Yesterday Whitney and I photographed a very intimate wedding at Historic Cedarwood. We never get tired of working at Cedarwood because they are always thinking of something new and special to make every wedding unique.

Carol and Lannie only had two witnesses be a part of their special day. So, the Cedarwood crew created an entirely new ceremony layout by using the large tree toward the top of the hill behind the barn. It was AMAZING!

Wedding photography is something very important to this couple and we were incredibly honored to be invited to share the day with this very fun and outgoing couple. We can’t wait to show you the other creative things Cedarwood put together as well as the fun times we had in downtown Nashville.

Congratulations Carol and Lannie! You can tell your mom we will have all your images finished by October 19. We are excited for you to get to see them!

Another wedding day that involved rain and yet another great day for wedding photography.

Beth & Cameron we’re married this summer at Historic Cedarwood. By now you probably have noticed we photograph a lot of weddings at Cedarwood. One of the many things we love about this gorgeous Nashville venue is we rarely take the same photograph more than once. We’re always inspired to capture something new when we are at Cedarwood.

Beth & Cameron love to have as much fun as Whitney and I do. So, we got a little carried away and used some cinematic inspiration with the photograph on the above right. Can you figure it out?

Whitney and I are constantly doing something new. When Beth & Cameron where up for making their family portraits more unique, we were all about it! Why get stressed out when kids don’t want to stand still? This little guy made this family portrait even more interesting.

If you are one who follows our blog regularly, look really closely at the couple just to the left of Beth & Cameron. You may recognize Kristen & Mason from an earlier wedding photography session we posted.

When Beth came to meet with us for the first time, she had no idea we knew Cameron’s brother Mason. It was fun getting to know Beth and stumble upon the fact we already had a mutual connection. It amazes me how small Nashville really is.

When it rains… take it indoors! It forces you to do new and creative things! The above and below photos were all created because it was raining.

I leave you with these fabulous detail images that show off all the incredible work that Historic Cedarwood does.

It’s good to be home! Sooooo much has been going on this summer. I have only been in town 1 to 2 days a week since the start of June. This is the first full week home and (hopefully) the first of many blogs.

If you are a follower of the Dove Wedding Photography Blog, you may remember we posted a photo from a rainy day outdoor wedding. It was a wet and muddy day, but it was so much fun and the rain helped create some of the most gorgeous wedding photography we have captured.

Christal and Michael did not let the tornadoes blowing through their wedding location stress them out. Sneaking a little pre-wedding champaign looks like the only thing that Michael was looking out for.

Wedding days can be stressful, especially if you do not have a supportive group of friends to lighten the day for you. We were very happy to see Christal and Michael’s wedding party go along with their desires to get married in the rain. As you can see by the below images, everyone had a lot of fun.

The fabulous Mary Claire Crow joined Whitney and myself at this wedding and captured the above shot to the right.

Congratulations Christal & Michael! This was for sure one of the best experiences a wedding photographer could have! Especially because I got to sit next to James Best (AKA: Rosco P. Coltrane from The Dukes of Hazard) during my hotel breakfast. No joke!

You were probably guessing that I would encourage you to buy prints for Mother’s Day. I don’t have a problem if you want to, but this Mother’s day give mom something else that lasts, something she’ll love not only because it’s functional and cute, but because it helps formerly abducted mothers in Uganda.

Invisible Children is one of our favorite relief organizations. Their bracelets and Mend bags are more than just gifts… they are a chance at a better future. Each Mend bag carries the name of the seamstress who made it. Each individual name unlocks an online profile of a seamstress employed in Invisible Children’s program. Through her video bio and photos she will share how she is “on the Mend” because of your simple purchase.

And with the gift of a Mend bag your mom will also receive the Grace bracelet and DVD. Grace is the story of a child mother in Northern Uganda who has survived the war to spread hope and take care of her child.

Give mom a Mend bag or the Grace bracelet and DVD to show her she is loved, and let her know her gift is loving someone a world away.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Order Now at www.invisiblechildren.com/mend

*Orders must be placed by Monday, May 3 by 2pm PST for regular shipping service. Any orders placed after must choose an expedited service to be received by Mother’s Day.

Get ready to have a lot of fun, pamper yourself, and surprise your man.

The next Dove Sweets Event is only a week away, January 22nd & 23rd! Valentine’s day is just around the corner, and what would make a better gift to give your man than a magazine or set of prints full of fun and flirty photos of yourself! For all of you with Spring or Summer weddings, Dove Sweets make the perfect wedding gift to give to your husband on your wedding day.

The cost of the session is $150, which includes a 45-minute private session with multiple clothing changes, the shoot location, as well as getting your makeup done at Harlow Salon on Music Row. Seeing as this is half off our normal private Sweets session cost, we think you’ll agree that this is a great deal!

We still have a few spots left, so if you are interested be sure to contact me ASAP at Audrey@doveweddingphotography.com.

Cheers!

We hope everyone has been having a great Holday season! We celebrated Christmas in Kansas City this year with Peter’s family, and are just about to hop on a plane back home to Nashville. One thing we learned this season is that our pup Calvin, LOVES Christmas! Everything from the tree, to this tasty raw hide candy cane we gave him. He ate half of this huge thing 30 minutes after we gave it to him! We still have a few more days off and will be back soon!

Boy do Kimberly & Rashad love to have fun! It was no work at all to get them to laugh and giggle which of course makes it easy for us to photograph them. I also love Kimberly’s sense of style and enjoyed being able to coordinate her clothes with where we were going to shoot. Their wedding reception in going to be at Nashville’s Hutton Hotel, so we started there and then just wandered around West End!How can you not love this one!We can’t wait for your wedding!

We’re back with photo tips! If you missed our last post on ISO, you can find it on our blog.

So you now understand that ISO defines your camera’s sensitivity to light. You know that a lower number means that it is less sensitive and a higher number means that it is more sensitive. So now the question is, why don’t you just use the most sensitive ISO all the time? Things could be so much easier, just keeping on one setting all the time and changing everything else according to that. You could do all your indoor shots without flash, you wouldn’t have to worry about low light situations, and even in brighter light you could have one less thing to think about, right? Well, the problem is that when you change your ISO, you are also changing the quality of your image. When you have a low ISO (ex. 100), the quality of your image is top notch! With film, you would hardly have any film grain, and with digital hardly any noise. But when you use a higher ISO (ex. 800 or 1600) the quality of your photograph is going to go down. You will have a lot more grain or digital noise in your photograph.

Digital camera’s today have come a long way by having better quality with a higher ISO. And the digitalness (I know, that’s not a word!) of the photographs look even closer to grain than they once did, or maybe our eyes are just getting used to it! I often use 800 ISO in lower lighting situations and the images are still high quality. Even 1600 is decent on newer models, but I avoid it as much as I can. However, I don’t recommend 1600 at all with older models such as the Canon 20d.

There are some exceptions to this rule. Sometimes I may decided that I want a grainy photograph and will then purposely use a higher ISO. This can give the image more of a vintage feel. Sometimes people will even go back and add grain to their photograph to give this type of look.

So what is the rule of thumb? Always use as low of an ISO as you can.When you are outdoors in bright light, use 100 or 200. When you are indoors, if you can shoot at 400 with your flash, do it! But if not, use 800. Don’t be afraid of grain either, you can still have a beautiful image with a vintage look. There are also programs out there that can take away some of the grain, but I personally would rather see it than take it away. This was taken at 200 ISO.This was taken at 1600 ISO. Can you see the difference?

So Whitney recently had the chance to photograph sweet baby Colin Housley. Amber emailed us to let us know what she had done with Colin’s nursery, and how she had used the images from the photo shoot.

I am absolutely in love with this picture collage and how great the arrangement looks on the wall. Amber is so creative, and that definitely shows through in her decoration of Colin’s nursery.

I wanted to blog about this because I think that it is a great example of how you can showcase several different canvases on the wall for a beautiful picture collage.

Thank you so much Amber for sharing these with us, and please be sure to check out Amber’s website, Sweet Life Designs, to see just how creative she really is. J

Have a great weekend everyone!

Cheers!

I just want to let everyone know that we are having a mail glitch that is sending an auto-reply message to every e-mail sent from Audrey’s account. We are working on fixing this and apologize for any inconvience this may cause.