It was a bit chilly out for Rachel and Duane’s Philly engagement shoot as we walked around Old City. A little hot coffee and snuggling up with each other made it the perfect night. We had a great time hanging out capturing photos of these two, getting to know them better and hearing all about their wedding plans. There’s no doubt that their 2019 wedding will be one that we’ll be really looking forward to!

[3 BIG Reasons To Get Engagement Photos]

Laura and David’s Philadelphia wedding was one of the few this past year where we didn’t do an engagement shoot to get to know the two of them. It’s rare that I walk into the groom prep and don’t know who the groom is, so Sandi and I both had a little more anxiety starting the day than we typically do. Sandi had done the consult at the studio that I wasn’t able to make, but she had let me know that both the bride and groom’s fathers were photographers and were really interested in seeing how we worked. No pressure, no pressure at all. As soon as I walked into the hotel room where the groom along with all the groomsmen were getting ready, his father immediately introduced himself and began showing me photos he had taken on recent trips around the US. Awesome photos that were truly impressive. He had a great personality, both fathers did, and I honestly could have sat there and talked about photography with him for hours which eased some of the pressure I had felt earlier in the day. (There’s a few pics of him on the dance floor below)

From the beginning of the day till the end, we did our best to creatively capture every moment as they played out in front of us. We did our best to be as documentary as possible while still being creative and artistic with some of our portraits which you’ll see below. Laura and David got ready at the Logan Hotel in Philly, then headed over to the Arch Street Presbyterian Church for their beautiful ceremony. They chose to go the traditional route of seeing each other for the first time as Laura walked down the isle, so they kept her in a separate area of the church to keep her hidden. The room they had her in had perfect window light and the walls had old wallpaper that had a pattern that seemed to almost match the design of Laura’s dress. Typically, I would never think to use wallpaper as a backdrop for a bridal portrait, but something about the room just seemed to work and I went for it. You’ll see the shot below, it’s a vertical shot, and it’s one of my favorite shots that I took, the other being the double-exposure at the very end of the blog post.

After they officially tied the knot, we headed back into Philly for some photos of the bridal party and some creative portraits of Laura and David. Once the sun went down and we had all the photos we needed, everyone headed over to the Franklin Institute for the ceremony. This was our first time photographing a wedding reception at the Franklin Institute and it was pretty special as you’ll see. We were pretty happy with the photos we were able to capture during this day and had a great time with both families. It was an all-around great day that we wish every city wedding was like. We wish the two of them nothing but the best and look forward to designing their wedding album with them!

Please see the list of other vendors below that were involved in making this big day go so smoothly and so special for Laura and David.

Wedding Gown: Blue by Enzoani 

Bridal Shoes: Nina

Groom’s Tux:  Scabal

Videography: Tweed Videography

Florist: Carl Alan Floral Design

HMU: Daneene Jensen & Associates Hair and Makeup Artists

Wedding Cake: Frog Catering

Name of DJ: Synergetic Sound

Our Best of 2018 – Wedding & Engagement Photos

Finally, here are some of mine and Sandi’s favorite wedding photos from 2018. Usually, we post this a little earlier in the year but it’s been a busy booking season so posting this late is actually a good thing. I wasn’t going to write anything, but for those that are interested, here’s a quick summary of what 2018 was like for us.

2018 was an interesting one for sure, coming off of our most successful year as a multi-photographer studio. It was still only our third full year as a large studio and because of all the work we put in the year before, it was one where everything simply started to click. All of our lead photographers had an awesome year and we couldn’t be more proud of each of them for putting their hearts and souls into making Twisted Oaks what it is today.

2018 was also a year where we made a move into a new studio that we weren’t really planning to do. I decided to do 99% of the remodeling myself to save on cost which is why it’s just now getting finished after 6 long months. It was a year that allowed Sandi and I to spend more time focusing on our family, our own photography, and our own clients as we didn’t need to be as hands-on with the studio as in the previous years. Our style had slightly changed as did the way we approached each wedding and it showed in our work. It also showed in the final product that we delivered as our clients were overall happier than ever. We even focused on working better together as a husband and wife team, which led to less silent rides home at the end of the night, and even her offering to drive once or twice. I even tried harder not to step in front of her while she was shooting, LOL.

Over the next couple of years, Sandi and I will be cutting back on weddings. As we do, it will be interesting to see how our style continues to evolve. One thing to keep in mind as you scroll through these is that this is a collection of photos that we personally like the best for one reason or another. In most cases, these aren’t the photos that the clients would choose as their favorites. That’s one thing that makes this job so interesting. In the end, it doesn’t matter what we think looks good or how artistic a photo might be to us, if it doesn’t have meaning to the client then we didn’t do our job. As a studio, our primary goal is to capture the wedding day in a storytelling way, filled with photos that we know our clients will love and cherish forever.

So, here it is, a gallery of some of mine and Sandi’s favorite wedding and engagement photos from 2018. We’ll be posting one of these blogs for each of our lead photographers over the next couple of weeks on the Twisted Oaks Associates website and social media. I decided to keep personal photos out of this year’s blog post and just focused on our clients. I may post a separate blog with our favorite personal photos. Also, I promise we did our best to keep it as short as possible so you can make it to the end.

With that being said, here are a handful of our favorites. Enjoy!

From the very moment that Ali and Nick walked into our South Jersey Wedding photography studio last year and started explaining their plans for a rustic and DIY farm wedding in Woodbury, NJ, we knew it was one that we would be looking forward to. It was basically listening to two people in love tell us about how they wanted to make the day special and in a style that fit them best. This is exactly what we love to hear from our clients, especially when it’s followed with the statement that photography is the most important part to them.

On the day of the wedding, the weather forecast wasn’t looking good. It was one of those days where it could rain or be sunny all depending on how the wind blew. Basically, it turned out to be a good mix which you’ll see in the photos. It was extremely sunny for parts of the day and torrential downpours for other parts. The good thing was, it was sunny during the most important times and then really made a turn for the worse once everyone was inside ready to celebrate the reception. It rained for just about the entire reception then stopped again just in time for a sparkler send off which couldn’t have worked out any better.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I grew up on a farm very similar to the one that Ali and Nick chose to get married at. There were a few cows on this particular farm that were just about as friendly as house pets, the kind that wanted attention so badly that they did everything they could to photobomb each and every shot we took near them. One of the photos that I captured of the bride getting licked on the arm by Norman the cow won a Fearless Award. An award that you can see HERE at the Insider.com. While awards aren’t what we are after, having our client’s photos shown off around the world is something that we love being able to show them.

While we obviously do enjoy a big challenging city wedding in either Philly or NYC, our personal favorites are the ones that typically have barns and tractors involved, outdoor ceremonies, tons of reclaimed wood mixed with antiques and handmade details. As I mentioned in the very first sentence, this was a wedding that we had been looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint. We wish these two nothing but the best and hope to see them again soon.

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

I just found out that I’ll be heading out to Vegas for the popular WPPI again for the 4th year in a row. I’ll be hosting a free photo walk on the 27th and a 4-hour workshop on March 1st. I’ll be starting to promote it before the end of the week and since this is a freebie… I honestly don’t know why you would want to miss out on it. I also just wrapped up my Leica Akademie Workshop down in Savannah and it was a huge success. I’ll hopefully be putting together a blog post from the workshop to show what our next one could look like, it’s just going to be in Iceland 🙂

As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy!

This anniversary photo shoot was not only really special to us, but the idea behind it was completely Jacquelynn’s idea. This isn’t the first time that she’s planned something really unique and fun for us to come along and photograph, even the wedding that her and Thomas planned included a “Day After” shoot that was hands down one of our favorites. The two of them have a very similar style and taste for things that Sandi and I do. I mean, their wedding is still the only one to this day that I was able to wear my Timberland boots all day. Not only that, but I didn’t even stand out because Thomas wore his own with his tux.

We’ve really gotten to know these two really well and have no doubts that we’ll be continuing to photograph all of their future family milestones and events. They actually came to us a few years ago now frustrated because they had already hired a wedding photographer who photographed their engagement shoot and all but things weren’t going well. I personally spoke to the two of them and explained how we run our business. It was shortly after we had rebranded (which you can read about here) and completely changed up our business structure, so it was still in the beginning stages and we were still testing things out. Basically, I explained to them that I was going to probably do things a little different and explained that if they liked our work and were willing to lose their deposit with the other photographer then I would love to work with them. I also explained how I was going to be asking them a lot of questions and taking the time to get to know the two of them.

So, long story short, or shorter, they signed the contract and even though they had already done an engagement shoot with the other photographer, they asked me if I would be interested in photographing something a little different than our typical engagement shoots. They wanted something along the lines of renting a rustic and unique hotel room in Philly and having me photograph the two of them in a way that showed off their romantic side. We had a few calls to plan things out so I knew exactly what they were looking for and I shot a beautiful boudoir engagement shoot of the two of them in one of the coolest looking hotels in all of Philly, the Lokal Hotel, especially for a photo shoot like the one we did. If you’re ever visiting Philly for a long weekend or even just a one night stay, I highly recommend checking this place out. If you’re recently engaged and looking to do something different for your engagement shoot, definitely check out theirs.

A year later we photographed their wedding on December 21st, 2o17, at the Brandywine Manor House. It was extremely cold but it turned out to be one easily of our most favorite weddings of the year. Everything went perfectly and some of their wedding photos were published in Rangefinder Magazine as well as printed and hung up at the Leica booth at WPPI earlier this year. There wedding was one of the first that I had shot after accepting the role as a Brand Ambassador for Leica. The morning after their wedding, we drove out to one of the coolest and largest Christmas Tree farms Sandi and I have ever been to which was up in the Pocono mountain area, Lehighton to be exact, called the Old Homestead Tree Farm. It was overcast that day so we were able to shoot in the late afternoon with no problem, the complete opposite from their wedding the day before where the sun was shining nice and bright. We spent a couple hours just hanging out, walking the farm, capturing some beautiful shots of the two of them together enjoying their very first day as husband and wife.

One year later, which was last week, we met up with Jacquelynn and Thomas at the Unik Cakes store in Warminster, PA. They had scheduled a cupcake designing lesson for their one year anniversary. What made this not only a unique idea but Masha, the owner of Unik Cakes was the baker who designed and made Jacquelynn and Thomas’s wedding cake. They planned something different and fun for them to do, with the baker who made their wedding cake, their wedding photographers, and Jacquelynn even had her hair and makeup done by the same HMU she had on her wedding day, Alisha Nicole and Co.. We had an awesome time, even getting to do some taste testing ourselves while photographing the lesson. Once the fun was over we had a little surprise for them ourselves, their wedding album had come in just a few days prior and we couldn’t have been more excited to have them see it. Their album was the biggest we designed, the thickest with the most pages, and a custom designed cover that Jacquelynn and I worked on together.

This is the type of relationships that we have with our clients, the relationships that we do our best to have with all of our clients. We love getting to be part of the events that come after their wedding day. They even invited us out to dinner afterward but Sandi and I had to get back home to pick up Luke or we would have. We built Twisted Oaks with this exact idea in mind, getting to know our clients and not just be like a lot of the other multi-photographer studios out there. All of our associate photographers work for us for two reasons. The first is that they are talented and have an artistic approach to their photography. The second is that they understand the business model and brand that is Twisted Oaks, meaning that they also get to know the clients they work with and continue to work with them long after their wedding day is over. We couldn’t be happier that Jacquelynn and Thomas took a chance on us after already hiring a wedding photographer that they simply didn’t gel with. We’re not only extremely happy for the two of them and wish them a very happy anniversary, but look forward to seeing what life event we get to photograph for them next!

FIRST ANNIVERSARY SHOOT