Archive for July, 2010

21
Jul
10

Tony and Ella’s Wedding Photos!

Tony and Ella got married July 11th at George George Park and had their reception at the Imperial House, both in Clinton Township. The day was not only their wedding day, but also Ella’s birthday! Here are just a few of the MANY photographs I took for them!

Tony and Ella are both from Albania, and they have some very cool traditions. Like for example, its customary to have the men in the grooms family shave the groom before the wedding. So I started my day hanging out with the guys for a bit.

After the groom was dressed and ready to go, then I moved on to the bride’s house where I was (literally) greeted with open arms! :)

At the bride’s house, lots of family hang out and eat, drink and be merry while everybody waits for the bride to get dressed. The groom also comes over with all of his family members. The groom greets the bride, some gifts and such are exchanged and then everybody heads back over to the grooms house where the bride and her family is greeted by the groom’s family. Lots of back and forth between the two houses, but I think this tradition is really nice. It gives everybody a change to hang out a little before the ceremony and party and I loved it because I was able to take lots of photos. :)

The dessert spread was AH-MAZING! Just going through the pictures has me craving sweets…

What better way to decorate the tables then with buckets of ice cold beer and bottles of Hennessy? I think this is excellent planning – pretty much guarantees that your party is going to be fun! ;)

These folks sure loved to dance, I’m pretty sure that dance floor was never empty! The band sounded fantastic. I’d post a link to their website, but I actually forgot to get a card from them. If anybody is looking for a talented band that plays Albanian music, email me, I’d be happy to hunt down the contact info for them.

Congratulations Ella and Tony!! (and happy birthday Ella!)

Closing this post out with one of my favorite photos of the day. I happened to just be walking by and spotted these 2 children. Fired off a super quick frame just half a sec before they ran off chasing that balloon. Talk about a lucky shot!

14
Jul
10

Jessica and John Altan’s Wedding Photos!

Before I get into posting a few images for this super awesome couple, a quick update regarding photographic watermarks. I seriously HATE the thought of stamping some ugly logo/photographer credit on all of my blog images. I feel strongly that they distract from the photo, and so I held off from doing this for a long time. ‘Till a few days ago when I saw some of the photos I took in some random photographer’s online portfolio. Dude basically stole the images off my site and posted them as his own work. Of course I immediately emailed him and he did remove them, but now I’m wondering how many others have my photos in their portfolios. So. To maybe try and prevent this a little, from now on, all blogged images will have my new watermark: Sara Michele Stills + Cinema. A little name change too (and a new blog design is in the works too!). I’m not happy about this change, but it looks like in this digital age we live in that its a necessary one. :( Don’t worry though – all of my actual clients will be receiving the images with no watermark on them.

And so, now we can move on to the fun stuff!

Jessica and John Altan! Amazing couple. Fun wedding! Jessica and John Altan went to school together their whole lives but they didn’t actually start dating until college. They had the awesome idea of stopping by all the schools they went to together for a quick photo session at each after their ceremony. Here is one from their middle school ->

My day with them started at the groom’s house with a feast of sloppy joe’s and a toy gun fight:

Some quick family photos there, then off to the bride’s house. Mad props to Jessica for a PERFECT wedding day schedule. We had plenty of time for pictures, and everything ran exactly on schedule (this is incredibly rare in the wedding world!).

Ceremony was held at Sacred Heart in Roseville.

The reception was held at the Sterling Inn. The first photo is a “tradition” among Jessica and her friends –>

Thanks to Brendan Pfaff who was the DJ for the evening and introduced me to Jessica and John Altan. Brendan is a total class act amongst DJs, one of the best out there for sure.

Congratulations John and Jessica!!!




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