Ted & Ali: Married at the Paradise Valley Country Club

Ted and Ali were married at the Paradise Valley Country Club in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Paradise Valley is a little community nestled between Phoenix and Scottsdale just north of Camelback Mountain. The wedding was a blast. Ted and Ali are a lot of fun, and so are their groomsmen and bridesmaids. Here are my favorite images from the wedding.

I love black and white. I loved this door, but I wasn’t fond of the colors in the room, but knowing an image will be in black and white, opens up a lot of possibilities for you as a photographer, regardless of the color schemes in a room.

The locker room for the ladies was a bit of a challenge, since I am not a lady. So I had my associate photographer and assistant (both ladies) spend most of their time in the locker room, but occasionally I got in there for the important moments and some good shots.

Time for some shots with the parents. This one caught me. I love the way Ali’s father is looking at her.

And both of these photographs of Ali are so beautiful. The light is perfect, she looks fantastic in her wedding dress, the flowers (by Table Tops, Etc.) look great.

I love the signs hanging from the chairs. Everything about the wedding, from the tables, to the flowers, to the chairs, the ribbon, the colors. All of it looked great. And of course all of that is thanks to the coordination efforts of Rachel at Outstanding Occasions. Nothing replaces a great wedding designer and planner.

Two ring bearers. Both looked great in their little tuxes.

I caught the flower girl taking a look at herself in the mirror. So big… and yet, still so small (short).

The youngest flower girl was so excited to be a part of the wedding and she was also very aware of the camera, or me… maybe she just liked me. But I think she was playing it up for the camera.

I think the purpose of ring bearers and flower girls is to give us all some comic relief from all the emotions. They are always so unpredictable and ofter very funny. Always cute! They make my day, every time I shoot a wedding.

Camelback Mountain makes a beautiful backdrop for a wedding. I don’t necessarily enjoy golfers finishing their round during the wedding, but they were respectful enough and there was no shouting, cursing or hootin’ and hollerin’ about a long put during the ceremony, so I suppose it worked out well.

Anytime I have a strong backlight, like the sun, if I can throw it behind a tree, it softens and scatters it just enough to allow a completely natural lighting shot. No flash, no reflector, just the right exposure.

While, starting earlier in the day for a wedding makes the portraiture more challenging, it certainly makes for far better reception photographs, like the father’s toast. I love this shot.

As the sun went down, the outdoor reception was lit by a grid work of twinkle lights, which give off a beautifully soft glow. One can even get a shot without a flash if you have the right camera with a clean high ISO.

When your daughter gets up for a toast, I am sure it is hard to keep it together.

This has to be the best image of the day. I know that we typically think of the cool portraits and the artsy images as the best images, but in this case, I can not get over this image. Ali was dancing with her dad, when half way through the song, Ted took his daughter on the dance floor for a dance. This is the first time I have been able to see both the Groom and the Bride dancing at the same time in a Father-Daughter dance. It was a precious as anything could be. I had to maneuver a great deal to get this shot to happen. Ali and her dad had to be in the right spot, in the right portion of the turn of their dance, the same is true for Ted and his daughter. Then I had to be in the right spot to keep them all close enough to fit in one frame. Then I had to have Ali’s dad in focus… I was stressed out about getting this shot, because I knew at the time how important is would be.

When I look at images like this from a wedding and think about my little daughter, I can’t emphasize this photograph enough. This is about as perfect a moment as I have ever captured.

That’s a lot of twinkle lights and the chandeliers are a great touch.

The odd little blue puff in the bottom corner of the photo is cotton candy. Yes, cotton candy. I love it.

In spite of being outside with nowhere to bounce a flash to get great light, we made the light happen by putting up a series of Canon 600RT Speedlites that I controlled from my camera. This kept plenty of light on the subjects but from multiple angles so there is a lot of volume in the shots.

Ali brought this white frame along to the wedding and asked if we could do something with it. So we set up a little photo booth situation at the after party. People had fun doing ridiculous things in in, on and around the frame.