Shayna and Beto were married at Troon Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.  It was a  beautiful day for a wedding.  Here are a few of my absolute favorite images from the wedding day.

Shayna did a great job with the dress hanger.  Rarely do I see a bride pay attention to the dress hanger.  It is usually an ugly plastic hanger.  I have never understood dress shops who sell these fantastic dresses for thousands and thousands of dollars, knowing they will be photographed and yet they deliver them on an ugly white plastic hanger.  Well, I have to hand it to Shayna for seeing that issue.  For those brides out there who are peeking in on this wedding and making notes about your own wedding.  Bring along a pretty hanger that says something about you.

So, we took the dress out of the closet and hung it up on this large painting in the bridal dressing room and I was composing the shot when one of the young ushers walked through the shot.  I have two shots that are essentially the same of this dress, one with and one without.  I can hardly look at the one without the boy in it.  He completes the picture.  I suppose it is because this boy took my controlled shot and added a bit of reality to it.  Sometimes I am tempted to stray from reality and control it all, but the chaos always pulls me back where I belong.

I think the florist was a bit nervous when she saw me with the flowers out in the sun before the wedding.  She even made a little comment about the flowers being prone to wilting in the heat.  But, I’ll bet she’ll love this image of her beautiful flower arrangements.  And I am happy to report the photo only took a few minutes and the flowers were perfect throughout the day.

This next series is one of my favorite getting ready sets I have taken.  A lot goes into the shot of putting on the dress.  Providing a nice backdrop for the effort is a major part of that.  But also, there is just a lot of fortune that goes into getting the shot as well.  I think all things conspired together for an opportune shot.  And then I have to say that the muted color treatment on the shot really finished it off well.

This moment made everyone laugh.  There is a whole series from this set, but these are the two crowning moments.  The littlest flower girl got cold feet and was not even going to go down the isle, much less, throw the flower petals.  So the older flower girl went back to get her and was trying to show her how to throw the petals, which upset her, I think she intended to keep them all for herself.  When the older flower girl realized this, she thoughtfully moved on with her duties and the little one stood in the isle and silently pouted over the loss of her flowers.  It was the cutest moment.

I was taken by the canopy of branches in the background, so I asked Shayna to pose for me as the guests and wedding party chatted.  Often times the un-planned portraits and scenes that catch my attention at the moment are the very best.

I simply love this image of the bride.  I love the contemplative look, I love the way the hair is blowing.  The veil being set against the dark on the left of the frame is wonderful.  I love this shot.

I looked at this image in color and thought it looked fine, but when I took it to black and white and started aging it, I felt as though it became what it was meant to be.

This shot was taken as the sun dropped over the horizon.  There is no better time of day.  I love the reflection on the water, the movement of the dress as she walks.  I am very pleased with this image.  As dress images go, it is a great description of the dress.

These two little girls were constantly providing opportunities for great photographs.  Here they are waiting to dance with the bride during a dollar dance.   Everyone was dancing with her, and they wanted their chance, but I don’t think they knew how to approach it.  Where to they get the money, how do they get her away from all those other people.  I think they were sufficiently mesmerized with the bride and equally unsure of how to proceed, so they stood on the sidelines for quite a long time, until the maid of honor saw them and gave them some money and explained how to get a dance with the bride.  Even now, thinking about it and about my little girl, I get a little emotional.  You can just see the wonder in their hearts.  The older is thinking thoughts of being a bride someday and the younger is simply awe struck by a princess.  There is an entire thesis in their expressions.

The joy of sparklers.  You can’t help but be happy.  It was a great wedding and party, people were having a lot of fun.  I was glad to have been there.  Thanks Shayna and Beto for trusting me with your wedding day.  Congratulations.

Wedding Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Justin Hewitt, courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Wedding Location: Troon Golf Club, Scottsdale, Arizona

We were at Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona at sunrise.  The weather was perfect, a little chilly, but perfect for a serious hike.  It’s a good thing, because that’s what we were in for.  Krissy and Dan planned their wedding on the top of that mountain.  Well, not on the tip top, but pretty high up there.  My associate, Eric Greenhaulgh and I spent a good 15 minutes deciding what gear needed to come and what gear could stay down below.  Any photographer knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Equipment is heavy, so you don’t want to take something you are not going to use, but you would hate to be at the top of a mountain and need something that is in your car at the bottom of the mountain.

First, we made sure not to duplicate anything.  We did not bring any duplicate lenses.  Between the two of us though, we had a full compliment of lenses.  A Canon 16-35, 28-70, 70-200 and a 50.  I carried my 1D Mark IV, he had his 1D Mark III.  We had one small hand held post with a Canon 580 EX flash and a set of Pocket Wizard TT1 and TT5 radio slaves.  It is important to have your hands free, when hiking up a mountain and shooting others who are hiking up with you, so we couldn’t take reflectors and such with us and not self standing light poles, etc.  Everything strapped nicely onto our one backpack (which we alternated carrying up and down) and we had only the gear that was necessary in the backpack, although Eric was a little over zealous about what he was willing to carry up the mountain.  My backpack was a small one and I was still able to fit a bottle of water in mine.  I had to convince Eric not to take everything he owned up the mountain.  The truth is, I didn’t want to have to take my turn at carrying it.  Maybe I am lazy, but I prefer to call it “smart.”

Opportunities for challenging wedding photography are wonderful.  I enjoy them because they force me and my crew to work and think differently about the job and how to accomplish it.  We still need to get great images, but we have to think differently and sometimes find ways to capture them with less.  Granted, I have done entire weddings with far less gear than we had here, but it was a very bright, sunny day, so we definitely needed some kind of lighting solution to match the sun and shadow sides of faces.  Also, because of the wide variety of opportunities for a great shot up there, and the limited options for the photographer to stand (we were on a mountain with cliffs and cactus etc.), I needed a good compliment of lenses to be able to capture the images on my terms.

A Native American flutist meat us at the top of the mountain.  As we neared the ledge, where he was playing, Dan (for whom this was a surprise) thought it was just great luck that on the day he was getting married, a Native American flutist was up on top his the mountain playing his flute.  Krissy had lots of little surprises like this throughout the day.

It was a good hike to get to the wedding location, but is was indeed, a beautiful morning.

Getting ready occurred at the top of the mountain.  The guys took on side of the hill and the girls took the other side.  I did appreciate that the groomsmen all work black hiking shirts and shorts.  Those were their tuxes.  That was cool.  The only two that dressed UP for the wedding were the bride and groom.  Otherwise, dress code was very casual.

Here is the bride’s room.  And quite frankly, I think it was one of the most beautiful and well decorated bridal rooms I have ever seen.  Most of the time, the bride is getting ready in a hotel room, or a sitting room.  Which, even if decorated nicely, can’t match the grander of the top of a mountain.  They just needed a sheet to sheild Krissy from the onlooking hikers and photographers.  Oh, wait, I was one of those, but I had a press pass.

Surprise 2: Krissy took all of Dan’s love notes and poems and printed them out on origami style paper and made her own bouquet out of love poems.  I really enjoy an original and personal bridal bouquet.  I love it when brides put more of themselves into their wedding details.  This was a great surprise for Dan.

I love a good wedding on a cliff.  Up to now, I have only done cliff weddings at the Grand Canyon, which has some magnificent cliffs.  It was nice to witness a cliff wedding closer to home.

For the photographers out there, you can see that the sun is shining very bright now on the bride and groom.  You can see the crest of light on her dress, and on his face.  But you will also notice that the grooms back is not in complete deep shadow, the bride’s face is lit, as is her dress, etc.  But you can still see the direction of light from the sun.  There is a clear direction of light here.  This is the use of the Pocket Wizard TT1 and TT5 with a Canon 580 EX  Speedlight although now you can use the 600 EX.  We set it on a rock and I just turned on and off my TT1 transmitter when I needed or didn’t need the flash.  This was an indispensable part of capturing this wedding.  Without it, we would have extremely dark shadows or blown out highlights.  The light is set to fill in from the left of the frame at one stop less than the ambient.  If we had set it to equal the ambient light, the flash would have attempted to equal the sunlight and thus eliminate all the volume in the shot.

This is the entire wedding watching the ceremony.  I love a small wedding.  I really do!

Here are some of my favorite images from the portrait session after the wedding.

Yes, Krissy is an amazingly gutsy bride!  If that doesn’t look safe, it is because it is not.  I think Dan was a bit worried about her, but Krissy was game for anything.  I wasn’t worried about Dan, he’s a police officer.  He’s a tough guy.

Dan is also sorting a boutonniere made of his own love poems.

I was working on this image and my wife came in and commented on it.  How tiny is she?

I don’t always pre visualize and image at the shot; meaning that I don’t always know exactly what I want to do with an image in post-production before I shoot it, but in this next series of images, I knew what I wanted to do before I even started shooting the photos.  We were stating back down the mountain and the bride and groom were going to be walking by me at any moment.  I knew I wanted this image to be extreme selective focus, I wanted to make it look like it was taken at the end of the 19th century.  So I opened my lens all the way up and made the appropriate exposure adjustments (which can barely be done because at f 1.2, at 100 ISO, you have to expose at 1/8000 of a second).  Anyway, I rattled off a bunch of shots with this concept in mind and I was pleased with the result.  I am always more pleased with the results when I pre-vissualize the end from the beginning.  I suppose it is more satisfying to know I pulled it off, but I also think that if one can see the end from the beginning, it makes every step in the process more valuable to the final result.

I thought this was just a great comparison/contrast.

Down the mountain!  At times, Camelback Mountain is a bit steep.  For a girl in a wedding dress, it seems even steeper.

This is one of my favorite series of shots.  We got a few grumbles from a team of repellers that wanted the cliff all to themselves, but if they only knew what we were accomplishing in the two minutes we were imposing ourselves on their rock, I think they would have been much more supportive.  I really like this shot.

This is my official wedding attire for all super casual hiking to the top of a mountain weddings.  It’s quite frankly the most comfortable wedding attire I own.

Krissy and Dan, thanks for letting me be a part of such a wonderful wedding.  It was a pleasure.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Location: Camelback Mountain, Scottsdale, Arizona

Slideshow Music by Daniel Ho, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

This is a fairly personal post.  I photographed a wedding for a very dear friend of our family.  Our friend Becky and her children joined a new family and promptly flew away to China.

Jeff and Rebecca were married at the LDS Temple in Mesa Arizona.  Their wedding brought two young families together.  The kids on both sides are as sweet as they come.  Rebecca lived with her children in Chandler, Arizona and Jeff traveled with his children all the way from China, where he works and now they all live in China.  We miss Becky and her children very much, but what a great adventure for their family… we hope to see them soon.

I had hoped, with the sheer number of children and people who would be converging on the bride’s home that there would be chaos in the house, which is always fun to photograph, but true to form, Becky and her children were on top of it all, very organized and no chaos whatsoever.  Lots of laughter and happiness though!

Although I don’t think it was the only reason for the happiness, there were a pair of Jimmy Choo magic shoes there, which couldn’t hurt.

Tying ties.

Drying hair.

Putting on makeup.  It’s all part of getting ready and I see it all the time, but getting ready is all relative to what you are getting ready for.  Not just a wedding, but the merger of two dynamic sets of children, a great adventure, a new culture, a 15 hour plane flight…

I thought this makeup photo was one of the better I have captured.  The framing was perfect as was the light and with Becky’s striking features, I thought it deserved a little film noir look.  I was already shooting at a very high ISO, so the grain was a natural result, there was no reason to fight it.  So I pushed it even further.  All of this was done in Adobe Lightroom 4 without the help of any plugins or external editors.

It was interesting.  When I started to photograph the dress on the hanger, Becky just laughed and said, “good luck.  That dress does not look good on the hanger.”  And she was right, the dress looked like nothing on the hanger, but it was perfect when she put it on.  How she decided to try it on is beyond me, but it was perfect.

Introducing Jeff.  All around great guy.  Jeff and his kids traveled all the way from China the day before the wedding, but only after their flight got canceled on them, so they flew from China to LA and then drove to Phoenix.  What a crazy wedding story.  But they made it in time and in the end, I suppose , in the end, those with the best stories win.

I had so much fun photographing the kids during the wedding.  They are all so expressive and good natured.  Case in point…

And finally, a photograph of the LDS Temple in Mesa.  If you do not know much about the LDS or Mormon culture, Temples are a very important part of the faith.  They are extremely spiritual places where members of the church are married and make covenants with God.  So, when you are married in a temple, that building often symbolizes the commitment you have made to your spouse and your family.  So anytime I photograph an LDS wedding, I try to make a new and interesting photograph of that temple for the couple.  I am pleased with this one.

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Slideshow Music by Mindy Gledhill, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Wedding Location: Mesa, Arizona LDS Temple

Nick and Caroline were married at the LDS Temple in Dallas, Texas and their wedding reception was at the Lee Hardware Gallery in Shreveport, Louisiana.  Nick and Caroline are a truly vintage couple.  Many people go for the vintage look, but Nick and Caroline really fit the part.  I think you’ll see what I mean.

I was struck by the architecture of the Temple, but the hedge in front made the situation perfect for a couple’s portrait.

I loved this location, which I found in my pre-wedding scouting, but as Caroline walked around the corner, I had to tell her to freeze.  It was the perfect position for her.  Everything around her framed her quite nicely.

Her dress, her hair, the necklace, even the lipstick were all perfect vintage.

At the wedding reception, instead of a guest book, Nick (a designer by trade) created a sign in map.

And of course, even the microphone fit the vintage theme.  I was very covetous of this mic.  I am a mic enthusiast.

The reception was held in the Lee’s Hardware Gallery, which is an old building in downtown Shreveport.  The textures on the walls in the interior courtyard were phenomenal.  And yes, that is a wedding cake piñata.  It was fun.

The textures and colors in the streets of downtown Shreveport are fantastic for portraits, but you must turn off that auto white balance on your camera!

I love the warm film look on this shot.

This is my favorite image from the day.  As we were taking the bride’s portrait, she turned slightly toward the wall and I saw the possibility of this shot.  With a slight adjustment of her hand and head, I shot several variations on this shot and the result was fantastic.

If you are going to do a vintage wedding, I suggest taking a stroll in a vintage town.  Shreveport is definitely vintage.  I love this Ridgway’s sign.

I also love Nick’s “Ronald Reagan” hairdo.  Of course the back ground is perfect as well.  I shot this at a much higher f-number to make sure I got the groom and the metal door in focus.  I am more often a shallow depth of field kind of guy, but there are times when f8 or higher is called for.  In this case, the greater depth of field give the image a illustrated look, which I thought was very appropriate to the image.

The flowers were fantastic. These flowers are called Billy Balls and apparently they look the same when they are dried. The arrangement were done by Patsy Foster in Shreveport. She did a great job.

This was the most touching moment of the day.  The bride had been carrying a handkerchief throughout the entire day.  I had not paid much special attention to it and just assumed it was an old vintage handkerchief: something old.  But Caroline knelt down beside he grandmother and showed her the handkerchief and reminded her that she had given it to her when Caroline was a little girl and that she had kept it to this day for this very purpose.  That is something old and something special.

I think this will be the groom’s father’s favorite photo of the day.  It would be mine if this were my son.

Just a couple of great shots on our way down to the “second line”.

A “second line” is an interesting tradition in Louisiana, kind of a parade.  The entire wedding (all the guests) met at the water’s edge and paraded, complete with music, up to the wedding reception.  It was a hot day, but was a great opportunity for photos!  This was my very first “second line.”  I enjoyed it, but it was a lot of running and sweating.

Two of the children led the way, carrying a banner for the bride and groom.

At the end of the evening, the games began.  The children got a whack at the wedding cake piñata and so did the bride and groom.

Most of the guests came from the surrounding states, so the signature map was a bit crowded near the gulf, but there were a few people (like myself) who came from quite a distance to join the wedding.  This is one of the coolest guest signature ideas I have seen in a long time.

I think the straws are a good indication of the “fun” level of this wedding.  Caroline and Nick put their wedding together on a small budget, but I think they spent their money very well and made every detail count.  It all added up to a very fun event with a lot of cute details.

The painting is by Nick Eckel and the lamps were made by Caroline Majors (the bride and groom), I love both.  Nick is a talented designer and illustrator.  If you need a graphic designer, I highly recommend him.  He’s a talented, stand up guy.

I was glad to represent Arizona at Nick and Caroline’s wedding.  It was a pleasure to be a part of it.

Wedding Details:

Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography

Special thanks to Jessica Brownell for assisting and second shooting.

Slideshow music by J’Nae, Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music

Wedding Location: LDS Temple, Dallas, Texas

Reception Location: Lee’s Hardware Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana

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