regina holder photographer » artistic storytelling

This time last year, my awesome friend Christine from Houston and I were racing our way back up I-95 from Stephanie and Travis’ fabulous wedding at St. Simon’s Island, GA.  Christine was in Atlanta earlier in the week for business, so I talked her into driving almost 1,100 miles throughout the Southeast between Friday morning and her flight on Monday afternoon.  It was a blast!  We stayed Friday night in Savannah for me to do an engagement session and to hang out with the hottest photog in town, Donna Von Bruening.  Funny enough, I met Donna at Denis Reggie’s workshop in April 2006 and Christine at Garrett Nudd’s workshop in Orlando June 2007.  Then, they met each other at Engage08!, which is a wedding business summit that I really wanted to attend.

Ok, back to the fabulousness of Stephanie and Travis’ wedding.  I photographed Stephanie’s sister’s friends, Carolyn and Kyle’s wedding in 2007.  They were all from Waynesville and Stephanie even attended my high school.  It was great seeing so many familiar Waynesville faces 8 hours away.  They were married at the Wesley United Methodist Church at Frederica, which is a gorgeous church surrounded by Spanish moss hanging from the trees.  The reception followed at Sea Palms Resort.

Stephanie was breathtaking in her Judd Waddell dress and the girls were fabulous in azalea pink Coren Moore dresses.  The wedding was actually featured on Coren Moore’s blog recently.  Travis and the boys were quite dapper in their tan suits and custom bow ties made by Stephanie’s friend and owner of Southern Proper.  The lighthouse was also featured on their wedding stationary and their favors were lighthouse cookies.  Very Southern wedding soiree! Stylist Melissa Lamkin, another friend of the bride’s, helped put all the fantastic details together.

I love trolleys with the wedding party.  It’s so much fun to ride to the reception together in a big party trolley.  Soul Function kept the party rocking until late.  A huge thanks to my friend, driver and 3rd shooter, Christine, who almost passed out from heat exhaustion getting all the great outside detail shots.  Jarrad Lister rocked out the guy shots and 2nd shooting.  I had an awesome team for this wedding!

one of my favorite shots from last year!

these guys could jump!  it’s totally the couple’s choice if they want to do these wedding party shots.

l-o-v-e the next 2!

work it, melissa!

Each of my signature service clients receive a FREE engagement session. It is so important to me to both develop a relationship with the couple before the wedding and for them, especially the groom, to feel comfortable in front of the camera. Most couples send out some form of “save the date” announcement and I am happy to offer custom designed cards. I am very environmentally conscious and have all of my cards printed on 100% recycled content paper with soy ink. Here are two recent save the date postcards:

Funny enough, they both chose shots at the same location on the top of a parking deck downtown. The big “10″ has been popular this year, especially with Sara who is my 10/10/10 bride.

I haven’t blogged any children’s portrait sessions in forever!  While weddings account for 90% of my business, I do really love doing kids’ portraits.  A lot of “experts” and leading wedding photographers talk about specializing in just weddings.  You do sometimes see photographers saying on their business cards and websites that they “specialize” in weddings, family portraits, seniors, maternity, corporate, etc, which means they really specialize in none of them.  lol!  I started photographing my next door neighbor’s daughter when I was 16 and would babysit.  It’s hard to believe she has already graduated from college!!!  My friends started having babies and then my brides followed.  I am always truly honored to document the children of my wedding couples!!

My sessions are always a progression of my style evolving as well.  I do prefer the lifestyle sessions that show more of the family and the home environment.  But, I do also really like fun portraits where you see the kid’s personality.  None could be more true than these photos of Elise.  I photographed Stephanie and Brett’s wedding in April, 2006 at Homewood.  It was one of the last shot on film weddings that I did.  They recently moved back to Asheville and Stephanie and I are working on some projects together (coming soon!).  She was very much NOT into the mountains and big scenic backgrounds for Elise’s 2 year old portraits.  These are so different than what I normally do, but I LOVE them!!!  Elise is also going to be a big sister very soon!

In the last year, I have really neglected my poor blog. At first, I was just “too busy”. Then, I got used to posting to Facebook and Twitter and started using those outlets to communicate in 140 characters or less and share images. Lastly, I started revamping my branding and decided I absolutely hated the background on my blog and it’s format. So, today I am happy to reveal the new blog face lift and get back to putting some effort into actually posting.

My New Year’s Resolution for 2010, the new decade, was to “move forward in 2010″. I actually based this on the Ray Lamontagne song “Empty”. Here’s the video on YouTube.

I never learned to count my blessings,
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters.

In the last 5 years, I have had a lot of personal loss and it has been overwhelming. At the same time, my business has exploded and I have been blessed with so many awesome weddings and couples that I truly credit with being the reason that I have made it through. But with lots of weddings, comes lots of editing, which honestly when I switched to digital in June 2006, I had no idea how to do or manage. Finally, after 3 years of constantly being behind, I actually had 2 weeks of no weddings to edit! It was an amazing and awesome feeling. I hugely credit Jared Platt and the one day workshop I did in Atlanta in November. It has been one of the best things I have done for my business!  I kept convincing myself that if I have images to edit, I can’t take time to blog.  Now, I am happy to have time and make the effort!  Hold me accountable, friends!

I would love to be your friend (www.facebook.com/reginaholder) and have you like my business fan page on Facebook.  You can follow me on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/reginaholder

Photographer blog posts must have images!  Here’s the story behind the image at the top of my blog:  Marina and Justin were married at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Valle Crucis.  Justin’s dad officiated and is actually an Episcopal priest.  I was kind of heartbroken when no photography was allowed during the ceremony, but was happy to honor their wishes.  I ended up sitting by the door, so that I could get the first photos of the couple as they exited the sanctuary.  They were so full of joy and Marina was both laughing and crying.  Click here to see more images from this wedding.