Tag Archives: wedding

HDR of a wedding ceremony on the compass pad at the Marina Inn - Grande Dunes

Wedding of mother with four fun kids at the Marina Inn with reception at Joe’s Crab Shack


April 24th, 2013

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This was a really fun recent wedding at the Grande Dunes Marina Inn with a reception after at the Joe’s Crab Shack at Broadway at the Beach. I didn’t really ask, but I would imagine this was a second wedding for both the bride and groom. Those are always fun, because when it’s the second time it’s usually more about just having fun with the family.  Especially when they have great kids with good personalities.  Instead of my most important pictures being about the couple, it’s usually more about the family and having fun with the kids.

I’ve actually never been to Joe’s Crab Shack before, the couple said they just loved the food there and that is why they picked it for the reception. When they brought out the appetizers I actually thought it was the full meal. You know the food must be good when everyone has to wear a bib. It seemed like everyone was having a great time.

There is a shot below with the couple kissing with the kids being silly in the background, it’s probably one of my most popular pictures I’ve put on Facebook. There was some really strong overhead sun during the ceremony, I’ve gotten pretty good now about dealing with that, but it’s never ideal. I took the couple out around sunset time at Broadway to do a few more pictures which turned out nice.  I hope you enjoy these below, please comment if you do!

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Wedding at the Carriage House in Magnolia Plantation, Charleston


December 18th, 2012

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This was my second wedding I’ve had this fall at Magnolia Plantation, this time it was at the Carriage House lawn area. It’s nice to expand out a bit to doing some weddings in Charleston, I hope to keep it up in the future. I think it would be really nice to do something in downtown Charleston eventually, but if I don’t I’m happy shooting around the beach.

For this wedding it was a pretty cloudy day most of the time, I didn’t get as many shots with sunlight coming through the trees as I would have liked. The clouds actually worked out well for the ceremony because it softened what would have been some pretty harsh sunlight directly on the couple. Like at most weddings, we got a little rushed and didn’t have time to make it around to cool areas like the bamboo forest. When I have a really nice area I’d love to have a good 45-60 minutes with the couple, but I know that usually can’t happen. Still I thought everything turned out really nice.

By the way, if you use the Storyboard plugin like I’ve started using for blog pictures, they just updated to version 2.0.  It’s got some nice features like watermarks and on the fly cropping.  I love doing a storyboard style layout now, it’s lets me fit so many more pictures in a post. Let me know if you enjoy some of these below.

Bridal party together before the ceremonyPictures of the bride before the ceremony, Magnolia Plantation, Charleston Continue reading 'Wedding at the Carriage House in Magnolia Plantation, Charleston'→
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Fun sunset pictures with the bride and groom at Holden Beach, NC


October 2nd, 2012

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This is the first time I’ve been up to Holden Beach in NC for a wedding. This wedding was for a couple that was bringing together their two families with adult children. Everyone just seemed really happy and got along great. That always makes things easier for me. The wedding was held at a really pretty private home on the ocean. It was quite a long walk from the beach house down to the actual ocean. The area behind the house was huge and just full of dunes and sea oats, as well as a small lake surrounded by tall grass. This was actually one of the prettiest beach spots I think I’ve seen. It makes you realize how much they have ruined the Myrtle Beach area. All the houses and hotels are stuck almost on the ocean, it has just ruined the beach and dunes. I guess there is nothing that can be done about it now except occasional beach re-nourishment when they pump sand out of the ocean. I decided for this post to highlight just one part of the wedding, pictures of the couple that we did at sunset. The whole afternoon I had been looking at spots and thinking about what it would look like at sunset. After spending some time at the reception the couple walked back down to the beach with me right around sunset time, like usual we only had a few minutes. The angle of the sun to the ocean is different here than it is in Myrtle Beach. That is why there are a lot of cool shots with the sun going down over the ocean. There is only a brief time during the winter when the sun’s angle will be like that here. I just love in the pictures below the way the sunset reflects off the edge of the water, as well as the ones of it going down behind the lake. If you like these pictures please comment and ‘like’ the post, it encourages me to post more often. A couple of these shots have been touched up, but most have not. I hope you enjoy them.

Couple sitting in the sea oats and the sunset - Holden Beach, NCCouple sitting in the sea oats and the sunset - Holden Beach, NC Continue reading 'Fun sunset pictures with the bride and groom at Holden Beach, NC'→

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First ever wedding on the grassy lawn at the Caravelle Resort and a rant about Myrtle Beach


September 22nd, 2012

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I was told this is the first wedding they have held on the lawn behind the Caravelle Resort in Myrtle Beach. The reception later in the evening was at the St. John’s Inn across the street. I have done a wedding there before. I thought the lawn was quite a nice area, there was some shade from the large hotel building and there was plenty of trees around blocking things you might not want to see.  This was definitely one of the nicer behind the resort type wedding areas I’ve seen. They said if it worked out they were going to try more weddings at this location in the future.  I imagine they will be very happy with how it turned out.

Of course, I have my usual problem of it being in the city limits. I have a Myrtle Beach business license so I can work at locations such as this, but it’s still against the MB City laws to do any commercial work on the beach.  What I’ve been doing is just cautioning everyone not to do too much on the beach, doing some shots of the wedding party and couple, while keeping an eye out for the beach cops.  The resorts really need to work with the city to get something done about this law.  It seems like all the resorts encourage the breaking of it by not informing clients about the rules.  Who would imagine, unless someone tells them, that you could have a beach resort wedding and technically not be allowed on the beach sand.  It’s just a bad situation all around that I can’t comprehend.  I was at the Grande Dunes Ocean Club a while back.  They set up a wedding on the beach like I’ve been at many times before, and the cops came along and told them they had to clear everything off the beach.  How many people do you think would have weddings in the Myrtle Beach City limits if the first thing the resorts told them was that they can’t go down on the beach sand at all.  Of course they aren’t going to tell them that. So I always end up just risking a fine and doing some pictures on the beach anyway. Anyway, you can tell the whole thing is just ridiculous.

Anyway, enough of my rant about Myrtle Beach and the resorts.  I love the way at the St. John’s Inn they have the small lights stringed up along the ceiling. When you are using a really high end lens, like the 85mm f1.4 Nikon lens I was using in the dancing shots, it turns any small background lights into large rounded out of focus orbs.  It’s a great look for dancing.  You can take just about any room and string up some lights, and with the right lens you can make the background beautiful.  I hope you enjoy the pictures below, I uploaded a bunch of them this time.  Please like this post or comment below if you enjoy them. 

Bridemaids walking down the isle - Caravelle ResortShe finally threw the flowers - Caravelle Resort

Continue reading 'First ever wedding on the grassy lawn at the Caravelle Resort and a rant about Myrtle Beach'→