wedding photographer in St. Joseph Michigan servicing South Bend, Notre Dame, Grand Rapids and West Michigan

Cindy & Chris’ St. Joseph Beach Wedding

June 15, 2011

St. Joseph Michigan beach wedding

We had our first beach wedding of the season this past Saturday. Cindy and Chris were such fun to work with. This was the first beach ceremony I’ve photographed right in my own back yard at Hagar Park in the Lake Michigan Beach area at the very northern edge of Berrien County. It was unseasonably cold for mid-June, but Cindy and her bridesmaids braved the cool weather for lakeside pictures. The reception was held at Cravings Catering‘s new reception room at their Cassava Restaurant in downtown St. Joe. Lighting design provided by Mod Events really tied the couples color scheme together for a beautiful reception. As always, the flowers by Crystal Springs Florist were lovely. We’re off to a great wedding season!

Jessica & Adam’s Fernwood Botanical Gardens Wedding

June 8, 2011

Jennifer Mayo Studios’ photographers, Melissa and Jami, had the pleasure to spend last Saturday afternoon at Fernwood Botanical Gardens in Niles, Michigan. Our happy couple picked a beautiful location to start their lives together. The garden ceremony was followed by a tented reception at the same location. It was certainly a hot one, but everyone had a great time. Like us on facebook for more highlights from Jessica and Adam’s Big Day!

Fernwood Botanical Gardens wedding

Michelle & Trevor’s Saugatuck E-Session

May 29, 2011

What a fun couple. Michelle is one of our vendor friends from our favorite Grand Rapids florist, Modern Day Floral . We decided to meet in Saugatuck at the Hooten Inn to take advantage of their adorable multi-colored doors and head over to the Keewatin Maritime Museum when we were finished. Michelle was such a trooper as the temperature dropped to 47 degrees by the end of the session.

Saugatuck engagement session Seriously, if I could just order up fog every time I wanted to, I would. Congratulations to Michelle and Trevor… we’ll see you in August for the Big Day!

Can I have some fog, please?

May 20, 2011

So I never, and I do mean never, have my camera in the car with me when something incredible happens with the weather… until today. I had just picked up my 4-year-old from preschool and was heading to Saugatuck for a shoot via a detour through St. Joe due to some insane construction traffic on I-94 when some unreal fog rolled in off of Lake Michigan. The same thing actually happened last week when I didn’t have my camera in the car with me, but I guess today way my lucky day. Luckily, I also had another competent adult in the car with me or the whole leaving my kids in the car by themselves at a public beach so mom could run out on the pier and take some fog pictures might have been problematic.

The fog was patchy along the way but Saugatuck had its own amazing fog as well. Thanks to Jami for watching the kids in the car and for not being too mad that I jumped out of the car instead of telling her to run out on the pier with the camera. She did, however, get a nice tree shot on her iPhone.

I forgot how much fun it is to shoot for myself.

Almost Famous

April 27, 2011

So I was perusing some older issues of photography magazines that I subscribe to and completely forgot about my daughter’s national modeling debut this past winter (well, not exactly). Much to my surprise, I opened the January issue of Rangefinder Magazine to see Sydney gracing the right-hand side (first row, center) of the 2-page ad spread by Simply Color Lab, a professional, Ohio-based photo lab. With the launch or their new custom die-cut press products line, Simply Color Lab ran a contest last summer asking photographers to submit fun and unique die-cut card designs. So among a few others, I submitted the flower-shaped card featuring my daughter, now 4, and low-and-behold, I actually won the contest! Now I normally think that photography contests (a lot of them anyway) are kind of silly, but the prize for this one was pretty cool… free press products for life! And on top of that, I got the fun surprise of opening one of my favorite magazines to see sweet Sydney published in a huge ad. How fun! Stay tuned, I’ll be posting some more of our custom card designs, just one of the services we provide as a full-service boutique studio.