gwyneth colleen photography » portsmouth, nh wedding photographer

alex + jen’s wedding was just…cool. there’s really no other word for it. it was COOL.  their ceremony was at brooklyn bridge park…and i loved loved LOVED shooting there.  for the reception, we walked a few hundred feet to the galapagos art space.  again…it’s just…COOL.

(and the coolness was definitely upped by having one of the COOLEST photographers i know come shoot with me. thanks again, mike!  also, disclaimer:  where i remember, i have noted which shots are his, but there are probably some that are his that i’m just not sure about.)

she bought her (cool) dress off etsy.  they had vegetarian asian food with disposable bamboo dishes.  and chopsticks!  pretty chopsticks.  i dunno, it was just…cool.  see?

site of the ceremony…ridiculous, no?

(i think this one might be mike’s…)

so…i have to give jen some MAJOR props…kudos…accolades…whatever vocab word you want to use, she deserves them all.  the part of the park i wanted to shoot in?  yeah…it wasn’t so much “open” as it was “gated and chained with a padlock.”  HOWEVER!  no problem!  just climb through these bushes, and down these enormous boulders, onto a beach, and then back up some more boulders and voila!  we’re there!  and jen was totally up for it.  and…the resulting images are SO worth all of our clambering around.

(this is DEFINITELY one of mike’s…i love it!)

i couldn’t get enough of those bridges or the skyline!  so amazing.

(i think this is another one of mike’s…so beautiful.)

ok…i will try to tear myself away from the gorgeousness that is alex + jen, and move on to the gorgeousness of the location they chose.

i love father-daughter dances.  :-D

i’m about 98% sure alex is playing air guitar, here.

as our time was wrapping up, we took the bridal party outside for a couple more fun shots w/ the ny skyline behind us.  and the result is…HELLO CAST OF LOST!  (well, *i* think it looks like that, anyway.)

i’m sitting in my hotel room in brooklyn (not sleeping when i SHOULD be; i have a long drive home tomorrow.)

yesterday’s wedding was uh-mazing. no…that’s not extreme enough. it was AMAZING.

here’s one of my favorite shots from the day…but there are LOTS of other incredible photos.

today i met up with jess & matt who’re getting married in a couple months in maryland. we wandered around and enjoyed spring in NYC.

i’ve gotta give props to both these fantastic couples…jen hiked over some rather sizable boulders…in her wedding dress! (she agrees the photos are SO worth it, though) and jess & matt didn’t blink when i suggested we ignore fences…and hop up on a vintage truck that was waiting around to be on a movie set. YOU ALL ROCK.

and now. i think i will go to sleep.

erin & tom got married last august (yes, i’m still working on catching up) in littleton, nh and had their reception at the AMAZING sunset hill house in sugar hill, nh. i was drooling over the grounds and views…every direction i turned was amazingly beautiful. and then, of course, there were erin & tom and their incredibly good-looking friends and family. all in all, it was a pretty much perfect day.

when i got there, erin was pretty much ready. i didn’t mind, as it gave us time to get some amazing photos before we headed off to the church.

can you believe this amazingness? no? me neither.

i love this image of erin’s parents/grandparents singing during the ceremony.

man and wife, say man and wife! (sorry, i just recently read “the princess bride”…and then followed it up by watching the movie. btw…the book is highly recommended!)

this may be one of my favorite bridal party pictures EVER. however…let me just tell you what i was doing to GET this image. 1. i was straddling the other side of the bride. i think most of those guys were on the balls of their feet ready to dash across the bride to grab me in case i looked like i was going over. (they were being overly cautious. benefit to being short: awesome center of gravity/balance!) 2. holding the camera OVER my head to get enough space between the subjects and the lens to fit them all in there. this was one lucky snap. it’s hard to frame something when you can’t SEE it! anyway, i think it was all worth it, don’t you agree?

another behind the scenes look: (which will not be surprising to anyone i have photographed before) i was laying on the ground to get this shot. my hs volleyball coach used to yell at me for diving for the ball instead of moving my feet, but…it’s working for me NOW, isn’t it miss strain!

how much do you love the seersucker suits? (correct answer: SO MUCH!)

one of the problems with being a delinquent blogger is you sometimes forget the story behind the photo…like, there’s a reason they’re drinking beer (i want to say it’s because…they really like beer. and they were thirsty, but it MIGHT be more meaningful…but i am a delinquent blogger, so i can’t remember.) also, the 2004 sign on the bridge is perfect, because that is the year they met. or got together. something important. (see: delinquent blogger.)

isn’t she beautiful? erin, you’re beautiful. (and tom, you’re very dapper!)

i’m just gonna say…there’s a reason why certain songs are always played at weddings.

and last but not least…the ring shot.

does this really need a caption?

my friend david lives a whirlwind life…he works for world vision and was in a whopping 15 countries this year. therefore…his blogs are never in ‘real time’. he coined a brilliant term…”retro blogging.” seeing as jody and matt got married LAST NOVEMBER…this is definitely an exercise in retro blogging.

jody was claire’s maid of honor in july last year, and after claire & bobby’s wedding, she contacted me about traveling down to NJ to photograph her wedding.

matt really wanted pictures of his grandpa helping him put on his tie…and i’m SO glad he specifically requested these. they’re some of my favorites from the whole day!

pretty much everyone at the entire wedding doted on this little girl…and, like smart little girls everywhere, she gobbled it right up.

sometimes, when i’m doing family pictures…i tell everyone to pretend they’re on a roller coaster. there are a few reasons for this…
1) because who doesn’t look happy and excited when they’re on a roller coaster? especially if it’s just a pretend one that isn’t actually high up in the air…
2) for the POWAH! it’s intoxicating.

i probably took 100 images trying to get the motion blur in the windows, but i’m glad i persevered!

it was a really cold day, and they’d hired this fabulous trolley to take everyone between the ceremony and reception sites…so we made the most of it!

jody & matt, thanks for inviting me to join your celebration. sorry i’m the world’s most disorganized and delinquent blogger ever, and it took me so long to write about you guys.