Happy Friday!
It’s been a while since there’s been a blog update – and for good reasons! Lots of fun and exciting stuff has been happening: traveling for both work & fun, photoshoots, meeting with awesome future Meagan Emilia Photography couples, and developing new ideas for different areas of business! Next weekend, we are going into our 5th wedding of the year and have a lot of gorgeous shots to share with you in the blog queue. I have made a personal goal this season to be more consistent with blogging and to share images from each wonderful couple or session we photograph. So, for the next few weeks I’ll be playing catch up and sharing what we’eve been up to so far this year!
It’s hard to believe that this southern wedding was already almost 2 months ago! It was actually our first wedding of the 2017 season! I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Jon + Kendra for their engagement photos last summer (see that session here!) while they were still living in Rhode Island and Kendra was finishing up school at Brown. Soon after we had our session the couple relocated to Nashville where Kendra landed a job. Big change for Jon! Kendra is from Georgia and Jon is a native Rhode Islander – both come from HUGE families – so when they decided to have their wedding in Kendra’s hometown of Valdosta, we pretty much had the whole town in attendance! ;)
As this was the first wedding of the season (and still during our ‘slow’ season), my amazing 2nd shooter and great friend Cc and I decided to make a fun road trip out of it. We would fly into Charleston SC for a few days before renting a car and driving to Valdosta for the wedding, then continue down to FL where she would explore the east coast and I would go to the west to visit my family. A small wrench was thrown in our plans when Mother Nature blessed us with a timely snow storm (New Englanders, remember the ‘historical snowpocalypse’ we had in March?!). Our flights were cancelled a day in advance so we made the decision to hop in a car the next morning and book it before the storm reached us! We ended up driving through Baltimore (which was the very edge of the storm) RIGHT as it started snowing!! Success all around.
All in all, we had a great trip, and the AMAZING time we spent with Kendra, Jon and their incredible families really topped it all off. We felt so welcomed and our hearts were warmed watching the two families come together and celebrate such a kind and wonderful couple. This was by FAR the biggest wedding party we ever photographed (39 including bride + groom!) as well as the biggest wedding event overall (300+ people). There was such a big and loving presence throughout the whole day.
My favorite part of the day was hands down during the ceremony when Kendra surprised Jon with playing the piano + singing a song she wrote for him. What an amazing talent our lovely bride has!! I took a look around and there was absolutely no dry eye in the room. Even the groomsmen! :)
Thank you to Kendra, Jon and both of your families for a wonderful time in Valdosta. Wishing you all the happiness for your life together!
Also, special thanks to my awesome second shooters, Cc and Mel, for all your help! You girls are rockstars!
Ceremony Venue: Crossroads Baptist Church
Ceremony Music: Valdosta Orchestra Chamber Group
Reception Venue: James Rainwater Conference Center
Wedding Planner: Soiree South & Co
Videographer: Abigail Saenz Videography
DJ: Sound Injection DJs
Makeup Artist: Yentle Carter
Hair Artist: Cheryl Hutcherson & Co
