amanda and matt are the famous kids from “the 22 minute enagement session of july 2008.”

ok, famous…maybe not.  but they’re famous to ME, because hello!  22 minutes?!

anyway, they got hitched on september 26, 2008 in portsmouth, nh.  they were going to get married at a beach ceremony (wallis sands state beach in rye, nh), but hurricane whats-her-face was blowing up from whereever-it-was, and the weather left something to be desired.

so they hurrriedly relocated to a room in the sheraton.  amanda and matt totally rolled with the punches and didn’t let the grey skies “dampen” their enthusiam (oh man, sorry people…i couldn’t help it!)

we started off at sorassa salon in portsmouth where sorassa worked her magic and turned amanda from a very pretty girl into…a beautiful/stunning/amazing BRIDE.

bridesmaid kristen #1 (cast listed in order of appearance) looked on during the beautification process.  also…at this point, i am nowhere near finished with this wall.

SUCH a beautiful group of girls!  yowsa.

but amanda was too lovely to be upstaged.  also, that fabulous wall–WALLPAPER!  if i ever decide i want a studio, i know what to do for one of the walls.

i sent doug along with the guys…he got some fantastic stuff…check out his blog.

matt had an envelope for amanda to read…he stipulated that she needed to read it AFTER she’d put her jewelry on.  the card told her that the rented necklace…was hers to keep!

amanda chose super cute dresses for her bridesmaids to wear.

danielle was eating while everyone was getting ready, and amanda saw her and said, “get a photo of THAT!”…  and then it was time for everyone to go downstairs.  i love, love, love this one of amanda leading her “maids” downstairs.

matt and amanda rented an awesome vintage bentley…there were plans in place to rock that car…and then…

it rained.  so…we rocked the INSIDE of the vintage bentley, and then we got some papparazzi, “i’m-so-famous” shots of the beautiful bride dashing to avoid hair-frizz.

sometimes i like to grab other couples–especially if they’re part of the wedding party–and take a few nice shots of them too.  kelly and kevin were both part of the bridal party…and they were quite willing to come out onto the boat deck and smooch…they were mostly sheltered from the rain.

first dance…amanda’s teeny, and matt is like a big all-american basketball player.  there was lots of picking her up and spinning around.  i LOVE the one where you can just see her pink, sparkly ballet flats peeking out from under her beautiful dress.

(this is one of doug’s, but i just love it, and it underlines for me my NEEEED for a fisheye lens!)

BLING!  (also, that is sugar, not sand, and the starfish…made out of white chocolate.  delicious.)

this first one is another one of doug’s…but c’mon, how smokin’ hott is she?  i love it.

on the left are sarah and zach…they’re expecting baby stella very soon…and she told me, “please just get ONE nice picture of us dancing.”  i’d found the SWEET SPOT to rock the off-camera flash, and i had to beg, plead, and cajole them to come dance for me again really quick…but when they saw the results, they were glad they had.  on the right are kristen and jeff…he’s in the army and took his r&r (mid-deployment leave) so he could come back and be best man for matt (his cousin).  i tried to take lots of pictures for kristen so she’d have them to help her remember his visit.

amanda’s gorgeous.  period.

guys–i’m so sorry it took me a bajillion years to get this up.  i finished it once or twice and the draft didn’t save!  and you know how crazy life’s been…it took me a while to finish it.  your party and your friends were SO much fun!  thanks for being so welcoming to doug and me…we had a blast!

–gwyneth colleen, portsmouth, nh wedding photographer

this is just a teaser, but i’m so discombobulated (that’s a great word, isn’t it?  i was wandering aimlessly about my room this afternoon, wondering which of the 400 things on my to-do list to do, and my friend sarah said, “awww, you’re so discombobulated!”  i curled up on my couch and disconsolately agreed.) that i think if i don’t just post things as i’m working on them, my ambitions to systematically go through and post about everything on my list might come to naught.  so…better out of order than…never, right?

anyway, i met jody & matt in prescott park this past sunday.  they live in boston, but that was where he proposed, one wintry march day, so it had to be portsmouth.

they’ve got their own wedding blog, and they asked me for just a teaser so, in their words, they could post about “how awesome you are.”  that’s kind of hard to say no to, right?

so anyway…this was from near the end of our session…they were such fun!  i love the final shot, but i also put together a little filmstrip to show the “making of”.

stay tuned for more of these two!

gwyneth colleen–portsmouth, nh wedding photographer

ok, new blog might not be the most precisely correct term.  it is the same old blog, but with a facelift, so it looks younger!  and prettier!  and 10lbs lighter!

my friend jessica weiser (who ROCKS, and is also a photographer, and is in portland, me) does magic with css and voodoo and black cauldrons and who knows what else…and she turns out fantabulous looking blogs.  like this one.  she’s fantastic to work with, and if i wasn’t pretty sure she wasn’t taking on any more web design clients, i’d tell you to rush on over.

so, please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!  in a lot of ways it takes all the stuff i loved from the old design and carries it over, so at first glance, it may not appear that different.  but it is!  changes made include:  room for bigger images!  (that’s what it’s all about, right?), easier and cleaner navigation…at the top of the screen, and no need to click on “comments” to leave one or read someone else’s.  they’re right there and you can choose to see them or hide them w/o navigating away from the main page.

hope you love it!  i know i do.

(also, i went to flatbread in portland a few weeks ago, and the awesome jess bought ME dinner…even though i should have been falling all over myself thanking her.  THAT’S how much she rocks.)