“Ok. You finally get all of your family and friends together – dressed up and looking sharp. Everybody brings along a camera to take a group shot.  Oh, just let me get one picture… wait, let’s get her in this too… wait one sec…. look this way…. wait, put down your drink…. wait…look this way…. smile… wait, which button is it? Did the flash go off? Oh, you blinked… wait let’s do one more. Oh wait, do one with my camera too. And you never see them anyway. Not that that’s such a bad thing because they looked like crap. Our self-portrait studio is manned by a photographer, real equipment, real lighting, real fun. Guests take their own pictures with a remote and see the results instantly on screen. They keep going until they get what they love. They want a nice family formal – we’ll make sure they get it. Want a group shot of school friends – have at it. And after a few drinks…. they get kinda fun. High resolution files can be used to make great big images – not some little rinky dink strip that one person runs off with. No better way to memorialize your friends.”

And here’s what you get (I’ll skip past the nice family pictures to the, “sure we’ve had a few drinks” fun stuff) :

And then it starts to get out of control….

and since guests see the image that they’ve taken immediatly after taking it – they tend to get incited to riot…

at least until the drinks make the single button remote seem challenging…

i thought karli and kevin’s invitation was really cool.

and although it rained most of the day Karli looked radiant

wait until you see the self-portrait studio shots!

Stu is a former co-worker of mine back from my corporate days who has been raising Maddie and Billy as a single father since shortly after Billy was born.  He was fortunate to find someone like Shelly who was the type of person who could easily slip into the roles of both spouse and mother to his two children.  As such, it wasn’t your typical wedding of a bride and a groom – it was a celebration of what it means to me a family.   And it was a delight that I could capture it for them.

Billy was especially excited since he got to wear A TIE!

and he felt good.

really good.

He and Maddie were ready to take on the world.  After all, it was their wedding day!

But when Billy got his groove on later in the evening – it was clear he was just hitting his stride.

But in the end, it really was the creation of something special.

And the guests and family members alike was delighted for each and every one of them.

In trying to pull together this blog entry I was trying to select a few images that represented the day, but I found that I couldn’t pick just one from the perfect little vignette that I captured of Michelle as she walked out on the balcony of the 2nd floor.  She and her bridesmaids were waiting for her guests to arrive and ceremony to begin.  So here’s all 6.

almost like a little movie, right?

and the couple sailed off into the sunset…

as the day begins in the presidential suite….

ranee’s custom catherine malandrino dress made her look like a greek goddess.

The event’s romantic design were done by Ed Libby.

Ed and his team really made it feel like dining with royalty.

Kool and the Gang really rocked it – and they had a good time doing so.

and the classic Sylvia Weinstock cake.

what a great evening!  and an extra special thanks to Tammy Meltzer of CPS Events for taking such good care of everybody and coordinating the day.

i like to think these images will do that for our bride when she looks back on them years from now.