First off, I have to thank my great friend, Patrick, from PWP Studio for coming out to shoot with me. Patrick used to shoot weddings here in Atlanta for years but is now focussed solely on corporate photography and taking care of event photography for the Coca Cola’s and Microsoft’s of the world. It was fun seeing Patrick meld into my world for a day.

Check out this necklace… just… WOW!

And these Badgley Mischka shoes!

The super fabulous Formal Faces was taking care of hair and makeup for all the ladies…

Okay, I have to tell you… Noelle was about to hyperventilate when she realized that Patrick had given her this gift…

I’m fairly certain that Noelle can’t take a bad photo…

I love shooting at St Peter Chanel! It big and roomy and the light is so nice compared to most churches.

All of Noelle’s friends from Priscilla of Boston in Atlanta were there to bustle her dress, which was quite the feat!

Okay, there’s a story here… we decided to grab a few photos outside just after the sun had set… it’s past 9pm and it was still SOOOO hot outside. After just a few minutes Noelle hikes up her dress to cool off a little bit. I just love Patrick’s reaction in the first photo. Of course, we decided to make the best of the situation.

For the photographers reading this: this is completely available light. In fact, the Nikon D3 is such a crazy good camera that I had to add all that grain in Photoshop Lightroom. That’s f/2.8, 1/60s @ISO 5000 and I pulled another stop and 1/2 in Lightroom so that’s roughly ISO 15,000…

Congratulations Noelle & Patrick!

Leighanne and Brian’s vow renewal came just weeks before they announced the NKOTBSB Tour, so they were throwing a lot of hints at the Entertainment Tonight crew that was also covering the event for national television. In fact, I was excited to see the back of my head gracing big screens in living rooms across the nation!

They had placed their original wedding attire on display overlooking the back of the house. That’s a stunning Vera Wang dress from the earlier days of Vera’s success.

One thing I learned in our meeting in the days leading up to the event — Leighanne and Brian are the biggest hams. They love to make each other laugh and have a great time.

These are Leighanne’s flowers from her wedding day and a few more getting ready details…

You won’t often see this side of Brian!

This was just a fun snap of the E.T. crew at work (and yes, that is Steve Moore with the Moore Agency).

Their son, Baylee, was happy to entertain everyone. You don’t see pictures of it here, but he even grabbed a Sony HD camera and was documenting the crew documenting him. Already an entertainer…

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do…

Behind the scenes of the main interview that was aired on Entertainment Tonight.

Look at all the fabulousness!

As people gathered, synchronized swimmers entertained the guests.

From here on out, it’s all about Leighanne and Brian!

Robert Long Flora Design provided florals for the event and Tents Unlimited/Event Rentals Unlimited provided the tent, outdoor air conditioning & equipment. As an aside, even though the Littrell’s have a gorgeous property, having the fully air conditioned tent as an event space was truly a God-send when we had a torrential downpour right after the ceremony. The event went off without a hitch thanks to all the hard work of these folks.

Look at this amazing cake from Classic Cheesecakes and Cakes… and Baylee doing his best Michael Jackson!

The Littrell’s with Howie and his wife, who both had a blast at the reception!

Brian surprised Leighanne with a song he wrote for their first 10 years of married life.

And this, friends, is how you cap off a party!

But let me back up a little bit. When I think of the beautiful, historic Swan House, this is what I see in my head:

I think of the rich history and all the stories this building could tell if it could talk.

Remember what I said above about photo shoots? The image above and the next two didn’t even make the first round of cuts. Yet, fast forward a couple months and there it sits… a big, beautiful two-page spread to open up the fashion feature. This is quite easily my favorite image from the entire shoot.

And now I’m going show you something to make your jaw drop. I say that in complete humility because it really has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with our stunning model Madison Olson and the fabulous makeup by Raney O’Keefe. This image is basically straight out of the camera. No photoshop actions. No retouching. No fixing. No nothing.

I took the image out of the camera in RAW format, adjusted my color and exposure in Lightroom, and exported it. In fact, I didn’t retouch Madison in a single image in the entire magazine feature. Just amazing.

Remember what I said above about photo shoots? We had a little bit of free time (by “free time” I mean that we had 7 minutes and 35 seconds) and I said “Madison, let’s play.” So I grabbed Heather Vreeland’s new 50mm f/1.4 lens because I was really curious how the lens would perform and I wanted to play with it. In fact, a number of the images in the magazine were shot with that little 50mm lens she carries around with her in the camera bag she got from Target. So Madison and I ran around in the grass and came up with Heather’s favorite series of images from the shoot. This is just two of them…

Have you been paying attention to the beautiful floral headpieces Danny created for us?

Yes, she is IN the fountain. By this time, it was pretty much dark and we had to get creative with the lighting sources.

Here’s Danny with one of the props he brought along for the shoot — ya know, just in case — and Raney doing a little touch up work.

One more behind the scene’s shot, complete with my assistant hard at work in the background. He was probably tweeting about how hard I was working him.

I’ll be posting a bunch of images from the shoot in a few days, but for now take a look at the images Heather Vreeland chose for the magazine:

While you’re at it, check out the Catering spread starting on page 26 and Hayden’s birthday party photos they featured on page 130. Oh… and check out our back cover advertisement for Ben Vigil Photographers featuring Erika & Leroy atop the one an only Ventana’s rooftop venue styled/coordinated by Eliana from ellyB Events…

How cool is that!!!

Timeless.

When I use the word timeless, I do not mean vintage. What I do mean is this: a timeless image will look just as powerful in 2 years (when the current photography trends have passed us by) as it will when they display it at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration. So before I ruin it running my mouth…

These are my two personal favorites that we captured at the beautiful Capital City Country Club in her stunning Lazaro wedding dress.

The image below is the image that Sarah ordered as a canvas to display at the reception.

Now, knowing Sarah the above two images are quite a change from the rather joyful and exuberant Sarah we all know. Here is an image that really captures that…

They were married at the Cathedral of Christ the King and hosted their reception at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta where we shot their engagement session back in December.

As you take a look at their slideshow, you’ll notice that not only does Valerie have the coolest vintage dress ever – there aren’t many women who can pull it off like she did — she changed during the reception into a more modern and fun dress. Take a look and leave a comment below…

Facebook readers: CLICK HERE to view the slideshow.

PAUL PHILLIP

We started off 2009 very different than it ended. At this time last year Maria had been in and out of the hospital more than once in her struggle to carry our 3rd son to full term. But the new year started with a bang. On January 6, we welcomed Paul Phillip Vigil into the world…

Paul came about a month early and he spent a couple weeks in NICU, but it marked the end of months of bed rest for Maria. It was truly a welcome time for us as a family. And he’s grown into quite an adorable little kid. Much better than the first two

Here he is back in October in our foyer…

…and just a few weeks ago trying to stay awake with my wife Maria at a family wedding…

FIRSTS

2009 was a BIG year of firsts. In the past year I’ve had my first $20,000+ bride, my first book cover was published (even if it was in German), I was invited to shoot my first magazine cover (more on that in a minute), and I shot my first military wedding and first high school sweetheart wedding that was 50 years in the making.

In 2009 I also took my first and second “serious” forays into commercial advertising work with Blanqi and 4Laces, both of which launch in Q1 of 2010 as women-owned and -driven apparel businesses. I’m super excited for both of these companies and where they are going. Commercial work (headshots, architecture, advertising) has never been a large part of my business and I’ve never targeted that market segment but if the fit is right and I’m confident that I can serve my client well, I’ll take the business.

WEDDING INDUSTRY

2009 saw a big shake up in the bridal magazine industry. A whole spate of bridal magazines have closed and a few more have popped up. January saw the first anniversary issue of The Atlantan Brides, a sister publication to the Atlantan. The Atlantan Brides was a key part of my marketing efforts in 2008 and 2009 and I still think they represent the pinnacle of luxury bridal magazines in Atlanta.

I was fortunate to be able to work with Celeste, the [now former], Publisher of the Atlantan Brides. She continues to be one of the most impressive and talented people I’ve ever met in this industry. I credit her with starting my “vendor headshot side gig” when she asked me to shoot her headshots when she became associate publisher, and then, publisher. Alas, she was married and we were all sad to see her go as she followed her new husband on a great new adventure across the big pond in England.

Meanwhile, as The Atlanta Brides prepared for their 4th issue to go to print, there was a celebration taking place down in Hampton, GA as Heather Vreeland was preparing to launch the first issue of Atlanta Occasions Magazine. She flattered me by asking me to cover the launch party which took place in July.

Heather has since become a good friend and I’ve had the opportunity to work with Atlanta Occasions, including a photoshoot and event imagery for the Winter 2010 issue and shooting the cover for it too. The new issue officially launches today and in a day or two I’ll have a full post on all our work for this issue.

In addition to shooting Heather in a magnificent Anne Barge dress in October, during the magazine cover photoshoot we managed to squeeze in a moment and shoot her headshot for the new issue of the magazine…

I’m already looking forward to the incredible work Ben Vigil Photographers and Atlanta Occasions will do in 2010!

WEDDINGS GOING STRONG

2009 brought a number of really amazing weddings but one of them sticks out for a personal reason. My good friend of many years now, Skotti Ray Frese (I love her new name! It sounds like a super hero character, doesn’t it), married the man of her dreams in June. I actually spent 3 full blog entries on it — Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

To this day, I still credit Skotti with almost single-handedly launching my photography career. She’s been a constant cheerleader and personal inspiration to me. I can’t thank her enough and I wish her all the best in 2010.

BEN v2.2

Today, January 1, 2010, also marks the beginning of a new stage for Ben Vigil Photographers. We’ve rolled out a slightly tweaked branding, an entirely new pricing structure and we’ve laid all the ground work for a new stage of our business, the upcoming Ben v3.0

Here’s evidence that I’m still a total geek at heart: as a holdover from my days in software and web development, I’ve started giving version numbers to each stage of my business. You may or may not have noticed that for the better part of the last 6 months we’ve been sitting at Ben v2.0. Today marks the upgrade to Ben v2.2.

Thanks for coming along for the ride and I look forward to sharing a fantastic 2010 with you!

Rewind… when Sarah contacted me about their wedding next year she told me something that’s always nice to hear: she had come across my site years ago, and had saved it because she knew she’d eventually need it. I’m glad she did because it has been an absolute pleasure getting to know them and their family the little bit that I have so far. They invited me up to their beautiful family home on Lake Burton for their engagement session a few weeks ago. What a beautiful area!

I don’t think I’m going to say much more and just let the images speak for themselves…

One of my favorites aspects of my work as a photographer is that I get to capture people in ways that they’ve never seen themselves or even imagined themselves. These two are for Christopher…

I can’t wait to see the two of you again!