I just got the spreads back from The Knot of two of my favorite weddings from last year.  Kristin and Mike and Bola and Gbolabo. Kristin and Mike's wedding is in The Knot - Southern California, and Bola and Gbolabo's wedding is featured in The Knot - Philadelphia. Its always so amazing to see my work in print... it never get's old. :)

Angela and JT got married in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago at ReBar, an incredible space right by the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. It was a really fun wedding with lots of details designed by Angela. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

Chelsea and Serge got married at the Boathouse in Prospect Park Brooklyn and had one of the most fun weddings I've ever been a part of. Serge's family is Serbian and they had a Serbian band come play during the reception. It was MADNESS. Amazing, glorious, madness. Haha. They definitely know how to party. :)

I'm leaving town in a few hours so I didn't have time to blog the whole wedding but here are some of my favorites from the portrait time.

This post is pretty special to me. Curt is one of my best friends. We were college roommates, fraternity brothers, and to this day he's as close to me as family. I got to shoot (and be a groomsman in) his wedding last month, outside Dallas. It was really amazing to see my friend, who's gone through a pretty tumultuous few years, be so incredibly happy.

Obviously since I was IN the wedding I don't have images from the ceremony, so here are a few of my favorite portraits.

Congrats Curt and Mandy. I love you guys!

The new family. 15 years after we met...

Curt's daughters... two of my favorite little girls in the world.

Last month I shot Stephanie and Ty's wedding in Aruba and it was awesome. It was the second wedding I've shot there and, man, I'd shoot there a hundred more times. What a beautiful place. The wedding was on Renaissance Island, a small private island just off the coast of Aruba.

Here are some of my favorites...

I love that there are flamingos all over the island, so fun!

The sunsets in Aruba are just amazing...

As you might have been able to tell, it was getting pretty dark in those last few portraits of Stephanie and Ty. Luckily we had some time scheduled the next day for more portraits. We headed over to the other side of the island for some different scenery. Such amazing locations.

I just got done working on the images from a wedding I shot up on Vancouver Island last month and wanted to share a couple with you. I think these might me my favorite bridal portraits I've ever taken. I love everything about them. I'm going to work on a full post of the wedding but until then, here you go!

Danielle and Jason are one of my favorite couples... ever. I shot their wedding back in March. I was buried in work at the time and I never got a chance to post their images which is a shame because, like I said, they're one of my favorite couples.

Their wedding was here in New York on the water near the Throgs Neck Bridge at Marina Del Rey. The Throgs Neck Bridge has played a big part in their relationship so it was integrated into all of their details and since the venue was close by we decided to take their portraits by the bridge. Not the worst place to have to take pictures, haha.

Oh yeah, my friend Victor once told me that the best food you'll ever eat at a wedding is at a New York Italian wedding. He was right. :)

It's not really fair having a wedding this great at the beginning of the season. It sets the bar unreasonably high for the rest of the year. Katie and David got married at Rancho Chiquita, a private residence, in the hills of Malibu. The grounds of the home were set up PERFECTLY for a wedding and the incredible house was a perfect backdrop to shoot against. The fact that its in the hills overlooking the ocean didn't hurt either. Haha. :)

Here are some favorites from their day!

I shot Veronica and Jason's wedding in San Pedro a few weeks ago. As I was going through the images I loved how many great authentic moments there were. It got me thinking about my job as a photographer. Looking back over the images from Cyndie and I's wedding, the images that mean the most are the ones that captured a moment and more specifically an emotion. THIS is what weddings are about. Sure, I love to shoot portraits. I'd probably go so far to say that's my favorite part of the wedding day. But, the fact remains that in the end I'm there to shoot a WEDDING... and weddings are about 2 people coming together to join their lives. That is an incredibly emotional thing and we, as photographers, are given the responsibility of capturing it.

I've never received an email from a client saying, "I didn't even know you were there!" I talk, laugh, joke with my clients throughout the day. It makes them comfortable having me around and I feel like I get better images because of it. I'm definitely not a pure photojournalist but I take the responsibility of documenting their wedding day very seriously.

So after thinking about all of that I decided to do and entire blog post only showing "moments" from the day... no portraits, no details. The only images I had any hand in "staging" were the ones from the "First Look" and those I only told them where to stand. The rest were as real as they get.

So here's the contest.

If you're a photographer I want you to blog an entire wedding with no portraits, no details and no staged or directed shots. I don't care if you've already blogged the wedding. Go through and pick out the best moments and show me what you've got.

Leave a comment below telling me you want to be a part of the contest. You'll have 6 days to blog it. Next Thursday I will go through all of the entries and pick my 5 favorites. On Friday I'll post the finalists and we'll have a vote. Monday the winner will be announced.

One last thing... This is not about getting everyone from Facebook and Twitter to vote for you. I'll be checking up on everyone to make sure their not campaigning. Telling people to check out the contest is cool but none of this "I REALLY need your vote to win this contest" stuff I see all of the time. OK? Cool.

THE WINNER will receive a FREE 8x10 10 spread (20 side) album from Madera Books. (or an equal credit toward another size album).

Okay, now on to the images.

I love how everyone in the room has a hand in helping her get her dress on, haha. Only on a wedding day is that normal.

The first look and a quick prayer.

I LOVE this shot of Veronica and her dad watching everyone enter the ceremony. I was able to get this because I had my good friend and awesome photographer, Victor Sizemore shooting the processional. Good second shooters give you the freedom to take risks on the wedding day to get images you couldn't if you had to get the "safe shot".

Another great father/daughter moment.

A few shots from their communion that I love.

Shooting the recessional is always one of my favorite things. The couple is always so excited and usually shows a lot of emotion.

I also love focusing on the couple during the toasts. There's always a lot of great reactions.