Prairie Fair | Summer Street Photography

May

Guest Post with Prairie Fair: Sweet Spring

Hi Friends! Today we have something fun lined up for you. Our dearest Emily from Prairie Fair in Minnesota is here to share a guest post with us about flowers! She’ll teach us through photos how to make a boutineer, a flower wreath and a bouquet! Perfect for those of you thinking about DIY-ing your own flowers, and also just in time for Mother’s Day in case you’re feeling inspired to make mom a little floral present. Since Emily is based in Minnesota, she had the amazingly talented Minneapolis Wedding Photographer Eric Lundgren take photos for this – so these photos were not taken by us. We think the whole thing is just perfect, and we hope you do to! Take it away, Emily!

Hello Dear Readers of Summer Street. My name is Emily, and while I’ve been lucky enough to have my Prairie Fair flower arrangements and styling appear on this beautiful blog several times this is my first experience writing to all of you! I couldn’t be more thrilled. The rapturously amazing Kendra is my oldest friend in the world; we met when we were three, went to the same elementary school, graduated high school together, simultaneously received degrees in dance from the University of Minnesota, and both went into the wedding industry as a complimentary occupation to our dance careers. As you can see, we’re fated friends. I’ve also had the pleasure of knowing Matt for years, and eating some of his baked goods and talking over the day is one of my favorite things to do. I’m so in love with the both of them. One amazing part of our friendship is that Kendra, Matt, and I have been able to work together on several weddings and photoshoots over the years. Since we don’t live in the same city right now, we always try to find ways to continue our collaborations. With wedding season upon us and Mother’s Day fast approaching (I love you, Marmy!) it only seemed appropriate that Kendra and Matt would want me to share a little bit about those crowns to our wedding ensembles and heart-melters of moms everywhere…flowers.But before I go any further, can I let you in on a little secret?…I love muscari. Loooooooove. To the moon and back twice times a million do I love them. When I see their beautiful bells opening in my mother’s garden at the base of the lilac tree and scattered amongst the tulips and daffodils I feel like I’ve found a fairy in an enchanted forest. Every spring this happens, this wonder and thrill, and every year I fall in love with them all over again.

I must admit, I can say this for so many flowers, well any time of the year truthfully, but especially in Spring. There’s no greater joy than being overwhelmed by the smell of lilacs on the bush as you walk passed during your post dinner stroll; there is perfection in the long necks of the narcissus and the softness of the snow crabs. I’m in heaven right now soaking up every scent, color, and delicate bloom. If tiny fragile lilies of the valley can push up through the snow and cold only to fade and do it all over again next year then there most certainly is hope and promise for me and for you.

In celebration of the season I made three pieces: a boutonniere or corsage that is both sweet and dramatic, a simple graceful hair wreath, and a lush bouquet that celebrates all the glories of fading cold and early warmth. For the bout I used a ranunculus, a double tulip, a sprig of veronica, and a begonia leaf that I cut from my indoor garden. For some subtle drama I wrapped them in a simple and slightly sheer black ribbon. Tis the season for twitterpation after all.Hair wreaths are the epitome of beauty and femininity to me. I would wear one everyday if I could (made while wandering through a field of flowers ideally.) In fact after the shoot I wore this crown of my beloved muscari, ginestra, and veronica all day until my special boy kindly removed it from my sleeping head (in addition to the Pride & Prejudice playing computer perched on my lap.)As for the Big Mama…well she is Spring incarnated: ranunculus, muscari, begonia, anemone, double tulips, and two varieties of lilac. (Truth be told I never ended up using begonia in the arrangement but threw in some veronica instead!)Aside from perhaps the ranunculus and anemone, all of these flowers are abundant in gardens right now (even in your corner grocery store!) Gather some up and place them in a jar on the kitchen table for your mom, sister, friend, grandma, and especially for yourself! Or even better yet carry them, lyrical and radiant (just like you!), down your tulip lined wedding aisle.I tied my bouquet with a gorgeous vintage ribbon that I purchased two summers ago while wandering through antique stores in Concord, Mass with Kendra. Heavenly.So what is your secret? Do you love muscari too? Or the smell of freshly cut grass? Have you always dreamed of wearing a crown of flowers as you say “I do” or finishing your favorite book seated in the limbs of a blossoming cherry tree? Let’s share all the promise of dreams fulfilled, the inherent hope of budding branches and sweet smelling magnolia, because Spring is really here!

Love,

Emily

DIY Flowers, Eric Lundgren, Make your own Bouquet, Prairie Fair, Spring Wedding Flowers | Comments (1)

Jul

The Importance of Crafting Your Team

Happy Wednesday! I wanted to share a few thoughts both from a personal (brides perspective) and a professional (photographer’s perspective) with you all about the importance of crafting your team on your wedding day. After having some time to process Matt and my wedding day I finally feel like I can debrief and reflect on such a special day of our lives. I’ll warn you that this might get a little long, but I’ll put some of the photos from our wedding up so it goes faster. All photos are by Chennergy.

For those of you who have worked with us, you probably noticed that I am an external processor, and Matt is an internal processor. I tend to chat a lot while shooting while Matt stays fairly quiet and gets these magical candid moments of our couples. This translates into many parts of our relationship, including the style in which we planned our wedding. While Matt remained a solid support throughout the wedding, I – like most brides – loved creating the ideas and overall experience our guests would share. I’d come up with a few ideas, run them by Matt and then we’d decide together how we wanted to execute any specific detail. I was the creative director. He was the executive director.

I am a very driven person. I have been since the day I was born. If I’m not doing 1000 things my job performance suffers. (I know. I’m working learning to s.l.o.w. down). I won’t come right out and say I’m a control freak – because I do trust others to do things right – but I have very high standards. When it came to our wedding, I knew that I would have a very specific vision and I wanted to do as much of the wedding planning myself – which I did. I did not want a wedding planner, I wanted the satisfaction of doing it myself.

Early on, someone gave me the best wedding planning advice I would ever receive: “On your wedding day, you can be nothing but the Bride. You can’t be the florist, you can’t be the baker, you can’t be the coordinator, you can’t be the sylist…you can only be the Bride.” After some contemplation, I jumped on that train, but NOTHING was going to stop me from doing all of the other things myself BEFORE the wedding day. Not only were we saving money by doing everything ourselves, we were also getting the satisfaction of knowing that our wedding would be a 100% unique experience since there was nothing else like it. We didn’t want a wedding you could ‘pick out’ or buy. We wanted a wedding that represented us as a couple. Where we’ve been – where we are – and where we’re going.

And that’s exactly what we did. Since our engagement was on the longer side, we did the normal book your ‘musts’ right away (which was great because we got all of the big picture vendor things as our first pick) and then settled into waiting for other things to come around. Our one year mark hit and things started to pick up. When the six month mark hit, I spent around 10 hours a week organizing details and crafting projects for our wedding. In April that increased to around 15 hours a week. By May and towards the end of may, it was around 20 hours a week. The two weeks before the wedding it was literally a full time job. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that we probably spent 60+ hours a week at that point getting everything organized and set up for the wedding. We were exhausted and as much as we were looking forward to the day, we were very ready for it to be over as to not have the stress of the day hanging over our heads. Luckily our life was able to be put on temporary hold to make time for this, but we were going crazy. It had to end soon.

Our families and closest friends arrive around a week before the wedding day and everyone went into overdrive. Since our families were so insistent on arriving early to help, we were organized enough to hand them different lists of things to get done. They were life savers. We knew that when they arrived, that we had done as much as we could on our own, and our wedding planning phase was over. The only way the wedding was actually going to happen was through their hard work pulling together the final strings. The night before the wedding I was feeling very nervous and overwhelmed. Our friends and family had done so much to get everything in line, but I hadn’t let go yet. Since I wasn’t going to be there, I was scared to death that something was going to go wrong in the set up of the actual event.

When I woke up on the morning of our wedding, I still had a pit in my stomach, but after a spending a little bit of time by myself with my journal and bible, I was ready to be a bride. Anything that went wrong would have been okay because I realized that the day was only today, and whatever was going to happen was exactly how it was meant to be. I transitioned into full trust of two people, Emily and Phebe. I have known Emily since I was three years old and have always known she was going to be in my wedding. We know each other so intimately, that when she recently started a Floral and Event Styling Business in Minneapolis, MN, I knew that she had to be my florist and stylist. I knew she would understand my vision for the day and would be the perfect person to hand over all of the hard work I’d done collecting antiques, crafting details and envisioning florals – and make my vision a reality. Phebe is a Wedding Planner and is a newer friend of mine whom I’ve had the immense pleasure of working professionally with. Through each professional event we worked on together, she was SO organized and upbeat. If something happened that was not according to our original plan she wouldn’t bat an eye and would immediately find a solution everyone was happy with. She is bubbly but calm, an extremely hard worker and has an eye for detail. While she also offers Full Wedding Planning and Styling, I had already made the decision to plan the wedding myself, and had already made the decision to have Emily do the styling, so I knew that she would be the perfect Day-Of Coordinator. Let me tell you – while they might seem similar – those three jobs are require an entirely different set of skills!

These two women were absolutely amazing. I was able to be at Emily’s side as she put our flowers together (which was an exhausting two days in a small air conditioned room) and after debriefing her on the items she was going to style, she sacrificed her own enjoyment of a relaxing day as a bridesmaid (yes she did both) by getting up before the sun to set up the wedding so I could be a bride, and not a stylist. Phebe joined me in the planning process one month before the wedding and the entire time she was always on call ready to help if I needed it. She provided useful advice (make sure I have bug wipes for a meadow reception!) and a compassionate ear as things fell apart. She even answered my e-mails when she was on her personal vacation the week before our wedding. She brought along an assistant to the wedding who was on headset to coordinate timing of events and even called all of our vendors very early the morning of the wedding to give them a gentle reminder that today was the day.

All of the ideas and hours of time we put into the wedding – all of the sweat and tears we shared with our families and friends the week before the wedding – all of it came together because we had 100% trust in our vendors. None of it would have happened without them. Most couples share that on their wedding day, but I’m convinced that Matt and I enjoyed our day so much and both felt like we were able to be 100% present towards our emotions and the people sharing the day with us because of Phebe and Emily. We were allowed to be the bride and groom and NOT worry about all of the little things. It was truly special.

After that long rendition of my personal side of things as a bride, I also have a few thoughts as a professional. While every couple who’s wedding we shot have been absolutely beautiful and happy days – things go much more smoothly (aka the couple is less stressed) when you have a day-of coordinator.

If it’s not in your budget to hire a professional, enlist a super organized friend to do it, and make sure they know every.single.detail.of.the.day. In my humble opinion, it’s better to hire someone who is not there to also enjoy themselves as a guest so that way when something goes wrong after they have had their dinner and start to relax and sign off from their duties as your helper – there is still someone there who people can turn to for problems (and it’s not you).

As photographers, we often get roped into the duties of being the schedule drivers of the day of you don’t have a DOC. While we have no problem stepping up to help things run more smoothly, this is not our job. It takes away from the time we could be having photographing important details, which compromises our work.

We’re working on a full wedding recap to share about our vendors since many of you have asked about them, but for now we’ll leave you with this: If you want a wedding that is full of details it’s going to take a lot of time. If you don’t have the time and you still want that, hire a wedding planner. If you do want to put the work in (it takes a special breed) at the very least hire a DOC. Phebe will do nicely.

P.S. If you’re confused, we had a morning ceremony with a tea party reception during the day, and then a larger barn party later in the night. So yeah, we had to parties in one day. As much fun as it was, we maybe wouldn’t recommend doing that since it was like planning two weddings.

Our last piece of advice for now? Hire photographers you love. It’s truly all that is left after the day.

Chennergy, Making ME Planning and Event Firm, Our Wedding, Prairie Fair | Comments (5)

Mar

Heather

There is something magical about a Bride on her wedding day. In the distant past, weddings were somewhat restrictive when it came to the Bride and her property (and what the groom was getting out of it) there came this shift in bringing the power back to the Bride. Yes, the Groom is also a pivotal part of a wedding day, but today there is an overwhelming joy and emotion that radiates out of a woman when she walks down the aisle. For some, a wedding is a milestone symbolizing leaving the family you grew up with and entering into a new family, one that is decided and created by you and your new husband. For others, a wedding is about a joining of two very established family histories and personal life developments, and walking side by side, together, in a new journey that celebrates both the separate accomplishments and supports new ones together. Regardless of how you view a wedding, I think there is something so special about a woman preparing to look the absolute best she can, for the man she loves the most, for the first day of their new life together. The dresses, the hair, the make up, the spanx….it all comes back to one thing….showing the person you are marrying that you desire to to look, and feel, your absolute best for him. That you are ready for what lies ahead, and Vera has got your back. This is what Bridal Sessions are all about. They take a unique opportunity to have time with your photographer (before or after your wedding) so you can have photographs of yourself in your wedding dress that can be passed on to future generations. I have a framed photo of my grandmother in her wedding dress on her wedding day, and it serves as a beacon of beauty, grace and strength, and I look at her at the beginning of her marriage between my Grandfather and her, and what lie ahead in her life. I’m so grateful for that photo.

Heather was happily married to her handsome husband, Joey, last June in Minnesota. We choose the sun drenched Landmark Center in St. Paul, MN for her Bridal Session, and I think it made quite a backdrop for her already beautiful dress. Flowers were done by Emily of Prairie Fair. Heather also spent some time getting some head shots, which I’ll be excited to show you very soon!

Congratulations on your upcoming first anniversary, Heather, and thank you for the opportunity to photograph you!

Boston Bridal Photography, Boston Wedding Photographer, Bridal Session Minnesota, Landmark Center, Minnesota Wedding Photography, Prairie Fair, St Paul Wedding Photography, Weddings at the Landmark Center | Comments (1)

Mar

Editoral

Once upon a time, when I was an awkward fifth grader, I was obsessed with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Series. My nose was always in one of her books. I’m fairly certain that I read all nine books in one academic year. Not only was I infatuated with the life of the early pioneers, I was also especially tickled since the series had called South Dakota home in many of the books. Growing up in South Dakota requires a special kind of pride. We don’t have the beautiful beaches of the coasts, or the shoes that accompany the feet of a Texan Rodeo girl, or even Applebees. (Okay, I think there might be two in the entire state….but still…) South Dakota was not a state that held much airtime on the national nightly news, so in many regards, I always grew up feeling a little, well, hidden. Not that I minded much. If you’ve ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, you’ll know that South Dakota is a very special place indeed. It’s a place of quiet prairies, curious farm animals, warm neighbors and peace. As I grew up and became more aware of the world around me, I liked to go back to these, and other books of times past. Even today, if I wonder into a bookstore, I’m eventually drawn back to the same section, ‘The Classics’. There is something transformative about reading through the eyes of authors in the past.

When my good friend Emily of Prairie Fair (based in Minneapolis) approached me with the idea to shoot a South Dakota themed Engagement Shoot, I was immediately intrigued. How might she capture the simple yet rich complexities that our hometown has? After we rounded up some recently engaged friends (awww) to create the true excitement and anticipation of a newly engaged couple, and added some special South Dakota touches (like Kolaches! ) and found the fabulously well preserved Cramer-Kenyon Heritage House we had ourselves a little inside look at the special place South Dakota truly is, and how brides and grooms can be using their local heritage to their advantage while planning a wedding.

Special thanks to Anne Swift for allowing us to use the Cramer-Kenyon house, to Emily for her fabulous styling and flowers (omg the flowers…you will die….) and to our newly engaged real life couple/models Nicole and Jeff. Go Team South Dakota!

Boston Engagement Photographer, Boston Engagement Photography, Boston Portrait Photography, Boston Wedding Photographer, Boston Wedding Photography, Cramer Kenyon House, MA Engagement Photographer, MA Engagement Photography, MA Wedding Photographer, MA Wedding Photography, Prairie Fair, South Dakota Wedding Photography, Yankton South Dakota | Comments (1)

Feb

Editoral

I may or may not have eaten too many candy conversation hearts while blogging this styled shoot, and as a result am REALLLLLLYYY excited to share it with you! Valentine’s Day always comes faster than I anticipate it, and as a result I’m always scraping at the last minute to give Matt something of some significance. On our first Valentine’s Day together, I gave him a fish tank with baby frogs. After a week of not being sure how to care for them, they died off one by one in a period of a few days. We were a bit shell shocked. Matt felt terrible and I was left with a frustrated, “Why do you have to give gifts on Valentine’s Day, and not just spend time with the ones you love! We took these frogs’ lives in pursuit of creative gifting!” After that year, we decided that we would not give gifts or flowers or chocolates, but rather simply spend the day together, enjoying one anothers’ company. We decided that for Summer Street Photography’s first Valentine’s Day, we would not try to overdo it and end up with another frog disaster. With a little prep work, we decided that we wanted to share an absolutely adorable Valentine’s Day Shoot with you, since our job is to capture LOVE!

After putting on our thinking caps, we immediately turned to a good friend of ours, Emily King, who is a budding free lance florist and has recently started an Event Design buisness with her fabulous sister, Meredith, called Prairie Fair. They are based in Minneapolis and are going to blow you away. Emily is one of my best friends, and I can tell you that since she was a wee one, she has been BURSTING with talent. When she shared her dreams and goals with her new buisness adventure, I knew she had to be involved with this shoot.

We grew up in a small town in South Dakota called Yankton, and as it turns out, there must be something in the water there because there are dozens of insanely talented people that grew up there. Tom Brokaw, for example. And Lawrence Welk. (Twenty points if you know who he is). When we started thinking about model subjects to serve as our bride and groom couple, it took about two seconds to think about asking Rebecca Culhane and her husband, Matt Culhane. Emily and I went to high school with Rebecca and the three of us sat right next to one another for two years in A Capella Choir, and had fun in theater productions with her. She is embarking on a very exciting musical career and is currently going through the American Idol process! She’s got her Golden Ticket to Hollywood and the last I heard is going through to the next round. She couldn’t tell us much about where she was in the process, but all we can say is check out her music and share the love! She’s finishing recording her second album and raising two beautiful daughters with her husband Matt. Clearly, Rebecca and Matt are an amazing couple with huge love. Since the shoot is styled it was very important to us as a creative team that we capture true love….not just two gorgeous models pretending they love one another. Lucky for us the two of them ARE completely stunning and head over heels for one another. Easy for us!

We shot the session at the Riverfront Event Center in Yankton, SD where they have a large loft type space and serve as one of Yankton’s Primer Event Venues. There are many weddings and events here and I think you’ll see why!

A huge Thank-you to Emily for the amazing styling and flowers, to Marianne and Julie, (our moms who helped us set up (awwww) ), to the Riverfront Event Center and to Rebecca and Matt! You guys are the best!

Happy Valentine’s Day Friends!