What can I say… It just doesn’t get much cuter than these two!

Kim and Charles drove all the way up from Atlanta for their engagements session with me in DC late last fall.  Their wedding is just around the corner and guess who’ll be driving all the way down to Atlanta for her first wedding of 2012….

As I’m packing up and prepping my gear, I wanted to share these sweet pics of a joyful couple as they look forward to married life.

May they have continued joy and blessings!

As Christmastide comes to a close with the celebration of Epiphany, I can’t help but notice there are very few signs of Christmas left out there in the world.  Most of my neighbors have already taken down their outdoor lights and decorations and there’s this sad, thrown out tree that’s been rolling around my street all week because neither the trash or recycling crews have wanted to pick it up yet.  (I’ve been tempted to go out and rescue it myself and give it a sort of “resurrection”, but there really is no room left at my inn for any extra stuff…) 

Even though the word “Christmas” itself is disappearing, along with it, is going the time it’s suppose to be celebrated (from December 25 to the Baptism of Our Lord on the first Sunday following Epiphany on January 6, and traditionally for a full 40 days until February 2 on the Feast of the Presentation, also known as Candlemas, but more on that later…).  It’s still somewhat of a comfort to me that for those who are still faithful to history, you can still see “Christmas” alive and well at certain historical sites.  My local favorite is Mount Vernon, Virginia, home of George and Martha Washington.  They keep Christmas themed displays up through to Epiphany, the 6^th of January, (which incidentally is George and Martha’s wedding anniversary, for a fun fact you may not have known).

Christmas decorations were a little different in colonial times. The practice of decorating trees came a little later to the US, but fancy garlands and wreathes were all the rage.  This year I heard about the Grand Illumination in Colonial Williamsburg that kicks off the holiday season on the first weekend of December.  The “illuminations” are what they called fireworks back then, and being a pyrotechnics junkie that I am, I simply had to go!

I love Colonial Williamsburg anytime of year, but it was certainly extra special all dressed up for Christmas.  What I discovered to my great delight are these beautiful wreathes and garlands that decorated every home and doorway.  Made from dried or fresh fruit, dried flowers, and evergreens, they looked simply scrumptious!  I couldn’t get enough of them and was so excited to add these new “old” finds to my decorating ideas.  I particularly love the pineapple theme, a symbol for hospitality that was popular then.

Christmas wouldn’t be complete for me without a visit to the National Christmas Tree surrounded by 50 smaller trees representing each state.  Here’s the new and tiny National Christmas Tree, (the old one literally blew over in a bad wind storm last February).  Must say, never been a fan of how they drape the lights…

If you’ve never been the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for Christmas try and go sometime.  Especially when the main church lights are off, the glow and reflections of light from the giant trees are just beautiful.

Back to celebrating Christmas for 40 days… along with the biblical significance of 40 days in both the Old and New Testaments, for both preparation and celebration, prior to the reform of the General Roman Missal in the 60’s the Church “kept Christmas”  from December 25 – February 2 with January 6 starting off an informal season of “Epiphany” celebrating the manifestation of Christ to the world.  One way The Great and Blessed JPII helped bring this tradition back, of celebrating for 40 days, was to introduce and keep a larger than life size Nativity and Christmas Tree up in St. Peter’s square in Rome to February 2.  A tradition that the current pope, Benedict XVI, happily continues and encourages.  To my great delight I’ve seen that practice also brought back locally as well.  Big shout out to Fr. Kleinmann at St Mary’s in Old Town, Alexandria for holding on through to the 2nd as well.  You’re my hero! 

Hope you try and “keep Christmas” in some special way as well through February 2.  All my decorations and lights will be up and on, even if I’m the only one and keep getting threatening letters from my association!  Happy Epiphany!  

For some beautiful meditation, here’s the Pope’s Homily for the Feast of the Magi this year.  And here is a special Epiphany house blessing you can do in your own home.  Enjoy!

Not many wedding festivities start off with a paddle boat right, but this is the South, where the living is a little more on the “sit back and enjoy” side.  I was so excited to shoot this wedding and experience Tennessee with this very sweet couple, on a picture perfect weekend.

Nina looked amazing in lace and carried some very exotic looking flowers, that echoed the peacock feather colors she chose for her wedding.  All the table and flower arrangements carried that color theme and look simply stunning.  Huge kudos to Allie, the floral designer at Sassafras, whose bouquets had truly unique colors and textures.  

St John Neumann Catholic Church,a Romanesque looking building that was just recently completed, seemed to pop up out of nowhere and really looked majestic.

Love how the peacock colors were coordinated right down to the last toe!

We had so much fun shooting by the lake and willows near Danny’s old apartments!

Throw in a cool vintage car and you’ve got instant classic images!

Nina and Danny are both teachers, so they chose as their wedding favor one of my icon holy cards of Christ the Teacher printed with their engagement photo and new address details on the back.  Along with a peackock feather, they placed the holy card  on each plate.  I’m so glad my card actually matched with the color theme!

Nothing like seeing the good Padre jam to Sweet Home Alabama!

How could Danny not play a little something at his wedding?!  Great to see the new husband and wife team making music to the delight of all their guests!

More great flower arrangements from Allie, and a custom guest book I created using the images from their engagement session.

Great to see my fellow Franciscan University of Steubenville alums!

An emotional, but joyful, goodbye as they newlyweds ride off into the night.  I love happy endings!

 The Northwest Center: Pregnancy Center and Maternity Home in Washington, D.C. is a unique place that offers hope and help for women facing crisis pregnancies.  The happy mother and son pictured above are bright examples of how a local organization, now in its 30th year of community service, can have a profound influence one person at a time, while being funded only by donations and no government assistance. 

My introduction to the NW Center, which also has a maternity home adjacent to it, was via its annual fundraiser ball that has become a much beloved event in D.C., which incidentally is this Saturday night if you are local and would like to go – a must if you love swing dancing.  After getting to know the center a bit more, I wanted to help them in my own way by documenting the fruits of their labor of love: the joy of women and children who have found hope in new life.  There is a lot I could say about how important pregnancy centers are, but I invite you watch a short documentary video that was created for their 30th anniversary.  I think it’s better when it’s in their own words.  {Be warned, you might want to have some tissues handy towards the end.} 

Please share this post and consider helping out the Northwest Center in DC or look for a crisis pregnancy center in your area that you could support which ever way you can.  These centers are vital investments in our future.

It doesn’t get more romantic than a melodious proposal by your very musically talented beloved.  So we naturally had to include a musical theme for Nina and Danny’s engagement session. Complete with his mandolin and a cool hat, Danny recreated the scene of a dashing young man wooing his tender sweetheart with all the charm and poetry of a fairy tale.

So, I thought the nostalgic Spanish Steps in DC’s Kalorama neighborhood (if you’ve been to Rome, you’ll know where these get their name from, albeit they’re the “mini-me” version), a bright garden of irises in full bloom near sunset, and old street car tracks in Georgetown were perfect settings for this lovely couple with a gentle spirit.

Getting very excited for their wedding in late August in Knoxville, Tennessee! Road trip – here we come!

On this Father’s Day, I just wanted to share some joyful images of fatherhood that sometimes seem absent in modern culture.  I pulled a few images from a recent family photo shoot that really struck something in me about affectionate dads and how crucial their demonstrative presence is in the lives of their children.  

I’m a firm believer that dads play a critical role in helping both their sons and daughters develop a healthy sense of self, so that when they are grown they are able to share themselves emotionally and spiritually with others. 

That’s why it was such a joy in particular to photograph this family.  BOTH mom and dad were just the sweetest, loving parents and you could tell how it rubbed off on their very young children, who were warm, open and happy.  It was truly a great witness to me of how parents can set the tone for their children, especially when lead by the father.    

Blessings to all the fathers out there; you are much needed, appreciated and loved!

Getting ready for the photo session proved to be quite tender, and made me think of all the “getting ready” photos I take of brides. But this time it was daddy buttoning up his little girl. Needless to say I was tearing up at the thought -fast forwarding to her wedding day and then coming back to this moment.  I do hope this photo will help her remember her dad in a special way when that big day comes.    

Btw, “cute” doesn’t even begin to describe this little girl.

I just loved this young family so much, with three little adorable kids and one more due to arrive this week, I wonder if there’s room to adopt me!  I just hated saying goodbye, but I’m so looking forward to the newborn session!  Prayers for mom, Juliette, for a safe delivery.

 Update:  Welcome Madeleine Rose!

So this is a special treat.  I am interviewed by Zoe Romanosky in this week’s issue (May 29th) of Our Sunday Visitor (a national Catholic paper) about photographing Catholic weddings.  There’s so much more I could say on the topic, especially after having just shot a wedding over the Memorial Day weekend, in a heat wave, without an assistant, and still unable to shake the pain in my neck and shoulders.  But,  I do hope that some of the points covered will give couples a better insight into what to look for and expect from their wedding photographer.  Here’s the online version minus some of the extra pictures. (When I figure out how to post a PDF version of the original article, I’ll add it to my new website.)   Do pass it along to couples you know who have recently been engaged.

There have been a lot of behind the scenes updates I’ve been working on recently that have been all consuming.  One of which was researching the best way to take credit card payments via a mobile phone that worked with all cards and didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.  After a long time of searching for a credit card swiper solution, I settled on this cute little gadget called the Square.  It’s a tiny swiper that plugs into my new iPhone 4 on the Verizon network so that I can process credit cards on the go.  This will give me and my clients a lot more flexibility in processing payments, especially when doing fun photo shoots on location. 

Another update I wanted to mention is that, I created a new website for Renata Photography that should be easier to use and have some extra features. It’s an indexed flash site, so each page will have an actual link you can share.  It should also be viewable on mobile phones and tablet readers.  (Please test it out if you have one of these gadgets and let me know if something doesn’t work so that I can fix any bugs.)  

A great new feature I’ve been able to add to the new site is the ability to purchase Renata Photography Gift Certificates directly from the site via PayPal.  The Gift Certificates are a great gift idea for friends and family who would love some beautiful portraits or studio specialty products made from their previous photo sessions with me.  The Gift Certificates are an especially great idea for a bride and groom to add to their wedding gift registry, helping them to store up photo dollars that they can use towards expanding their album or getting that big canvas wrap or wall print.   

I’ll have a few more info tabs I’ll be adding in the near future like a FAQ’s page including “What to Wear” for your photo session, as well as a detailed product section, -so stay tuned!  

Memorial Day Weekend 2011 has come and gone and it was another hot one!  A little more low key for me this year, but I still managed to snap a few photo highlights that I’d like to share.  I always find the events in DC to be quite sobering and an excellent reminder of all the sacrifices made for this country. 

The Rolling Thunder riders really make some noise as they circle around the Mall representing all the prisoners of war (POW) and those still missing in action (MIA).

The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is under some serious renovation.  Plans are to repair the previous leaks and connect it to the Tidal Basin nearby via underground pipes, in order to have fresh water circulating through.  So my special spot for the fireworks on the 4th is now inside the fence line. 

Always great to see Gary Sinise (Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump) still supporting and bringing attention to the wounded warriors. This year he road with the Purple Heart recipients in the parade.  It’s just so heartbreaking to see these guys with their missing limbs, knowing their sacrifice was for me.

In case you can’t recognize these folks, that’s George and Martha Washington visiting from Mount Vernon.

I always like to stop by the Wall, the Vietnam Memorial, and take some time to read the names and tributes.  That’s an Australian Army hat right next to a US flag, -particularly moving for me.

Walking back to my car I saw a boy having loads of fun just feeding the ducks.  It was a great closing reminder of how all those costly sacrifices by our service men and women, and their families, were made so that we all can enjoy the simplest of life’s pleasures.  Let us always be grateful and never forget.

Some more of my images from last year’s Memorial Day weekend can be found here and here.

The Cherry Blossoms may have come and gone, but the fresh, bright and bubbly joy of between Kimberly and Cory I’m thinking is going to be around for quite some time.  Their sweet and loving spirit wasn’t dashed one bit despite the freezing temperatures at sunrise as we shot around the Tidal Basin.  They were just so delightful.  Genuine cheerfulness is a real blessing to behold.  May that always be their strength in marriage!