanfare—a growing trend these days—Lauren and Peter stepped aside to cut the cake that Peter’s mom had made while the party went on in the background. No cake smash this time—who wants to dance while they’re covered in buttercream?
Eventually, Julie broke out a box of those light-up foam sticks, and everyone went wild. I took the opportunity to drag my shutter to create some high-energy style photos that would take advantage of the multi-colored lights. The party carried its high energy throughout the night, even as some folks started to trickle out to the early bus departures.
Things came to a close right around 11:00 pm with a sparkler exit organized by Julie. Lauren and Peter whisked their way through the open aisle of their excited and exhausted guests.
And just like that, there was quiet as the party faded into the parking lot. Felipe and I sat for a moment and chatted with Julie, who was sticking around to help oversee the cleanup of the venue, and offered to help Jeff carry his considerably heavier gear to his car—but he declined, as DJs always do—Someday one of them will take us up on the offer.
Besides the fact that Lauren & Peter were so clearly made for each other, something that was clear from this wedding is that they had built a community around them that was utterly ecstatic that they’d found each other—dare I say, relieved, even.
This wedding also really highlighted how beautifully a vision can materialize when you have great professionals coming together to execute their parts of the puzzle in concert with one another. Terri and Julie from Vows & Vines are such masters of their craft that there is hardly, if ever, a hiccup with these two are at the helm. The Blooming Bohemian was given the room they needed to stretch their creative muscles, and it really showed and meshed beautifully during the ceremony with the vibe that Tommy & Kim were helping to create. During dinner, Market 93 was like a well-oiled machine, and the food was not only on time and beautifully plated but incredibly rich and delicious. We got a lot of great shots during the reception, and Jeff from MyDeeJay’s skill at reading the room and directing the flow of energy was a massive part of that success. Although we didn’t get to meet the professionals at KC Artistry, Krystal’s work had all the bridesmaids looking stunning, and it even held up pretty darn well through a very high-energy reception. Compass Studios did what they do best, and they did it in a way that we weren’t bumping into each other too much—their video turned out beautifully, check it out if you want to see a different texture on the wedding day! And of course, The Barns at Hamilton Station have created a gorgeous and rock-solid, albeit somewhat unconventional, venue for all these different parts to come together.
As Felipe and I pulled away, approaching midnight and with about an hour ahead of us on the road, we looked for the closest 7-Eleven for our post-wedding Slurpees and thanked our lucky stars that people invite us to be a part of a day as important as this one was.
