Stacy + Jay tied the knot at the Rigmor House in Chapel Hill on April 22, 2017. This laid-back duo wanted a celebration that felt less like an extravagant production and more like a backyard barbecue.
And they wanted their dog, Pepper, to be the star of the day. They incorporated lawn games, s’mores around the bonfire, and ample room for Pepper to roam and guests to stretch their legs (and slip her food!).
Do you think they pulled it off? Check out these pics, and sound-off in the comments below!
Are you planning a laid-back outdoor wedding and looking for a photographer who loves cornhole, North Carolina BBQ, and your fur-baby?
Or maybe you’re renovating your home for your backyard wedding and have no idea where to put all the guests? I love helping you clarify + celebrate your true values on your wedding day. Check out my 3 wedding packages and schedule a 30-minute phone discovery session with me by August 15 and receive 10% off your photography package.
A shout-out to our fab vendors who made this day possible:
Heidi + Patrick tied the knot on May 28, 2016 in a beautiful outdoor ceremony at Duke Gardens. I had been looking forward to this spontaneous couple’s wedding ever since shooting their fun engagement photos in Durham earlier this year, and they did not disappoint! Their unconventional celebration included surprise wedding crashers during the ceremony, a giant flash mob on the dance floor, and several dazzling trombone performances by Heidi’s dad during the reception.
Read the Q&A with this spirited couple, featured below, to learn more about their wedding inspiration and photography experience! To view all of the photos from their wedding and order prints, please visit their gallery on my online print shop!
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1. What are some of your favorite things about your partner? How were these attributes expressed during or leading up to your wedding?
Patrick: Two qualities that I love about Heidi is that she is extremely thoughtful and very meticulous. These two qualities were especially relevant during our wedding planning. Heidi did an amazing job planning every event of the weekend down to the minute and she left no detail unconsidered. This made for a very successful event. However, what made the wedding truly special was how Heidi considered our guest’s wants and feelings throughout the planning process. Heidi always had her friends and family (and me of course) on her mind when she was envisioning the weekend and everyone seemed to have a valuable role. She even had the idea of setting up a “wish you were here table” for the friends/family that had passed away before our wedding. Weddings are times when brides are typically expected to put themselves first but Heidi used this opportunity to celebrate everyone. I truly love her for that.
Heidi: I love that Patrick is a “go with the flow” type of person, a very good match for me who had strong opinions about everything to do with our wedding! When it came to making the 1,000 decisions involved in wedding planning, Patrick and I were virtually always on the same page – mostly because he’s so agreeable. He was very supportive of the vision I had for our big day and worked with me to make it happen. Also, Patrick has a kick-ass sense of humor, which he peppered throughout our ceremony. During our ceremony, one of my bridesmaids read the quirky story Patrick wrote of how we met and our guests couldn’t get enough of it. He had the idea to have our friends read cheesy song lyrics about love as if they were serious words of wisdom, it added the perfect humorous touch. He also included such a hilarious line in his otherwise beautiful vows that the roar of the laughter drowned out the last part of the message. Patrick is a sweet, loving, goofy guy – I’m so lucky to have gone through this process with him – and now be married to him!
2. What was most important to you in planning your wedding?
While planning our wedding we wrote down our top 3 priorities and compared them with each other. They were essentially the same:
Make it fun – we especially wanted an epic dance party. We live in North Carolina and that’s where we had our wedding, but most of our family and friends live in states near and far around the US. Therefore, because most people were spending a lot of time and money to come to our wedding, we wanted to make it worth their while. The band selection was especially important – we went with The Royal Suits who got everyone on the dance floor, and we surprised the crowd by passing out with light-up sunglasses and wands, and doing a flash-mob.
Fill the day with love – have people feel connected to each other and to us. Our families met for the first time during our wedding week (though we’d been dating for 3.5 years) so we wanted everyone to have a nice environment to mingle and get to know each other. It was also important to us that we were accessible to people and that we didn’t seem like royalty. For example, during dinner we opted out of a “head” table and instead sat with our guests, switching tables each course.
Make it unique – we wanted the weekend to reflect our personalities and our relationship. The two of us are uber goofy and fun-loving, and we wanted that to shine through in our wedding. We wanted our wedding to be beautiful and classy, yet down to earth, inclusive, and full of laughter.
3. Are there any details or moments from your wedding that are particularly special to you?
Patrick: The entire wedding ceremony was very special and our officiators (Bob and Helen) ran it beautifully. However, the thing I will remember most about our ceremony was Heidi reading her vows. In particular, it was so sweet that Heidi teared up before she read them and had a hard time getting started. Also, as part of her vows, Heidi read a passage she had written about us after only a few months of dating. It so nice to hear how positive she was about ‘us’ from so early on and it was amazing to hear how prophetic she was about our great relationship to come.
The other moment that stands out was Heidi’s excellent execution of her flash mob during our reception. It is no easy task to control a mob, much less a flash mob. She worked extremely hard to pull off such a complicated feat and it was great to see it performed so successfully.
Heidi: The morning of our wedding my sister Robyn (the Maid of Honor) came over as a surprise when I was waking up and we had a lovely morning together before the other bridesmaids arrived. At one point Patrick and I decided to practice our “first dance” one last time in our hotel room and Robyn recorded it – it was a particularly special moment for me. Another special element was our ceremony – having all the people who love and support us in one place to witness such an important event in our lives is something I’ll never forget! Our ceremony was officiated by my great Aunt and Uncle, Helen and Bob, who have been married for 69 years and are now in their 90s. They have always been my role models for a successful relationship and they’re just simply wonderful people. They each wrote a piece for Patrick and I about marriage and love and read them as part of our ceremony. Their words were beautiful, meaningful, clever, and at times funny – the perfect way to start Patrick and my marriage adventure.
And of course I must mention my dad’s toast. My dad knew about the secret flash mob I had planned for our reception, but little did I know HE was planning to surprise ME with a spontaneous performance of his own!! He began his toast by saying that he was going to give some marriage advice, but realized that everyone might be skeptical since he’s divorced so to keep in mind that this wasn’t written by him. He then broke into song singing Accentuate the Positive while the band supported him on stage. In between verses he would stop and add in personal touches such as “You should never let a physics professor get on stage!” By the end he had the whole room singing along and it all ended in a standing ovation. It was simply incredible. Furthermore, apparently he had asked the band to join him only seconds earlier and they didn’t know the song, so they just followed along – but it fooled the rest of us since it sounded so put together! He spent months planning and practicing his performance. It will forever be a truly special wedding moment for me.
4. Your wedding photography package included an engagement session. What was it like to work with me prior to the wedding? How did this shape your expectations for the wedding day itself?
Courtney was so fabulous to work with! We both felt at ease around her during our engagement session, so we interacted naturally with each other during the shoot and it shows in our beautiful pictures. She’s super easy to get along with and very organized and responsive. She goes above and beyond – for example she drove a long way to check out our ceremony location with us before the wedding to get a sense of the lighting on the big day. Because we had the pleasure of working with Courtney for our engagement session, it was comforting to know that we already knew and trusted the person who would photograph our wedding – and that she would take stellar photos (which she DID!) We also love that she and her assistants encouraged us to be goofy and creative during the photo shoot – but also took time shooting us being candidly sincere and in love. After our friends hired Courtney as their wedding photographer they highly recommended her for our wedding – and now I’m highly recommending her to you!!
5. Now that you’ve tied the knot (and survived!), what advice would you give to other folks planning their wedding?
My first piece of advice is to realize that all the “little things” take LOTS of time. We had booked our major vendors and made most of the big decisions early on and at that time we felt like wedding planning was mostly over. But how wrong we were! All the little details such as making the signs for the wedding, deciding what will hold up your table numbers on the dinner tables (we ended up using picture frames), making sure we got the measurements of all the groomsmen for their suits in time, making little gift bags etc. etc. etc. added up to take SO much time. We funneled almost all our free time into wedding planning for months preceding the wedding and there were still things we were finishing up last-minute.
My second piece of advice is that in order to add more sanity into your life and to make your guests feel included, you MUST delegate tasks. People love you and want to help you! I really wish someone had told me this as I was planning my wedding. I didn’t delegate tasks until late in the process because I didn’t want to “bother” people. But what I didn’t understand is that by helping you on a project for the wedding, be it to do research, book a vendor, or make something by hand, your guests become a central “part” of the wedding and feel more included in the celebration. I wasn’t good about asking family and friends to help me with wedding tasks and crafts until about 6 weeks before the wedding, but when I did it made my life much easier and they felt privileged to be included in a special way.
6. What is the first thing you want to do with the images? Wallpaper the hallway? Internet fame?
Patrick’s mom bought us the most adorable frame with our wedding date engraved in it – we put the cream of the crop photo in there. Once we move out of our teeny tiny apartment we’ll have a lot more wall space and can surround ourselves with wedding memories. Until then – we’re creating a wedding album with all the rest! (And will of course be plastering them all over Facebook.)
7. What is next for you as a couple? Any big plans?
Patrick will finish his PhD in November, and in December we’re moving to California! I’m from San Jose, California and work remotely for a company in the Bay Area, and Patrick just scored his dream job as a climate science post-doc at Stanford also in the Bay Area. By complete coincidence Patrick did his masters in San Jose (where I’m from) but we didn’t meet until we were both in North Carolina. Even before we met we had each planned to move back to the Bay, so we feel so lucky that things have fallen into place quite nicely!
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Heidi + Patrick, thank you for being so authentic and fun throughout this whole process. Your celebration was a thoughtful, creative reflection of your love for each other and your communities, and I enjoyed every minute. I hope you cherish these photos for years to come!
A shout-out to all our fab vendors for making this day possible:
Whitney + Brian tied the knot on top of a mountain in West Jefferson, NC on September 5, 2015. This outdoorsy couple wanted a scenic wedding in one of their favorite spots, and their day couldn’t have been any more beautiful or fun!
Read the Q&A with this spunky couple, featured below, to learn more about their wedding inspiration and photography experience! To view all of the photos from their wedding and order prints, please visit their gallery on my online print shop!
1. What are some of your favorite things about your partner? How were these attributes expressed during or leading up to your wedding?
Whitney: He always knows how to make me laugh and calm my spirit. Throughout planning and even the day of the wedding he took time to hug and kiss me and express how excited he was to be my husband. He also shares a love for the outdoors and that is one of the reasons we choose to have the wedding on top of Mount Jefferson. It is a special place for both of us.
Brian: I personally enjoy everything about Whitney. Our wedding was perfect. She was beautiful and I wouldn’t change anything about her, our ceremony, or the reception site. The ease of which she handled all decisions was also refreshing. We had heard horror stories of making decisions, yet the entire process was smooth and rather painless.
2. What was most important to you in planning your wedding?
I’m sure most people say this but we wanted people to have fun and experience the beauty of the town we call home. Almost 90% of our guest traveled to our wedding from the east to west coast, as far as Hawaii, so we tried to allow people to see the joys of a small North Carolina town.
3. Are there any details or moments from your wedding that are particularly special to you? (E.g., you wore your momma’s dress, your partner unexpectedly serenaded you, there was a double rainbow all across the sky…).
Our first communion meant a lot to me, as well as our vows. Things were so crazy leading up to the wedding so we didn’t get to write them until the night before, but they really came from our hearts. All the details of the decorations and the cake were also really special because they were all handmade from Brian’s Mom. OHHH the last thing that was really special to me was my bouquet, because I grew my own sunflowers to add to it, and I arranged it myself. It was so much fun watching the flowers grow and I couldn’t wait to add that subtle touch to my flowers.
4. Now that you’ve tied the knot (and survived!), what advice would you give to other folks planning their wedding?
Breathe and surround yourself with people to tell you it’s going to be great and everything looks amazing! Also, plan to spend time with family the day before and the day after. The actual wedding day goes by so fast and it was really nice to know we didn’t have to see and talk to everyone that day.
5. Your wedding photography package included a bridal session. What was it like to work with me for this session? How did it help shape your expectations for working together throughout your wedding day?
It was great, and it helped me relax and know your style with shooting. It also gave me a lot of confidence and comfort for the day of the wedding.
6. What is the first thing you want to do with the images? Wallpaper the hallway? Internet fame?
Print a few to hang on the wall, and make a few photo books. Most likely wallpaper the ceiling. Its always fun to lay on bed and see all the pretty pictures. (this is a joke lol…Brian’s stealthy work). 🙂
7. What is next for you as a couple? Any big plans?
Our plan is to settle into life and work. We have had a big year and are ready to get a little bit of a routine going. We are also planning a few running races since all our time will not be consumed with wedding planning.
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Whitney + Brian, thank you for giving me the opportunity to experience the beauty of your home! I was completely charmed by West Jefferson and am excited about returning for an adventure in the near future. 🙂 You and your bridal party and families were a blast to work with- thank you for being so adventurous and collaborative! I hope you love your pictures and am excited to share everything with you now!
A shout-out to all our fab vendors for making this day possible:
Catering: Boondocks Brewing Tap Room and Restaurant
Heather + Sean tied the knot on April 11, 2015 at the Rigmor House in Chapel Hill, NC. Their wedding was a fun reflection of their laid-back personalities and love of the outdoors. Instead of driving to a hotel after a night of dancing and celebration, friends camped out around a cozy bonfire at The Rigmor House. Read the Q&A below to learn more about Heather + Sean’s wedding day and inspiration! To view all of the photos from Heather + Sean’s wedding and order prints, please visit their wedding gallery on my online print shop!
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1. How did you meet and fall in love? I’d love to hear a little bit more of your story. 🙂
We met in high school. Our wedding was almost exactly 10 years after our first date.
2. Tell me about the inspiration for your wedding celebration. How did the day itself line up with
your vision and expectations?
We wanted it to feel like a fun, casual, backyard BBQ. Everything lined up perfectly with our
plan! We also loved having our friends camp – that definitely fit with our personalities.
3. What was your favorite part of your wedding day?
Right after dinner when dancing started and we realized we had pulled the whole thing off!
4. What factors other than photos went into your decision on a wedding photographer? Why did
you pick me?
We really liked the style of your photos, and knew you would be a great choice after meeting
you in person. You felt like you were someone we could be friends with in “real life”, and we would
feel comfortable having you at the wedding. The fact that you had shot at our venue, the Rigmor
House before was a perk as well.
5. Did you foresee any part of your wedding day being difficult logistically or emotionally? Did I
make it easier? If so, how?
Everything went so smoothly. We didn’t feel like we had to think much about the photography
because you had it all under control!
6. What is the first thing you want to do with the images?
Share them with our family.
7. What is next for you as a couple? Any big plans?
Getting “real” jobs; we are both postdocs!
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Heather + Sean, thanks for being such a breeze to work with! I concur with what you said in the Q&A- I feel like we could have met and been friends in “real life.” I haven’t ever photographed wedding guests pitching their tents minutes before the ceremony, so thank you for giving me this fun opportunity! 🙂 I enjoyed making these images, and I hope you love them!
A shout-out to all our fab vendors for making this day possible: