PHOTOGRAPHY SPOTLIGHT: JEFF COOKE

DE ANNA AND BRAD'S CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA WEDDING

CREDITS

Photography: Jeff Cooke – Halifax, Nova Scotia

Flowers: Do A Little Floral, Charlotte, NC

Dress: Mikaella

Shoes: MAXSTUDIO

Cake: Maxine Vandiver: Matthews, NC

Venue and Catering: Marriot City Center-Downtown Charlotte, North Carolina

DeAnna is one of Bride Chic's loyal readers.  Planning her wedding throughout the year, she shared a lot with us all via her blog, Dee's Adventures.  With a mid-winter wedding about a week off,  I do remember up until the last thinking about her a great deal and sending prayers her way when the East Coast experienced one of the worst winters ever.
 Engaged July 4th weekend – DeAnna and Brad planned a February wedding knowing that the winter season on the East Coast is hit or miss. Three weeks before the wedding the East Coast experienced record snowfall resulting in the term used by those in Northern Virginia as ’Snowparkalypse’. Given that 50% of the wedding guests were traveling from Northern VA and Washington, DC -- Brad and DeAnna were panicked on what might happen with the weather the weekend of their wedding.

Mother Nature pulled through though and the skies cleared and temps in the Charlotte area rose to a whopping 65-degrees the weekend of their nuptials!

Love was in the air!

The six photos of De Anna above were shot during Christmas season 2009.  Bridal portraits are still a tradition in the South.  About a month before the wedding it used to be customary for a bride, (sans the groom) to pose in a studio setting in full bridal regalia. --Albeit De Anna's portraits by photographer Jeff Cooke are jazzier, up-to-the minute versions that capture the joyful essence of her dynamic persona. Compared to the standard studio portraits brides sat for once upon-a-time, these out-there-on-the-street editorials rock . . . . 

About the photographer:  "Weddings are my passion. I love every moment and detail! My inspiration comes from the relationship that I build with you. I consider every client a potential friend & approach every wedding from that fun, part-of-the-gang perspective. My images tell your story not from a "fly on the wall" point of view, but from a "friend at the party" point of view. The emotion I capture is in real time, not forced, coaxed, or re-enacted. The memories, therefore, are of the actual circumstances, rather than "what the photographer made us do". Being creative is great, but creating an image that speaks to its viewer, comes alive, and translates emotion, for me, is the ultimate achievement; that is what takes me from photographer to story teller. "