we shot another wedding yesterday (yay!). it was a beautiful christmas wedding set in the heart of philadelphia. the ceremony was held at st. patrick's catholic church on 20th and spruce right off of rittenhouse square and the reception was held at the historic theater, the mask and wig club, on 11th and qunice streets in center city. check out more of our pictures.

lying with the wolf/ 2

lying with the wolf/ 1

snjezana/ 3

snjezana/ 2

LovinSullivanCakes have a contemporary and playful edge. these are definetely not your grandmother's cakes.

kenzie kate

i can't remember how i found kenzie kate. i can't remember if i saw her blog first,something old, something new, or her website,kenzie kate. whichever it was, it certainly impressed me deeply. her's was one of the first blogs i really read that encouraged me (by its sheer amazingness) to start my own, and it has become a staple of my everyday reading and a lot of my wedding research. and that's before i even get to talking about her invitations: for inspiration she draws from flowers, paisleys, dandelions, and often scroll work, but her clean and crisp style combined with bold color choices creates an entirely contemporary feel that is both elegant and beautiful. i especially love the hanelei design.

snjezana/ 1

sweet pea

sweet pea started out primarily as a florist, but has grown to include a wide selection of fine gifts (like the soap top right, and the 10" decorative plate in the bottome left) and they also offer registry services. like many other professionals in the wedding industry (including both well spun weddings and bird and banner), philadelphia native and owner, shelby fraser, started out by designing the floral arrangements for her own wedding; she had previously spent time in new york working in the photography industry.

garconne/ 3

well spun weddings

well spun weddings creates the best wedding videography i've ever seen. based in philadelphia, jon gangwer documents weddings in an ethereal and beautiful way. he started the business after being dissatisfied with the videography options available for his own wedding. shooting digitally, jon creates films that have the look of 16mm film, espcially those of his films in black and white. He also offers the photography services of a talented photographer named monika broz who is a member of the wedding photojournalist association (although i highly encourage you to higher us, bluebird photography, instead).

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garconne/ 1

bird and banner

i've been posting mainly about photography recently. or really exclusively about photography and not at all about anything wedding related. but since we are wedding photographers i think i really need to represent both aspects more fairly, and since i spend an equal amount of time looking at wedding sites as photo sites, balancing the posting between the two should work out rather well. so in an effort to even the score:

let me start by saying that in recent times i have become a stationary fanatic. i guess it started with my own endeavors into printmaking (see: blue | print), but i have developed a great deal of respect for well-designed, paper goods (i.e.: expect to see a great deal of posts about wedding invitations). i especially love handmade stationary and anything letterpressed. bird and banner, a team of two women graphic designers, is by far my personal favorite. they offer less traditional invitations that often incorporate such handmade craft elements as sewn and embroidered embellishments or using fabric in place of paper, and often they hand-write the text into the design. they also incorporate personal aspects of each wedding into their designs: for a wedding in philadelphia (the city of brotherly love), they used a heart shape that seems reminiscent of a handcut valentine card, and for the above hydrangea image for a wedding in vermont, they printed directly onto maple wood. but however craft-inspired their ideas, their execution is flawless leaving you with the impression that you are holding something precious that deserves to be treasured.

barbara bouyne

i came across this photographer, barbara bouyne, on both flickr and myspace today during two entirely separate browsing occasions, so it seemed like fate that i post about her. she is french and her work is lovely.

lying with the wolf

baltimore andrew

king pod

while browsing aimlessly today, i came across the most amazing artwork. amy karol of kingpod makes playful quilts that could more accurately be described as collages made entirely of fabric. i love artwork that employs craft techniques that inherently refer to woman's role as nurturer without being in-your-face feminine or feminist. amy also has a blog adorably titled, angry chicken.

top: friendly deer (print), bottom: king bird (a small quilt)

ta gi /layout by me

mark diehl

mark diehl is a good friend of ours. as he puts it: "i like to make music. i like to make pictures. i like to make pictures to music." his work looks good on cds, like this one. you can also go here to check out his site.

broken bicycles

a flickr a day

i decided to start a collection of images that i find on flickr and just post the image with a link to the flickr page. i like the idea of highlighting some seldom seen, yet powerful images, plus i think that after several months the group of images might evovle into an interesting curatorial statement. or whatever. i will affectionately call it: "a flickr a day." even though there is no chance whatsoever that i will post one everyday. here goes: catherine buca/layout by me

a note:

i wrote this after my fourth post but edited it into the first post to preserve the integity of the "flickr a day" posts. i want them to flow from one to the next, and this was too big an interruption:

alright, i've been at this "a flickr a day" thing for a few days now (something as ridiculously short as 4 days), and i want to say for the record that it is much more difficult than i anticipated. it takes me a pretty long time to find the image that is perfect for the day. i keep trying to take into account the season (since it is the holidays) and i also keep relating the picture to the picture from the day before, and the post before it, to make sure they go together (obviously) (i mean i can always use an image i like later on, when it makes more sense, right? why not keep wasting time looking for another image that fits?). and besides, we're talking about flickr here. not all the work is good. in fact, that's a vast understatement; most of the "work" is bad, or at the very least not intended to be taken seriously and then posted on someone's photo blog. plus, once i do find a photographer i like, the difficulty becomes narrowing it down to just one image because i mean, come on, all photography is shown in series these days. no one relies on just one image, which, is why you see the diptychs. and then there's the fact that i want to avoid showing the same person twice, even though some people could really be shown fairly often. maybe i could spend one week on each person. that's an idea. but then they would need to have at least five really strong images. oh man, do you see how difficult this is? so clearly i'm thinking about this too much. i'm going to make a commitment though to only post one image a day. so if you see a diptych that is because the artist intended it that way (like the above image by snjezana). or, if i can't stick to one image, i will add the tag "layout by me."

alright already. enough of my ramblings. i promise to make this the last time i interject, but i thought the explanation might have been warranted.

laurie roberts

a fellow drexel photography alumnus, but from before our day who took portraits of rural pensylvanians: laurie roberts.

the image of the boys with the water gun (upper right) has been hanging on the inspiration board at drexel for years. it's just too good to take down.

julie melton

julie melton, formerly a boston based photographer who just moved to the philadelphia area, is an emerging artist represented by gallery kafayas. her photographs of montana natives and hutterites bring a range of photographers to my mind: harry callahan, emmett gowin, and even ralph eugene meatyard.

a polaroid teaparty...

a combination of stephen shore and uta barth, anne's blog, strandgut, glorifies the beauty in the everyday object.

jessica lawinski

a close friend of ours takes these beautiful and dreamlike images of her hometown in new jersey. she feels compelled to document places from her childhood that are quickly dissapearing, on polaroid film which is vanishing just as fast: lawinski.photo

abbytrysagain

i'm a sucker for fun stationary (especially when it's woodblocked): abbytrysagain.

details...

a sampler...

samantha pleet

check out these fantastic medieval inspired designs by my friend's sister, samantha pleet. i really want the "i just woke up with a lumberjack" dress pictured in the middle (and that is its real name, by the way).

sweet stamps...

my friend gillian, knowing i love all things bird related, found these stamps for me. you can get them here: fredflare.com

alexandra batsford

by a good friend of mine, the ever amazing: alexandra batsford.

some photos i love...

These photos aren't mine, but aren't they sweet? they're by kara healy for caitlin mociun (who i found through {oh joy!}), whose fashion is pretty amazing too.

p.s.: i want those tights.