A few times a year I have the distinct pleasure to photograph a wedding of or for a business colleague and/or friend. My latest wedding involved both someone I consider a friend as well as a business colleague. Julie Lee, who works at the Crabtree Marriott (One of my favorite Raleigh Wedding Venues) came to me about photographing her Sisters wedding. Of course, the wedding was going to held at the Marriott and Julie had assembled a real who’s-who of the Raleigh Wedding Vendors to help make her sister’s wedding day fabulous!
We started off the day in the Crabtree Marriott bridal suite, where Erin & all the girls were getting ready. The short time I was with Erin in her room we wonderful as an almost constant stream of friends and family were coming and going from the room – all wishing her well and expressing their overwhelming joy for her upcoming wedding ceremony.
Erin wanted very little “posed” photography and, when we did stage something, she wanted it to be unique, different and to, well, pretty much do what I wanted to do. As a wedding photographer, this is absolute music to my ears. We had time for a few quick shots while in her bridal suite (that rocked) then we moved down to the ceremony area in the Crabtree Marriott’s Junior Ballroom. The ceremony room and reception hall (main ballroom) were beautifully decorated by one of my favorite florists, Lyn Graves from Fresh Affairs in Raleigh, NC. Ken Holmes from Joe Bunn DJ Company got the reception going and, well, pretty much destroyed the dance floor as soon as he started spinning the tunes (Great job Ken!).
I managed to sneak away with the Bride & Groom for a few minutes to “play” with some ideas I got while walking thru the hotel earlier. I revisited one of my favorite spots then hit a few new ones that I had been wanting to try since my last visit. As the evening wore down, we held a “mock” sparkler exit and, as the sparklers were extra long, we ended up running thru it 3 times. :) We all went back into the reception hall and as the evening wore down, I took a quick stock of the entire evening. First word that came to mind after doing this was “wow”. It was an incredible evening and all the emotions, beautiful settings and unadulterated joy experienced by everyone makes this one of my favorite weddings of the year!
I hope you enjoy a few photos from Erin & Dean’s Crabtree Marriott wedding!
