The future Mr. & Mrs. Wells:

A few weekends ago Brandon and I met up with Rebecca and Brian at Rosemary Beach for their engagement session. What a fun afternoon! We had never been out to Rosemary Beach and it was so amazing...it reminded us of a small tuscan village. While roaming around and checking out the cottages and interesting little nooks and crannies, we got to know Rebecca and Brian a little better and they are a super sweet couple and we cannot wait for them to tie the knot;) Rebecca and Brian met a few years ago while they were both working at an emergancy vet clinic and began dating by taking a dance class together once a week. Can you believe that?? What a fun way to get to know and fall in love with someone! Because of their busy schedules, they had date night once a week and that consisted of a dance lesson and dinner and this went on for months. I don't know if I ever asked when exactly Brian knew that Rebecca was the one but I have a sneaking feeling that it might have been from the first, "may I have this dance..." Shortly before a trip to Italy Brian decided to pop the question (in the cutest way!! Brian attached the ring to a buoy that a dolphin brought to Rebecca!)and of course Rebecca was over the moon! B+R, we are so excited for you guys--enjoy the sneak peak of your engagement session.
S+B

A fly on the wall...

I have always said that one of my favorite things about photographing anything (especially people) is the feeling of being a fly on the wall. Those of you who know me know that even though I may be able to carry on a conversation for hours on end, I am most content when I am comfortable enough to just sit and watch a story unfold on its own. No words. Just loving glances from across the room, an affectionate kiss on the nape of the neck, a whisper in the ear on the dance floor. These gestures tell me so much more than words ever could. A few weekends ago Brandon and I photographed a wedding and I got to be a fly on the wall. The day was a flurry of family, friends, dancing, and tender glances shared by the bride (Grace) and groom (Jonathan) when entertaining guests on opposite ends of the reception ballroom. Grace and Jonathan are such a sweet couple with such great families. It was a joy to see two great people come together and vow to make their lives one. We wish them all of the luck in the world in their new adventure. Jonathan and Grace, we heard that you guys made it back from Alaska, we hope you had an awesome time! Enjoy the sneak peak of your wedding and congratulations!!
B+S

All pumped up and ready to blog!!

This evening I will have plenty of time to sit down and update Addilay readers of our latest engagement session with the future Mr. & Mrs. Wells. I'm so excited I can hardly wait! In the mean time I thought i'd share with you a picture I found in Vanity Fair Magazine {www.Vanityfair.com}. It's two of the actors from the show "Mad Men" on AMC. I have never seen the show but I do know from seeing multiple magazine articles on the cast and from the clothing campaign that Banana Republic was running with the show that its 60's-esque charm is enough to make me invest in a bouffant and some bright red lipstick! So until tonight...enjoy the picture:) Susan

Credit:
Photographer: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair Magazine

"4 Months 4 Missions"

Hi Everyone! Brandon and I want to point you in the direction of a new page on our website that is featuring a project that is very special to us! We have been working with a local missions group {Heart of the Bride} by sponsoring a child in Africa for the last few months...it has been such a blessing to us as we truly believe that they are doing so much good by spreading the word of Jesus Christ to so many overseas! We hope that one day we may be called to serve as missionaries but in the mean while we believe that we have a great opportunity to help fund missions and this is what "4 months 4 missions" is about! For 4 months {September, October, November, and December} we will be shooting engagement and family shoots for half off--so $200 and 100% of all of the profit will go to our support of local missions! This is a great time to get your family's christmas card picture done and get a great photo shoot at the same time!! Please check out our new page by clicking on the "Special Announcements" page or at: http://www.addilayphotography.com/#/missions/

Susan + Brandon

The Future Mr. & Mrs. Houston: Caitlin+Brandon

Two weekends ago Brandon and I got to photograph an engagement shoot out in Sandestin with one of the most awesome couples we've ever worked with. ever. To give you a little back story...picture it, a very early morning in early October last year. Brandon and I got up super early because we had to be at the hospital by 6am as I was having an unexpected surgery that morning. As Brandon always does, he turned on the laptop that sits at our kitchen bar and eagerly awaited it to boot up...hoping, hoping, hoping that we'd have an email from someone who was interested in us taking their picture. What can I say, we were still so new to photography at that time...and we had already gone through all the family members that let us use them as photogaphy guinea pigs!;) So as I sat on the edge of the coffee table pulling on my tennis shoes I heard a tiny little gasp come from the direction of where Brandon was sitting behind the computer. I ran to read what he was reading, we had gotten 2 emails from brides-to-be that were interested in having us shoot their weddings. Little did I know that one of them would over the next 10 months become my new internet BFF.;)

Caitlin and Brandon have been such an amazing couple to work with! Over the last 10 months Caitlin and I have talked, laughed, and really gotten to know each other (all by email) and that made such a huge impact on their engagement shoot (take note of that future Addilay Photography brides;) Over the last few months Caitlin and I had a lot of fun planning out their engagement shoot. Everything just seemed to be perfect-the details, the location, the attire...you would think that we had a stylist working on the shoot- it was just that perfect! We had a beautiful "toasting of their engagement" theme and a "LOST" theme at the beach that left them with nothing but a few personal cherished items (golf clubs for him and books for her), but most importantly each other.

We cannot wait to do Caitlin and Brandon's wedding in October, at the Destin Culinary Center. Knowing Cailin, I'm sure every last detail will be modern and simple, yet uniquely magnificant! C+B, we are so excited for your wedding!! Not only because it's sure to be a chic and beautiful affair, but also because we are looking forward to our new friends getting married.

See you in 68 days....
B+S

P.S...As I was finishing this post Brandon came and got me and showed me that he had finished C+B's slideshow and I thought that'd be WAY more fun to blog on then just a few pictures! I hope you guys love it as much as I do.

Cailtin + Brandon Engagement Slideshow
**UPDATE: Make sure that you mute the website music by clicking on the music bars on the right bottom corner of the page before you play the slideshow- then turn it up!!

Back from Atlanta...

So let me preface this post by saying, we are the ABSOLUTE worst bloggers ever! And when I say "we," I mean "me," because that is my job and boy have I been catching an ear full from the boss man (Brandon) about how I have been slacking. Truth be told though, with us both back in school, the last few months have been CRAZY! So my plan is to fill you in on what we've been up to and what we have coming up.

Last weekend Brandon and I spent a long weekend in Atlanta. It was supposed to be a long weekend of rest and relaxation. Why I thought going to one of the most bustling cities in the nation would be relaxing is beyond me. I was more tired when we got back then before we left. I will sum up the trip in one statement. Don't attempt to drive around Atlanta without a city map (duh, right?), a GPS, or an Iphone or Blackberry (the lack of Iphone might have or might not have been a sense of contention on the trip). We spent 90% of our time being lost...Brandon kept saying 'how nice it was to see the road less traveled...' HAHAHA. When we got lost on our way home we did see some awesome pecan tree fields and peach orchards around Macon and my new fantasy is to shoot an engagement or wedding in a pecan field...

While we were in Atlanta we visited our beloved Braves at Turner Field:






oh and the Braves won 4-3 btw...take that Manny Ramirez!

We also checked out the Georgia Aquarium...which was awesome! I especially loved the Titanic exhibit they have going on right now. I kept telling Brandon that I was desperate to get home and watch the movie, I am such a nerd! Here are a few shots from the aquarium...












After the aquarium we bid farewell to Atlanta (well after we got directions from a homeless guy that helped us get out of the city) and headed home on I-75. You may be thinking to yourself, why would they be headed home on I-75?? Well that's because we took the wrong road home!! Needless to say after about 7 hours I was delirious and ready to get out of the car. Somewhere around Troy, Alabama (A very rural area) we stopped for Mexican food at a place called Monarca's. After dinner, as I pondered setting up camp in the woods beside the parking lot (because I thought I would never get home) Brandon captured this picture of me. He affectionately refers to this as when I "converted to backwoodsism."



So LOONG story not so short, after about 9 hours, we were back in Florida. The moral of the story? Things may not go as you plan but if you have a camera to capture some of the funny moments it's easier to look back on it and laugh later;)
Have a great night-
Susan

PS...How could I forget?? One of our pictures from last weeks' engagement shoot was featured on www.ritzybee.com. Click here to check it out!


Tomorrow I will be blogging on this fabulous shoot!! See you then