Now, normally I frown upon this type of wedding day management, because it usually means there is little room for flexibility and can often lead to a disappointed bride when the unexpected happens…but in this case, I have to admit, Nicole was the perfect balance of the “planner” and the “bride” that really wanted to enjoy every second of her day.

For example, it rained the majority of the day which can really cramp a brides mood, especially when they have a lawn ceremony in the plans…which overlooks the ocean. Not Nicole, she was completely calm, made the absolute most of it and was ready to get wet if she had to in order to get great pictures. The other amazing thing about her schedule (which Eric joked he wanted made into a T-shirt)…she allowed for an insane amount of picture time.

Even Jake, who was 2nd shooting commented on how spoiled Eric and I are by our awesome couples that give us ridiculous amounts of time. What can I say? We are just the luckiest!

Here are a few favorites from Nicole and Roy’s Mystic Seaport Wedding Day.

This is one example of how Eric and Jake made for such an awesome team covering the first look on the docks at Mystic Seaport. While I was helping Nicole with her dress and walking in the rain, Jake and Eric hung out with Roy in the rain and made the decision that Jake would shoot tight with 70-200mm, while Eric shot wide at 24mm to capture the scene with the boat in the background. You can see their alternating shots below and I love how two great photographers can nail both angles to provide a diverse portfolio for our couples, the best part is…I LOVE both. I hope Nicole & Roy do as well!

Jake:

Eric:

Jake:

Eric:

And then onto some romantic, rainy day portraits. Yum!

So much to shoot in Mystic, all day would have been fine by us! We had a gap in the rainy weather and we were all so happy that we were able to take advantage in Historical Mystic Seaport.

This was one of my favorites from the day, Eric was getting some gear “rain ready” in case it started pouring while we had our flashes outside, so Jake and I took advantage of shooting Nicole. You can see through this doorway was another door open on the opposite side, and while I am completely in the zone loving these shots with Nicole, Jake snuck around to the other side….wait till you see what he got!!!

I was floored, his shot completely rocks! I am so happy he saw this opportunity and took it, because this picture…the light wrapping around her shoulders is just stunning. It is sooo editorial worthy…and the light coming through the dress…I mean COME ON.

Gorgeous. Killed this one Jake.

One invaluable lesson we learned this year at Inspire Photo Seminars from the amazingly gifted keynote speaker Amy Deputy, was how a theme often unfolds in the editing process. I guess I had seen that happen before, but had never really thought about it in that way, and now the real gift that we were given is the absolute joy in finding that common thread.

We usually don’t see it while shooting during the day and, one very cute little thing that we picked up throughout this wedding day was Nicole’s Dad and his “thumbs up”.

Maybe it’s something he always does, or that everyone knows about him. Or maybe not, but regardless we thought it was a real reflection of his overflowing joy throughout the day. We have him on camera doing the “thumbs up” throughout the day alongside his ear to ear grin…it was completely contagious.

On a rainy wedding day, you call Sperry Tents. Problem Solved.

Jake was a complete trooper to get this shot, soaked and in the rain…but I would say totally worth it!

And I don’t care what your culture is, every wedding should have the HORA.

IT…IS…so much fun and I think even more fun to photograph.

And worthy of a thumbs up!

And this was just irresistible.

Congratulations guys, thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of your wonderful wedding day. The rain did not affect your pictures in the least! Enjoy, xo!

Tara and Tim had that sweet, quiet, kindness with each other that was absolutely beautiful to watch on their wedding day. He never left her side once they said their vows, and was so considerate of her dress, flowers, and extremely high heels on the rocks at the beach. When you give us an inch, we tend to take a mile. With “could not be more perfect if you tried” wedding day weather and 2 hours for pictures before cocktail hour, we were ready to bust out all the stops.

We started pictures on Hillhouse Avenue, described, according to tradition, by both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain as “the most beautiful street in America,” in New Haven, it is one of our favorite places to take pictures. Then we headed to Guilford, the plan was to shoot at Jacob’s Beach, where we shot awesome pictures in 2010, for Nichole and Andrew’s Guilford Yacht Club Wedding. When we arrived for portraits it was a cloud of dust, heavy equipment scattered about and tarps everywhere. Yikes, Jacob’s Beach was under construction. So, not knowing Guilford entirely well, and with the limo on our tail we chose a spot very close to Jacob’s Beach, Chittenden Park. We had the place to ourselves, and you will see from the images – the scenery was not lacking a thing!
 

I am not sure quite how this happens, but the venues we shoot at tend to be cyclical, Eric swears it is all Google and all SEO that leads us to where we end up shooting weddings, but I am not so sure. But what I am sure of is that I need some more Guilford Yacht Club in my life and definitely some more of Marissa and her amazing staff from Jordan’s Caterers. They make our job a complete pleasure and it is so nice when the venue, caters and photographers can work together as a team to make the Bride and Groom have an exceptional wedding day.

Hugest congratulations to Tara and Tim and we wish you nothing but a lifetime of happiness!

Ok.
1. Hot old cars for transportation (in the appropriate color palette, of course), check.
2. Giant balloons to play with, check.
3. Gorgeous couple, check.

We start with getting ready at the sister property of Lord Thompson Manor, the very beautiful Cottage House.

Bridal styling provided by the White Dress by the Shore, dress designed by Modern Trousseau | Shoes by Badgley Mishka | Music by Soul Sound Review | Floral + Event Design by Jackie of Lord Thompson Manor | Bridal Makeup + Hair Styling by Kiss Spa | Getting ready at The Cottage House in Thompson, CT | Ceremony at St. Joseph’s Church in North Grosvenordale, CT | Reception Venue + Catering provided by The Lord Thomspon Manor

Beth from the White Dress by the Shore did a phenomenal job styling these girls on trend, using the polka dot pattern as a chic accent. For great style advice and her recent feature on polka dots, visit The Blushing Blog. I, myself have been obsessed with the classic, quirky print and have been so happy to see it popping up in fashion and now…weddings.

These bridesmaids dresses by Ivy & Aster from The White Dress by the Shore were the perfect deep red to contrast their adorable polka dot clutches. I am so happy that I swapped out their bouquets for this one shot.

I do not know where Jackie from Lord Thompson Manor found these amazing Giant Balloons, but I need more in my life. These were adorned with amazing wide polka dot grosgrain ribbon, just fabulous.

You know that you are setting the standard for the night really high when your first dance leads into the fully rehearsed “Gangnam Style“.

More evidence of Jackie’s talent, this is so elegant.

Thank you guys for being so stylish, so fun to work with and letting us be the lucky ones to capture your day, xo!

We have pictures in the works. But please watch the video, share, comment and register for 2014! It will be unstoppable.

Inspire 2013 from MKD Photography on Vimeo.

Here are my kids (and our dog Penny) giving me a total of 5 minutes to get a holiday card this year……

I was honored to take photos of a fellow photographer and her beautiful family – thanks Gina!

Love!

I know, I know…. could they be any cuter?

Heather and Ross were channelling the Ralph Lauren look – and they rocked it!

We have a graffiti thing going with Deb’s kids…. no spray paint this year though.

Do you see the sparkle in her eyes?

Yeah – that is their big brother in the back ground!

Did they nail the “coordinating but not matching” look or what!?!?

I LOVE this one!

This almost became our holiday card – my daughter loves to torture her brother and she’ll do it any way she can….

I hope to see you in 2013!

Janet Taub

We’re forming like VOLTRON baby! Yep, you heard right….we’re joining our individual strengths and forces together to form a super robot to defend the galaxy from evil

Ok well, we still have a long way to go before we’re able to maintain peace throughout the universe but this is a huge step in the right direction for Raw Photo Design. If you haven’t heard through the grapevine or seen on Facebook, numerous wedding forums, or twitter lately but we kind of suck at managing our business. The number of times I’ve heard the following sentence from a past client makes my stomach turn upside down and keeps me up at night trying to find a way to make things better: “Raw Photo was so awesome on the day of my wedding/boudoir/portrait/editorial/etc and I’m absolutely in love with all of my pictures…. but, it takes too long to get an email reply or phone call from them and it took a long time to get my pictures/album/disc/etc.”

Similar to most wedding photographers I started a photography business because I loved PHOTOGRAPHY. I loved working with people during their photo shoot or wedding day and capturing beautiful photographs of them. My single most favorite aspect of this job is witnessing the progression a person (or couple) goes through during a shoot… everyone always starts very nervous and insecure and somewhere in the middle of the process, they get comfortable… let their guard down, and the real them comes out…and that’s when I get to capture who they really are… You can almost see the exact moment it happens at every single session when you look at a series of photo thumbnails on your monitor. I can honestly work on anything photography related all night long without even noticing it’s 3am or that I haven’t left my desk in 6 hours. There’s no doubt it’s my passion and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

BUT, that has NOTHING to do with running a business. I’ll be the first to admit I am absolutely clueless when it comes to managing clients, employees, subcontractors, or anything else related to my business. It’s not because I haven’t done the work to learn how to properly do these things…trust me. I’ve read countless business books…some of them at least 5 times, attended numerous business workshops and seminars, downloaded every “management application” you can think of, etc. Conceptually I “know” what to do but just have no clue how to follow through with the processes and/or manage the people that I had implementing those processes.

Fast forward 5 years later to the beginning of October, 2012 and I had decided to shut Raw Photo Design down for good. I had been turning down new business for months explaining that I will no longer take new clients for the 2013 wedding season and focus all my attention on the weddings I had already booked for next year. I was stressed out beyond belief, hopeless, and defeated. Amber and I had done the best we could do with what we had and that was it. We were working like machines, day and night, and not a single client was happy. Being a typical man with too much pride, I hadn’t told anyone about our situation or my decision to dissolve the business; and being a typical woman who is way smarter than her typical man-husband, Amber had reached out to a number of close friends explaining our situation and asking for help.

Carla had been a close friend of ours for years and had seen us progress from our first wedding to our 100th wedding and has always been a huge help and inspiration since day one. She manages a well-oiled production MACHINE in Hartford. Sometimes I pull up to her driveway and I can hear the mechanical wheels turning, phones ringing off the hook, and production lines in full swing. Their customer service is incredible and a force to be reckoned with. It is pretty impressive to see and trust me…Amber and I did everything we could to implement the same system…in fact, Carla and I had first started meeting once a week a while back so that she could walk me through setting up the same system for Raw Photo. After 3 meetings or so it was pretty clear we were far beyond the point of no return and Carla presented me with a solution that her and Amber had been thought of and been working on….without me knowing!

It was an offer I could not refuse. Especially since the only other option was to throw in the towel. Starting today, the C10 Studio Management Team will be responsible for ALL of the client-related office tasks and back-end studio work for RAW Photo Design including all emails, phone calls, albums, production, and delivery of finished products. Now all RAW Photo Design clients will finally get what Amber and I had TRIED to provide and what they absolutely deserve more then anything: the same AMAZING customer service that C10 Studio Management Team of Dominique, Julie, Rebecca, Dave, Jazzy and Philitha have been providing for Carla and her associates for years!

Where does that leave Amber and myself? It leaves us focusing ALL of our attention, time, and resources on where they should be: the creative work. This is what we are good at, enjoy doing, and jump out of bed in the morning just thinking of it. It is why I started the business in the first place…THE PHOTOGRAPHY….NOT the business. I’m drooling just thinking about it, “You mean I get to do what I’ve always wanted to do and you will do the rest?” I swear it is Christmas a month early at the Langlois household and I just got the gift of photography for the first time in 4 years!

The finer details are being sent to existing clients as everyone is reading this but in a nutshell RAW Photo Design will still be OUR brand…same website, same look, same awesomeness. Zero portion of the photography, retouching, or awesome sauce that has defined the RAW Photo brand and style will change because Amber and myself will still be in charge of all of it. In fact, it will only improve and thrive now that we don’t have to spend so much time on what we suck at: business. We’ll finally get to spend all of our time and energy on the reason I started this business in the first place: photography.