Heather and Jeremy: A Wedding in Chandler, Arizona from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Jeremy and Heather were married at Noah’s in Chandler, Arizona.  Noah’s is a small even hall south east of Phoenix.  I have photographed a few weddings there and all of them have been in the heat of the summer, so we spent the entire time inside.  When Heather approached me about the idea of not going outside for portraits and photos, I said, “YES!”  Who wants to go out in 107% temperatures and sweat it out.  Plus, it made for an interesting challenge.  So, I put together a portrait studio and with their retro style wedding dress and tux, I thought the portrait studio should feel a bit retro itself.  I was pleased with the outcome.  I love doing something a little different.

I loved the artwork for the programs for the wedding.  Very cool.  Very personal.

The chandelier was quite beautifully decorated by AZ Wedding Decor. It is not often that a centered “bullet composition” works, but I like this one.

I love the use of the monogram in both the boutonnieres and the bouquet.

And what bride can resist the cute shoes.  It is all about the shoes.  Of course, I know this more because I am married and my wife loves shoes as well.  I don’t know a woman who doesn’t.  But I am always excited to see what the bride has done with her shoe choice.  It says a lot about her more private side.

But the bouquet says even more about the bride and her public side.  And you have to admit that a fruit and vegetable bouquet is something very unique and different.  I loved it.  This was designed by How Appropriate Floral. It, changed the way I felt about the colors in the wedding.  So, a lot of the decisions I made about how to shoot the images and how to effect them in post came from this one detail.  I shot a lot of wide open f1.2 images for their portraits and details and pulled back the colors to make them more muted and soft.  While what I know of the client before the wedding, helps to dictate the direction of the imagery, it is the visuals I see when I get to the wedding that shape the final imagery and how those images will be seen.  I think that being open to changing direction, based on what is in front of me, helps me to truly describe the event and the people I am photographing.

This of course, has to be my favorite image from the wedding.  I love everything about it.  I love the bouquet.  Heather looks fantastic.The lens and aperture choice makes it soft and dreamlike.  The colors are perfect.  Sometimes you have a vision for a photo and you execute it perfectly, but the subject does’t nail the look, but she nailed it!  Way to be Heather.  Way to be.

And these little kids just made me laugh.  What a funny concept.  They loved their little capes and they were certainly fun to photograph in my studio. They were not “ring bearers” but were announcing the coming of the bride. Yet, another way Heather made her wedding a little different from the typical.

Jeremy’s tux was the one other thing that directed me to the style and feel of the final images.  His tux and his beard put me in the right frame of mind for the style.  We shot very high ISO, wide apertures and fixes lenses to create a grainy old school look to the portraits and photographs.  And when we didn’t shoot high ISO, we added the grain in post.  I think we got a great consistent style across the entire photo collection.  I am very happy with it.

The center pieces on the tables were created by Ethereal Events Decor.  They made for great foreground elements.

The tables were all covered with these big glass jewels, so I couldn’t resist putting the rings in the jewels.  This is always an entertaining few minutes of the evening for me.

Thank you Jeremy and Heather for trusting me with your wedding.

Photography Details:

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Wedding Location: Noah’s, Chandler, Arizona

Slideshow Music: The Genesis by Jared Platt

Flowers by How Appropriate Floral

Decorations by AZ Wedding Decor & Ethereal Events Decor