Winter Wonderland Engagement at the NC Museum of Art

This week we had a BEAUTIFUL photo session with an amazing couple at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We’re grateful for the opportunity to celebrate their engagement (and we can’t wait to warm up at their North Carolina wedding in August 2022!)

The North Carolina Museum of Art is one of the most popular locations for Raleigh engagement photos, and for good reason! The Art Museum has attractive architecture AND an expansive nature park. We recommend choosing a spot for engagement pictures that will let you include a variety of scenery within your session, and the art museum DELIVERS! We also love the NC Museum of Art for its location. It’s smack-dab in the center of the Triangle area, not more than 15 minutes from RTP, Cary, or downtown Raleigh (where we live!)

We started this session off with engagement portraits at our favorite part of the museum itself: the mirror pool. The results speak for themselves. This spot is cinematic and GORGEOUS, and it’s hard to believe it’s just a few steps away from the park. Seriously, this location makes every client look like a movie star. Not that these two needed any help!

Next, we moved into the museum park! The park is actually connected to the amazing Raleigh greenway system (fun fact, my husband and I have run the 7 miles from our house to the park AND BACK as part of marathon training). But we didn’t have to go that far to get some amazing shots of these two!

Spoiler alert: it’s cold in January. Even in Raleigh, NC. We always recommend that clients bring jackets to stay warm and comfortable between locations. The same goes for comfy shoes. Nobody will know about your wardrobe bag behind the camera!

Despite the cold, January is a wonderful month to get your engagement photos taken. Winter clothes allow for more timeless style and semi-formal options, especially for the guys. (Sweaters and pants vs. T-shirts and shorts… the choice is clear!) Photographers aren’t as booked-up, so you’ll have more scheduling freedom. You can also use your images as next year’s Christmas Card photos, and they’ll be season-appropriate! Finally, there is just something dreamy about the crisp air on a clear winter day: something that adds a wow-factor to your photos!

Of course, we had to finish the session capturing a beautiful North Carolina sunset. The light gets downright magical in golden hour. Is there anything better than an NC sunset twinkling through the pine trees and reflecting off little patches of snow? Tell me again: how am I so lucky that this is my job???

Snow Dogs

Snow Dogs

We were content with the snow for the first few minutes.

Kaitlyn here: proud wedding photographer and mom to two adorable fur babies.

One of the immense joys of being a photographer is capturing people’s moments. The big ones, the small ones, they are all so special in telling stories and providing memories that last for generations.

It’s super special when we get to capture our own moments. And especially, our dogs.

Suddenly, we realized that the snow is just water in disguise.

For those of you not local to here, Raleigh, North Carolina doesn’t get a lot of snow. We’re originally from Indiana, so we’ve seen it about a bajillion times before. But it’s definitely different in Raleigh. The morning of our snow day, I awoke with the sunrise and hopped out of bed. Snow!

We bundled the dogs up, and took them outside to get some photos.

I post a lot of photos of amazing couples on my website and blog, but for today, please enjoy these photographs of my dogs.

Yes, after about 5 minutes, they went and waited by the door. Suffice to say that these are some warm-weather pups.

Making my Own Flat Lays for Detail Shots

Written by Kaitlyn

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It’s hard to believe 2022 is upon us! One of my 2022 goals has been to work on writing more blog posts, and wow, have I been procrastinating on it! But the month is not over and new goals take some time to achieve. So here we go!

Making a flat lay

As my season of wedding photography is rearing back up, one of the things that I have been dying to add to my arsenal of awesome photography things is some rolled canvas backgrounds for detail shots. What is she talking about, you may be asking yourself. Think something to put the beautiful wedding items (wedding rings, wedding invitations, somethings borrowed, something blue, etc.) on. Painted. Beautiful. The whole nine yards! Gone would be the days of haphazardly balancing rings on tree branches. PRAISE!

Off to the Craft Store

Pardon the iPhone uploads for the next few photos. This was after I had gotten the canvas out of the wash! It doesn’t look like much yet, and boy was it wrinkly. Also pictured is the on-again off-again iron.

My endeavors led me to a craft store, which I will not name, to track down pretty much all the supplies that I had envisioned using for my flat lay canvas project. Let me put into perspective how long I was at the store: twice, yes twice, I had customers come up to me to ask me questions because they thought I worked there. But finally, after far too long at the store and a heart-to-heart phone call with my sister about acrylic paint, I had everything I needed.

First, I washed and dried the canvas. The canvas was not quite what I had envisioned (my craft store that I’m not naming didn’t have rolled canvas. I know this for a fact. Remember, I was there forever.). But after washing and drying it, it seemed like it would work out. Next came the ironing. Apparently my 10 dollar iron that I bought in college decided it had had enough. And then it was fine. And then it broke again. And then it was fine again. It was a whole thing. Long story short: I need a new iron.

Painting the Canvas

Creativity often comes with a bit of a mess, right? I was just LOVING the way that I could add textures with the paint. With this canvas, I wanted pink, but not TOO pink, so I mixed in a lot of white and gray paint.

Finally, came the fun part—painting with my new acrylic paint know-how. First, I put a white coat on my canvases and let that dry for a few hours before beginning coat two. I smeared the paint on those canvases like I was Picasso creating the next masterpiece. The second coat allowed me to have so much fun experimenting with textures and acrylic painting. I ended up painting two canvases: one was white with some gray to capture that bright light-and-airy vibe. The other is white with blush pink.

Once I was done, I hung them to dry. The pink one that wasn’t too overly textured with paint took about 48 hours to fully dry. The white one may have had a bit too much paint. It’s been drying for about four days and it still a little sticky. Note to self, don’t get carried away next time!

Overall, I’m super happy with the final product and very excited to use them during our upcoming weddings! To test them out, I used my and Schuyler’s wedding rings. You can see the product below. I’m pretty obsessed.

The finished product! So happy with how it turned out! Can’t wait to bring them to our next wedding day!

WRAL Engagement Session

Alyssa reached out to me when her initial engagement session was canceled due to rain—they had scheduled a session in the mountains, and could no longer do it with the hurricane coming in. My heart ached for her: this year has been a year of tremendous losses for so many people, so I knew that I wanted to make sure this session was extra wonderful!

We had our engagement session in the WRAL Azalea gardens. Never been? It’s a small park right by the WRAL studio and it’s gorgeous. The best blooms are in the fall, which is why I was so excited for the session!

I pulled up, and already Alyssa and Zack were there. We realized that, though we may have missed the peak of the fall blooms, there was still lots of growth and greenery to see. Zack even picked Alyssa this beautiful, vibrant, pink flower that we were able to use during our session.

Alyssa and Zack brought their A-games to the session! They showed off their AMAZING chemistry and we laughed basically the entire time! These two are everything that you see in their photos: a stunning couple that really loves one another. AND they’ve even been quarantining together for the past 8 months—if that’s not a sign of a marriage that will last forever, I don’t know what is.

Here’s to forever, Alyssa and Zack!

A Surprise Proposal

Alex reached out to me late last week, asking if I would help with his proposal. After reading his email I realized that his proposal was…

Tomorrow

But, that’s the beautiful thing about love. When you know, you know. And he knew.

Alex and I talked on the phone for awhile, and after hearing their amazing story about meeting in beautiful Charleston while they were both visiting and realizing that they had both happened to be living in Raleigh, I knew I wanted in on this special day. Even better, Alex had planned an evening revisiting all of the beautiful parts of their relationship, their favorite things, and places in Raleigh that were special to them. Alex and I planned on the spot that he was going to get down on one knee, and I hung up excited (so, so excited) to secretly photograph the proposal.

Having never met in person, Alex and I made sure that we were aligned on the exact spot to meet. We didn’t want to miss anything!

He even visited the exact spot the evening before! This is an iPhone picture that Alex sent me to indicate where I should set up. He was very organized and thoughtful! 🥰

Proposal Day

Fast forward to the day of the proposal, and here we go! Naturally, we had to get a selfie. 🤷‍♀️Living near downtown, we always love when sessions afford us the ability to walk downtown instead of drive.

When we got downtown, Schuyler and I quickly got organized, got our cameras adjusted and began taking a few snaps in order to make sure that our cameras had the correct settings. There’s a reason we don’t deliver every. photo. we take. In a typical session, several look like this. That’s my husband, everyone!

As we waited, Alex gave me lots of updates on his and Laura’s whereabouts.

Naturally, as soon as I spotted Laura and Alex walking down the street…

A gentleman began standing in the EXACT SPOT in which Alex was intending to propose. A photographer, proposal planner, and unobserving pedestrian all in one, I casually walked over to the gentleman and explained the situation to him. The kindness of humanity, as it usually does, prevailed, and he moved around the corner and got his own iPhone camera ready to capture the sweet moment himself.

The proposal went perfectly, and Laura was so surprised!

She said yes!

…Like I knew she would! After a short engagement session, we sent these two love birds on their way to dinner.