Kiss in the sunset - Dunes Golf and Beach Club

Summer wedding at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club – Myrtle Beach

It’s finally beginning to slow down around the Myrtle Beach area with many of the schools back in session after the summer break. With family photo sessions many evenings and multiple weddings on some weekends, I haven’t had time to post to my blog in a while. While I’m working hard now on getting caught up with everyone’s pictures from the past few weeks, I thought I would quickly highlight this fun wedding from a few weeks ago at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach. Wing Wong of Salon & Spa 18 did the hair and makeup. …

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Flowergirl helping the ring bearer with his tie - Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club

Pawleys Island wedding on the marsh with a reception at Pawleys Plantation

This beautiful wedding at a private home in Pawleys Island was a great way to start my busy spring season. A couple of weeks before the wedding, I met the bride at her wedding location for some portraits. The marsh boardwalks in Pawleys are always beautiful for pictures. I love doing bridal or engagement photos before a wedding to get to know a client and make sure they like my style. This bride seemed happy, so I figured she would like the wedding pictures, and she certainly did. I don’t think she would mind me posting the nice message I …

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Sunset kiss in front of the clubhouse, lots of bokeh  - Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club

Golf Club wedding at Pawleys Plantation with a first look and great sunset

The Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club has been one of my favorite wedding locations for many years now. They have some new event staff at Pawleys Plantation I met for the first time. They were very friendly and everything went smoothly with the ceremony and reception. They also remodeled the ballroom a while back with a more modern look and nicer colors. I worked again with DJ Scott and Company, Benjy Simmons and Elegant Occasions, some of my favorite wedding vendors.  You can check out more on my recommended vendor list. This couple decided to do a first look to get most of the family and …

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Wedding location on the grass behind the Hilton in Myrtle Beach

Fun wedding on the lawn at the Hilton in Myrtle Beach

It’s been a couple of years since I photographed a wedding at the Hilton in Myrtle Beach. Using the new search box on my website menu, I put in Hilton and realized I hadn’t made a blog post for that location since 2010. By the way, my entire site is now running on WordPress so you can search for anything throughout my site. It’s nice if you want to see pictures from a particular location. Try out some searches and see what you find. You might have noticed that my website has gone through some changes. It should be speedy …

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First dance at Wachesaw Plantation

Beautiful Afternoon wedding at Wachesaw Plantation

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Wachesaw Plantation for a wedding. It’s a beautiful wedding site on the Waccamaw River, especially lovely at sunset as the light filters through the many trees. The bride and groom at this wedding wanted to do a first look so they could get most of the wedding pictures done before the ceremony. That is an excellent way to do things because the couple can start having fun after the ceremony. This also means that most of the pictures would be done earlier in the day when the sunlight is much harsher. Thankfully at Wachesaw, …

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Couple kissing on the fallen tree

Pawleys Plantation wedding with a Beauty and the Beast themed reception

I always love going to Pawleys Plantation Golf Club for a wedding. It’s a beautiful area, and the staff there is very friendly. I loved the bride’s dress at this wedding. She had a Beauty and the Beast Disney theme for the dress and wedding reception. You can see some pictures of the ballroom decorations below. I recently got a new 14mm prime lens, so I enjoyed playing around with some wide-angle shots of the reception decorations. Looking through the lens, it was so wide that I realized I was almost sticking my camera in the cake. It’s not the …

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Documenting a wedding reception with candid photography

What is the most important part of a wedding for a photographer? What might come to mind is the ceremony, or first kiss, or pictures of the couple after the wedding, even the special dances.  So when I put up a blog post, photography of these things is what I’m usually concentrating on.  But really, what I spend probably half or more of my time at a wedding doing, is just keeping a close eye on the couple and trying to document the event.  I want to catch the emotions and the natural expressions of everyone there.  But at the …

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HDR of a wedding ceremony on the compass pad at the Marina Inn - Grande Dunes

Wedding of mother with four fun kids at the Marina Inn with reception at Joe’s Crab Shack

This was a fun recent wedding at the Grande Dunes Marina Inn, with a reception at Joe’s Crab Shack at Broadway at the Beach. I didn’t ask, but I would imagine this was a second wedding for both the bride and groom. Those are always fun because when it’s the second time, it’s usually more about just having fun with the family.  Especially when they have great kids with good personalities.  Instead of my most important pictures being about the couple, it’s usually more about the family and having fun with the kids. I’ve never been to Joe’s Crab Shack …

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Wedding at the Carriage House in Magnolia Plantation, Charleston

This was the second wedding I’ve had this fall at Magnolia Plantation, this time, it was at the Carriage House lawn area. It’s nice to expand out a bit to do some weddings in Charleston, I hope to keep it up in the future. I think it would be really nice to do something in downtown Charleston eventually, but if I don’t I’m happy shooting around the beach. For this wedding, it was a pretty cloudy day most of the time. I didn’t get as many shots with sunlight coming through the trees as I would have liked. The clouds …

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Highlights from the last few weeks and the importance of a good DJ

I haven’t made a wedding-specific blog post recently, and I’ve wanted to put up something new. I always get so busy in the summer. So I just decided to quickly pull out of my collection a few shots I liked from the last few weeks of August. These come from family beach pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park, the mother of a bride I had last year getting married at the Grande Dunes Member’s Club, a wedding for a military groom at Brunswick Plantation in NC, and a wedding reception in Florence, SC. There is a lot in this one …

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