Our Last Wedding of 2009

We had a wonderful last wedding of the year on Halloween. Fearrington Village was in full Halloween mode, the weather was warm and even the moon was in rare form to celebrate the wedding of Margo Ginsberg to Sam Straus. Some people refer to this couple as high school sweethearts, but that’s not accurate. They did know each other in high school through mutual friends, mainly Nick (their Best Man). They sat at the same lunch table (”The Table”) for two years along with much of their wedding party. Many of their friends from East Chapel Hill High School were in attendance at the wedding.

But it wasn’t until after high school that Sam and Margo fell in love. In January 2002, Sam visited Margo at Salem College where they watched a video in a dorm room. That night, she walked him out to his car and they had their first kiss and the rest, as they say, is history.

You can get the full story of their lovely wedding/ masquerade ball in the SLIDESHOW below. Congratulations, you two! Thanks for helping us finish up our wedding season in style! We have also created a GALLERY of all their images where you can buy prints and other products.

Coffee Table Album Layout

Regan and John Trent were married on April 4, 2009 at Fearrington Village. Their package came with three mini albums, an 11 x 14 canvas print and a coffee table album. We finished the first two items right after the wedding, but they needed some time to come up with their list of favorites for their album. I just finished the layout for their 10 x 10 inch book. These are my favorite four spreads. You can see the whole album HERE.

July 4th Wedding

On July 4th, 2009 I celebrated the independence of this great nation with a great group of folks at the wedding of Melanie Falco and Ryan Melcher. They had a lovely afternoon wedding at Fearrington and danced well into the night in the barn. Wow, could this crew dance! You can see their fancy footwork at this SLIDESHOW of the best images from the day. Or, if you prefer to view all their images they also have an on-line GALLERY. Below are my three favorite imges of Melanie and Ryan.



After sending out the slideshow and gallery to Melanie and Ryan I heard back:
Hey Kristin—I just looked at our slideshow and gallery for the past few hours!!! We LOVE all of the pictures. We are so very happy with them. Thank you so much for really capturing our wedding day for us. I cannot stop looking at them!

Caroline Loves to Dance! Luckily, so does Josh.

I was so pleased to be back with the Swain family as they celebrated the wedding of Caroline to Josh Strehle on June 27, 2009 at Fearrington Village, North Carolina. This was one of the most joyful celebrations I have ever been to! I think this SLIDESHOW says it all:

We have also created a GALLERY of all of the their wedding images, including Caroline’s BRIDAL PORTRAIT.

I sent this slideshow to Caroline this evening just so she could get a sneak peek before I went live and she had this to say:
OK, I’m not even halfway through and I am laughing and crying and SOOOO happy!! I will give you an update when I finish!!!
In the next email she said:
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the pictures, Kristin! I look like a smiling, dancing fool in all of them, and that is SO ME!! Yes, please go ahead and upload…I approve!!
Thank you so much Kristin, for all the memories you captured so perfectly!!!

And with that, I am off to the beach for the week with the kids. Scott is out of town on a delightful trip to Croatia instead of in front of the computer, so KPO Photo will be closed until July 27th. Enjoy!!!

Remember to Breathe

The title of this blog post refers to the first photo in this series. Imagine it is two hours before your wedding and you have been planning and dreaming and working for this day for years. The dark skies outside are threatening to dampen your perfectly imagined garden wedding. The zipper on Becca Harrison’s dress, (even though it really did fit and she is wonderfully trim) just didn’t want to go up. Her mom and best friends struggled behind her to get the dress closed. Then, Becca remembered to breathe. She had been holding her breath due to the stress. I just love the look of relief on her face. Congratulations to Becca and Ian Chodos!
See their GALLERY.
See their SLIDESHOW of the best images set to music.


Quite often a couple chooses to see each other on the day of their wedding before they walk down the aisle. Reasons differ from wedding to wedding but Ian and Becca chose to do this so they could get all of the portraits out of the way and also to sign their Ketubah. In Jewish weddings, this is the wedding contract between the bride and groom. It is always a great moment!






Becca’s mom, Cora, decided to go the extra step of having the barn professionally lit. It really was beautiful!

Here is what Becca had to say about her photos, “We LOVE the photos from our wedding. You truly captured the laughs, commotion of all those kids, energy, people etc. It’s just going to be hard to pick which ones to include in our album. The slide show is so sweet and the wedding best are also a great group of photos. Thanks for everything Kristin. I couldn’t have imagined anyone but you taking our photos on our wedding day that we’ll cherish forever. I will definitely recommend you.”

Becca Harrison Chodos

A Model Wedding

Meet the Vrana family. They are a close-knit bunch who know how to celebrate a wedding in style. When their daughter, Erica, became engaged to Joshua Schutt, the Vrana women and their close circle of friends went to work. Their rehearsal dinner was held at a close family friends horse barn in Rougemont, NC. Who knew that a horse barn could be so beautiful? The actual wedding was at Fearrington Village, NC. Here are a few highlights from their big day. You can see a gallery of their images by clicking HERE. See a fun SLIDESHOW that tells the story of their wedding weekend.

Here comes the rain again!

I have heard it told many times that rain is good luck on a wedding day. Well, tell that to the people who spend countless hours planning a lovely garden wedding. They all become obsessive compulsive about checking the weather update in the days prior to their big day. This was the case for the Kane / Frommer wedding on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at Fearrington Village.

Just in case the rain did come, the bride’s mother, had purchased a lot of bright, green umbrellas. As luck would have it, Molly and Scott were preparing to walk down the aisle when the skies opened up. The staff at Fearrington quickly ushered their guests to a dry spot. Molly and her family remained positive and decided they would wait for a break in the precipitation and then carry on. I am so glad they did! You can see a gallery of their images by clicking HERE: We also created a fun SLIDESHOW of their wedding story.

We had been so glad to get to know this couple well in the year before the wedding. You can see a post about their engagement session with their unbelievably cute dog, Piper, by clicking HERE. Then, in the month before the wedding we got to know Molly and her parents even better at a bridal portrait session. See that HERE.

After sending the link I heard back from Molly:
Hi Kristin,

Best,
Molly

And from Molly’s mom, Margo, who really did an incredible job of planning this wedding:

Wow!!! I cannot tell you how perfect these photos are! Everyone has watched the slideshow over and over again - it captures the day perfectly and the music is a great addition. There are so many wonderful photos in the gallery that I have only made it through a few pages - they are exactly what Molly wanted, lots of photos of family and friends - captured as they celebrated with us. And even the posed pictures capture the personalities of the people photographed - we love them! I cannot thank you and Sarah enough, we are so happy.

The Bells are Ringing

Maaran and Jarid were married on April 18, 2009 at Fearrington Village. In March at Maaran’s bridal portrait, I was glad to get to know Maaran, her mother, Jarid’s mother and Kelly, her sister-in-law, who happens to also be her matron of honor. As we strolled around the gardens that day looking for good spots to photograph, the talk turned to the upcoming wedding. Kelly, her matron of honor, spoke of her two boys, ages 2 and 5, and their giddy anticipation of the wedding. Were they excited about the tuxedos, the cows, the cake? No! These are little boys. They were most excited to get to ring loud bells as they walked down the aisle at Aunt Maaran’s wedding. When it came time for them to do their jobs they were fabulous.

I want to also state our condolences to the Luke family, as they lost Grandmother Lily Luke the week after the wedding. You will see her well represented in the slideshow below, as she was there from the beginning to the end with a smile on her face. You will note on the 2nd to last shot of the night she is standing with Maaran’s dad waving a sparkler as Maaran and Jarid headed off to their honeymoon. You may also see a gallery of their images HERE. Their gallery contains Maaran’s bridal portraits, the best images from the wedding as well as a large, 700+ image edit of the wedding.