Yesterday, I posted images from Megan and Ian’s wedding at The Farm at South Mountain in Phoenix Arizona.  Today I am posting my favorite details from their wedding.  Enjoy.

Buttons and fabric!  That’s what made up the bride’s bouquet.  Beautiful, don’t you think?

Here is a cool way to carry the rings down the isle.  The ring bearer simply carried the book down the isle.  I loved the idea.

Sections of the long banquet table were identified with a very small chalk board.  Everything was on chalk boards.

This was  a great cake top.  I especially loved the scrabble letters.  Although you don’t get many points for an I a D and an O.

The fans doubled as the program, or should I say that the other way around?  They were cool… in more ways than one.

Nicely played!

No wedding cocktail hour is complete without a game of “Corn Hole.”  I loved all the games they had for people to play during a long enjoyable cocktail hour.

Like I said, everything was on chalk boards.  What a great way to post signs all over that don’t distract from, but add to, the visuals.

In keeping with the overabundance of beards, those who did not have facial hair could don a mustache for the moment by sipping from their straw.

In keeping with the Quaker style wedding theme, the wedding banquet table was one very long table rather than many round tables.

Ian and Megan were married at The Farm in Phoenix, Arizona.  The wedding and reception all occurred outdoors on one of the last pleasant days before the heat started picking up here in Phoenix.  It was a beautiful day and the wedding was perfectly simple and full of fun.  Here are a few of my favorite images from the wedding.

Both the flower girl and the ring bearer were as cute as they come, so there were so many great shots of them.  But this is a blog about the wedding, so I will try to keep the shots of the kids to a minimum.  The flower girl was always ready to pose for me.

The guys were all in casual wedding attire.  The whole thing was done with a kind of quaker style, which was so very cool.  I loved everything about it.

The bouquet was made from fabric and buttons and together with the texture of her dress and the 20′s style veil, the bride was absolutely perfect.

The Farm is a great location for this kind of a wedding (any kind really) but this wedding really fit in.  I told Ian and Megan that they couldn’t have chosen a more prefect place in Phoenix to match their wedding style.

This is also where I mention again how important post processing style is to a wedding.  The way we treat an image after it is captured changes the way it reads, which should be very much in keeping with the feel of the wedding itself.  And the image treatment on this wedding is a perfect example of how effective that can be.

This is the way group photos were meant to be.  Are there a few where everyone is looking at the camera?  Yes, but this is the one that should be used in the album or printed for the wall.  Too many people and too may photographers see it as an either or situation.  Either it is a portrait or it is documentary.  If it is done well, it is both.

Here’s the ring bearer.  You’ll love every shot of him.

There were more beards at this wedding that I have ever seen in one place.  I have never been to a beard convention, so I don’t have much to compare this to, but there were a lot of beards.  I enjoyed taking portraits of everyone sporting their cool facial hair.

So, when you are shooting family portraits at a quaker style wedding.  You should shoot them in the right way.  There’s no question, this was the right way to treat the family portraits.

Not posed.  These little kids were gold mines all day long!

They look good together.  And I love her shoes.

Seriously.  Can you be any cooler than to have hula-hoops at your wedding cocktail hour?

Well, you can!  Instead of doing a first dance, you could perform a first song together!  That was pretty cool!

Sparklers are always fun too!

I put this last image in here to make a quick comment about this band.  ”What Laura Says,” is the name of the band.   They have to be one of the tightest bands I have heard in a very long time.  Every song, original or covered, was fantastic and the covered songs had their own unique spin on them.  If you have a chance, go see What Laura Says, buy their music on iTunes or hire them to play at your wedding.  I stayed an extra hour past our official end time, just to hear their music.

Wedding Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Mindy Gledhill, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Location: The Farm, Phoenix, Arizona

Band: What Laura Says

My wife and I have known Allie since she was in high school. Neither one of us thought that there was a man out there as cool as Allie, but of course Allie had to prove us wrong . . . . and found the lid to her pot.  I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with Allie and Tyler in a grove of pistachio trees in Gilbert, Arizona. Here are some of my favorite images:

Note to self: buy mirror sunglasses.

I had a great time playing with the colors in this photo.  If I were 14 I would say it looks “chill” even though it is warm.

Long before he fell in love with Allie, Tyler fell in love with the outdoors. Not one to shy away from a little competition, Allie drummed up this little number to catch her man’s eye. I was laughing the entire time we were shooting.  Which is problematic because laughter creates camera shake.  But I kept it under control.

  In today’s world of social networking we have all at one time or another written up a personal profile – a brief description of who we are and of the events that have occurred in our lives to make us that way. I told you that I have known Allie for a long time. Her personal profile is full of strength, hard work, optimism, and survival. I am so pleased with this next shot of Allie. It does what photography does best and provides a visual representation of that description of who we are and the events that have made us that way.

Is it possible that Tyler likes her even better without the antlers?

Yep!

As the sun set, I opened up the aperture on my 50 mm 1.2 lens all the way to 1.2 which gave us this extreme limited depth of field.  I told Allie and Tyler I was going to be making some extremely grainy old looking photographs.  They were excited about the idea.  I think they turned out well.

This is definitely on of my favorite shots of the day.  The grain, the encircling branches, the soft light.  It is all there.

Ever the hunter!

Tyler brought several deadly weapons to this photo shoot . . . and I just brought my camera.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: The Groves, Gilbert, Arizona

Slideshow Music by Fisher, “It’s a Beautiful Life,” courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.

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

Nick & Shelby’s Wedding, Mesa Arizona from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

Nick and Shelby were married in the Mesa, Arizona LDS Temple. Some of their portraits are there on the temple grounds. Others are our near Red Mountain and then others are at their home on South Mountain where they had their wedding reception. Here are a few of my favorite images from their wedding.

This is my absolute favorite image from the wedding.  The light coming through the trees is fantastic and the couple looks perfect.  I have another shot with them kissing, but I always prefer the almost kiss to the kiss itself.  There is more anticipation in it.

Shelby’s hot rod car.  I love that she brings the hot rod to the relationship.

I love the tone on this image.  It takes an otherwise, harsh sunny day and softens it up and cools it down quite nicely.

This little flower girl was super cute throughout the entire wedding.  It’s always fun to follow the kids around.

This was a cute idea.  The kids all drew posters for the bride and groom and then shared them with the couple at the end of the night.

The boys on the roof were tasked with trowing bird seed or something like that down on the couple as they left, but they completely missed.  The best laid plans…  But I did enjoy the motion in this shot.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography
Wedding Location: Mesa, Arizona LDS Temple
Slideshow Music: Kevin Burdick, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music