Featured | Wedding Nouveau | Jill & Esrael
I’m really excited to be featured on Wedding Nouveau, a blog that celebrates multicultural weddings. Check out highlights from Jill & Esrael‘s big day!:
I’m really excited to be featured on Wedding Nouveau, a blog that celebrates multicultural weddings. Check out highlights from Jill & Esrael‘s big day!:
Part 1 (getting ready + ceremony) can be seen here.
Engagement + sneak peek photos can be found here.
Part 2 (portraits + receptions) below!:
We started the day bright and early with portraits at the Anderson House in Washington D.C. Jill and Esrael decided to have a ‘first look’ and got to see each other before the ceremony. I could write a whole blog post dedicated to why couples should always try to do this on their wedding day – it’s an excellent, excellent idea. Getting portraits taken at the start of the day meant that they were free to enjoy the rest of their wedding day without having to leave any part of it to go get pictures taken. A couple should not have to miss any part of their own party!
But oh, what a gorgeous venue the Anderson House is. We could have spent the entire day exploring it and taking pictures!
One of the many reasons why this wedding was so awesome was that they had TWO receptions! Two VERY different receptions, at that. Jill has the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I have ever known. It’s not unheard of her to replace entire meals with some sort of dessert, or incorporate a bakery trip into every city visit. So, not surprisingly, Jill had a dessert reception at her wedding. I have never seen so many different sweets in one room! Cookies, cupcakes, babka, fondue, chocolate, candy, and pretty much any other dessert you can think of… you name it, she had it. And at the end, all the guests got to fill up a bag with treats to take home.
Kelsey took the shot below of Jill and I on stage. We thought it’d be funny if I took Jill’s “throne” and she had to stand next to me :)
Reception #2 was the Eritrean reception, with hundreds of Esrael’s friends & family members in attendance. Lots of music, dancing, and most importantly – FOOD. Eritrean food is so flavorful and veggie-friendly, and meant to be eaten with your hands rather than with utensils. More specifically, you typically cover a thin, spongey bread with servings of food, and then rip off pieces of the bread to pick up the food with and then eat. It’s pretty fantastic.
Look at the gorgeous jewelry adorning her hand!
Congrats again, you guys! :)
On July 17th, I had the honor of shooting the wedding of a very good friend of mine. Jill and I have known each other for over 10 years, despite never having lived within 250 miles of each other. I’m not even sure how we became friends in the first place, though I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with our mutual love for boybands and baseball. Neither of these interest me much anymore, but I’m so grateful they brought us together in friendship :)
But oh man, I can’t even tell you how excited I was for Jill and Esrael’s wedding. I even had two engagement shoots with them in the months leading up to their big day (which you can see here). I wanted nothing more than to spend their wedding day doing what I love, for people I love, who are so very in love (how’s that for an overdose of love?).
And that’s precisely what I did :)
Here is the first part of their wedding photos, from getting ready through the ceremony (which took place at Mosaic Church in Washington D.C.). Part 2: portraits & receptions (coming soon!).
There was a red carpet!! Had to incorporate that into some shots, obviously:
What I really loved about their wedding day was how it was a celebration of two cultures coming together. Esrael’s family is from Eritrea, so they had Eritrean prayers and songs incorporated into the ceremony.
Congrats, Jill & Esrael! I am so, so happy for you guys and hope you come up to visit me again soon!
Also – special thanks to my friend and second shooter, Kelsey Fain, for roadtripping with me from NYC to DC and shooting their wedding with me :D
This past weekend, one of my favorite people married her favorite person. I couldn’t be happier for Jill and Esrael – I’m still smiling about it! :)
Here’s a sneak peek of their wedding day – and trust me, many many more photos to come! :D
I had it planned for months that I would come to Washington DC, stay with my good friend Jill, and do a second engagement shoot for her and Esrael with the cherry blossoms. I’ve been wanting to see the blossoms for as long as I can remember, but their bloom time is always so fickle and I could never quite fit it into my schedule.
But this year, I was going to finally see them! My visit fell within the predicted bloom timeframe, and I was super excited about it :)
Except when we arrived at the Tidal Basin (on 4/8), there were no cherry blossoms to be seen, except for remnants that were floating around in the water from the previous weekend’s peak bloom. It seems the cherry blossoms had come and gone before I had a chance to see them. Ugh I was so bummed! :/
We didn’t really feel like doing a full-blown shoot after this disappointment, but we still had fun wandering around the mall and I snapped a few photos of the soon-to-be-married couple anyway. Less than 3 months til their wedding!!
This one’s kind of silly because they’re posing in front of a big dumpster, but I think it’s cute and they’ll get a kick out of the humor behind it:
