Laura and Gary - by Bruce

This past weekend, I shot Laura and Gary's wedding at the Grassy Hill Country Club in Orange, Connecticut. Laura's sister Vera and I used to work together and that's how I ended up with this wedding. We get SO MUCH of our work from referrals and friends and I can't even begin to tell you how much we appreciate that!

The country club was gorgeous! What a great venue for a wedding. It rained early in the day but cleared out in plenty of time for the late afternoon ceremony.





Laura and Gary are a very relaxed and easy going couple. Weddings can be so tense if you let them but they made it clear right off the bat there'd be none of that stressful stuff at their wedding!

Want a clue? How 'bout the Hershey bar favors ;)



Or the footwear the bride would rather have been wearing!



Speaking of the bride, here's Laura and I'm gonna steal a catch phrase from a favorite photographer of ours and call this a "relaxed portrait"...



And a stylin' (and also relaxed) Gary ;)





The ceremony finished in time to catch the tail end of some very tasty light as the sun went down and we were able to get some great shots...



Here's the wedding party. Yep, that's all of them! Cool, huh?



I, um, really don't want to know. You'll have to ask Laura on this one...



Two turn tables and a microphone...yesirree that's vinyl he's spinning! It's actually more complicated than that and the music doesn't come from the discs directly. They are used for timing, but still. It LOOKS cool!







A little too much dancing for these two!






Laura and Gary, thanks for a great night, I had a blast! It was nice to meet you guys and your whole family and special thanks to Vera for connecting us!!

Kimberly and David - by Bruce

Kimberly and David were married on September 8, 2007 and Val and I were anxious to add another wedding to our Seaman's Inne collection! A gorgeous location, a gorgeous couple, perfect late summer weather AND Val and I get to shoot it together which we all know by now is the BEST!! With a recipe like that, we're sure to serve up some tasty pics ;)

So here we go!
*********************

I was able to get some shots of the guys before the ceremony and this was my favorite...



Tucked in among the trees at the Mystic Seaport is the Greenmanville Church. The perfect spot for a wedding ceremony!











Did I mention the horse-drawn carriage? It just keeps getting better! ;)





After the ceremony and some formal shots, we were able to head out into the Seaport to have fun with Kimberly and David. There are so many great spots for pictures out there, it's almost overwhelming! The only drawback is Val and I never seem to have enough time to do everything we want to do. Have a look:













Kimberly and David, thanks so much to both of you, we had a blast! All the best!

-Bruce

Happy Birthday, Uncle Bob!

Today is my brother's birthday (Val's husband) and so my boys decided to make a little video for him. Did I mention we are Steeler fans??? (Sorry for the "trial version" text in the middle but the file size out of the video camera was about 8 bazillion gigabits or something and I had to compress it with some "free" software)

Last week, the Steeler fairy sent my boys some new jerseys just in time for the start of the season and I promised to take pics of them opening the box, so here ya go!

*******************

This mysterious box showed up one day, addressed to Brett and Roland and I made them wait a WHOLE DAY before they could open it...

FINALLY!

Right after this shot they dug out a football (we're still in baseball mode around here but they managed to find one) and then headed outside to run pass patterns in the front yard ;)

Happy birthday, Bubba! Love ya and see ya soon!

GO STEELERS!!!

-Bruce

Butterflies...

For the last 5 years (or more!) I've wanted a flower bed with Zinnias, I saw them in Old Mystic Village one day when we were down there... well, I finally got what I wanted this year and they are gorgeous! The coolest thing, though, is that the butterflies LOVE them! My son took this pic with his Sony point and shoot digital camera, I didn't do a thing with the picture even though it looks like the butterfly was added!

It's Raining, It's Pouring!

...but who cares? Not Sherrie and David! The oppressive heat and humidity finally broke and just poured rain all day on Friday. So the ceremony was still on the North Lawn at the Seamen's Inn, it just got moved inside a tent, the groom bought lots of umbrellas for the guests and it was still perfect! Who says you can't still get great pictures in the rain?



I was humming "Singing in the Rain" when I shot this.....



Samantha, Ian and Jordan



A Peartini? Hmmmm.... I'm going to have to try that!





An awesome couple and family... thanks for letting me be part of your day!

~Val

Dirty Dancing!

Ya gotta watch this video....definitely something different for the first dance!

AOL Video Blog

Jaime and Patrick - by Bruce

On July 28th, Val and I were able to shoot together (and you know how we LOVE that!) at the wedding of Jaime and Patrick. What a crazy weather day! We went from sweltering heat and humidity to mean and nasty summertime thunderstorms. But luckily Fantasia in North Haven is well equipped to handle these types of situations and they were able to move the ceremony inside.

We started the day at Jaime's Aunt's nursery in Vernon for some shots of the girls before the ceremony. What a fun place to shoot! There are manicured gardens outside and from what the manager was telling us, it's a popular spot for wedding parties to stop for photos. But we didn't just stop there! Nah, we went INSIDE and did some shopping with the girls ;)

Here's one from outside:



After lots of outside shots, we headed inside. Here's Val hard at work. Where am I? Shopping for tools, of course! What else do you do at a wedding?





It was sooo humid. This is the first time I've ever seen bridesmaids try to refrigerate themselves!



Jaime's Grandmother's ring, safely tucked away inside her bouquet.



We finally made our way down to Fantasia, driving in a monsoon the whole way, but we made it! The guys before the ceremony. Red Bull and vodka, breakfast of champions!!





How cute is the flower girl? :)





And cute ring bearers too!



This one is my favorite...





Jaime and Patrick thanks very much for sharing your day with us! We wish you all the best! (And special thanks to Tricia for hooking us up!!)

-Bruce

We are the CHAMPIONS!

My wife Laureen's softball team played for the league championship last week. It had been an amazing season, they played great ball, won a lot of close games, and played real hard to get to the finals.

So the night of the big game, the wheels came off the bus. They were down as many 7 or 8 runs at one point. It was painful to watch after the season they had and how hard they worked. They deserved to win, but they just couldn't seem to get it together. There were a ton of people there too, cheering them on since it was the last game. One thing I have to say about Portland is it is very tight knit. The game was against a Middletown team in Middletown and man did we yell our heads off all night! I lost my voice and at one point and my 8 year old son Roland turned to me and said "Dad, will you PUH-LEEZE stop yelling in my ear!"

So bottom of the last inning, they're down by 4 or 5 (they had been down the entire game), last chance, and they get a little rally going. By the time they had one out they had tied the game. They have a runner on third and the other team intentionally walks 2 of our batters. I guess they figured they would load up the bases and hopefully get a double play to go into extra innings. Not sure what they were thinking to be honest...

The batter they walked 2 batters to get to was my wife Laureen. That's like walking Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia to get to Big Papi. She drills one right back at the pitcher, who had no chance getting a handle on it and drives in the winning run! Holy cow, it was bedlam! What a way to win the game!! So now we're calling her Big Mami! (Sorry for all the Sox references, but hey, get yer own blog!! GO SOX!!)

Ladies I just wanted to officially say congratulations!! You made us all so proud that night. You had an awesome season and deserved to win but I think the baseball gods just wanted to make you earn it. They knew you'd pull it together like you did all year and get the job done! And speaking as a parent of two young boys who eat, sleep, and breathe baseball (your biggest fans and practice helpers Roland and Brett) I can honestly say there couldn't be a better team for them to watch and learn from. You guys carried yourselves so well all year, played the game the way it should be played and were role models. Right up to the end when you taught them how never to give up. Thank you for a very memorable night! Can't wait for next year!

-Bruce

********************

Bailey and Kate. (You might remember Kate from some pics I did last year.)



Portland Dental Lineup, 2007 Middletown Women's League Champions! (DA GIRLZ!!!)



*Photos courtesy Jeremiah Adametz.

Here stop and spend a social hour...

I want to live in a Castle... and I'll have this sign too! :-) (it was actually in St. Clement's Castle in Portland, so cool!!) I'm now finishing the editing the photos from Michelle and Rob's wedding that was there...what a gorgeous place!