Got a nice little surprise today when I found that Meredith and Aaron's wedding was picked up by our friends at Beantown Bride!  Go on over and check out all of Brittany's great stylings... Our filmmaking group over at Lozada Visuals, for instance, fully agree with her recent cinematography post!

This weekend's event was Mehnaaz and Imran's Pakistani wedding, where Ian provided still photography while our Lexington cinematographer, Blake, handled HD cinema duties. Duties ended up being a little mix and match, as Ian ran a second HD camera at times off a tripod, while Blake got called to hold an umbrella for lighting some of the portrait session. As the outdoor section of the portraits ended, Mehnaaz had an ankle bracelet come free. Imran scooped it up, and as he went to go put it back on, Ian fired a flash unit into the umbrella Blake still had pointed at the couple, and the result was this stylish, yet unposed, image…

Shot a great wedding at Talon Winery in Lexington, Kentucky this weekend, and while we've got a long way to go as far as getting the photojournalistic shots ready, I wanted to highlight some of Jerie and Chris' details.  Not only were they super cute and personal, they were also a lot of things you can easily reproduce with just a little effort.

Naturally, they had one of our engagement guestbooks:

Tremendous job on the flowers by John Kittinger of The Best of Flowers (Happy birthday John!)

More florals, more everything after the jump...

They had a charming sweets and favors table...

And lovely tablescapes...

My associate Max reports that the cake from Caramanda's tasted as good as it looked:

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Many more details in the gallery, so be sure to take a look.  Many thanks to Sheena Gabbard of The Wedding Couturier for coordinating all the details of the day!

Last year, we had the privilege of shooting Mary and Donnie's wedding at the beautiful Conoid Farm.  Despite having a lovely ceremony and an awesome bride and groom, there was one problem-- it rained.  Incessantly. We're talking tornado warnings and animals lining up in pairs type weather.

When the forecast called for rain this weekend for the wedding of Donnie's sister, Annie, I was despondent.  I may have even assumed I was the jinx causing our weather issues.

Och, not so fast, laddie...

(Clouds part after the jump)

Around 2.45, 15 minutes before formals were to begin, our wedding planner, Jacki Allen, asked us if we could back up formals an additional 15 minutes because it looked like the weather would clear.  Boy, did it.

We ended up getting a window of about two and a half hours that allowed us to even get the ceremony in, and no more than 20 minutes after it ended, the clouds burst again, but by then, all were inside the tent for the reception.

The engagement guestbook was a last minute arrival...

Hat tip to Jacki Allen (planning), JuddFilms (videography), Ana Crane-Simpson (makeup artist), Sara Drury (hair), Purdon's Rentals, South Van Events Catering, The Twisted Sifter (cupcakes),  Daniel David Weddings (entertainment ***Please note for those at work, there's audio that autoplays on his website***) and The Chanson Group (Ceremony musicians) for including their talents in making Annie and Justin's special day come off the way they hoped it would.

One from yesterday's pre-event portrait session at the Henry Clay Estate, Ashland, with Mariska and Billy…

Real Weddings: Rachel & John from Ian Lozada on Vimeo.

The big story of 2011 in our shop started a week before Rachel and John's wedding last year. By now, if you're in Kentucky, you've probably seen an image or two from their wedding in some of our advertising. Well, a week before their wedding, I had one of my camera bodies die on literally the last shot of a wedding. The camera went off to Canon for service, and I rented an extra body from Murphy's Camera in Lexington for Rachel and John's ceremony.  Well, the body I rented, it had HD video capability, so I figured, why not shoot a little test footage while I'm shooting the wedding in my normal fashion?

I have a secret weapon here. My brother Tim, who you might have seen in the music photos from Buster's last year, his primary work is film editing-- he's worked on things like the Ben Stiller movie Keeping the Faith, the first season of Dog The Bounty Hunter, the front half of the PBS series Carrier and he does a lot of work on internet video for people like Unicef and Pepsi. Despite my inability to keep the camera stable, he made something pretty decent out of the above.

Flash forward a little. Since Tim put this together for me, he's acquired a broadcast quality HD camera that's approved for use by the BBC, significantly better than using a DSLR camera like mine, and the microphone equipment to make the audio sound as good as the camera makes the visual look.

So Tim and I have been talking a lot about weddings as a result. Like me, he values a non-intrusive documentary style, and we think that short, concise films of about 15-25 minutes say more about the look and feel of your wedding than a long, drawn out video that shows every single moment of ceremony and reception. Let's face it, that gets tedious on multiple viewings-- just try and get your husband to sit through the whole thing on your second anniversary.

If you haven't guessed by now, Tim and I are going to be forming a second business, Lozada Visuals, which is going to be doing HD wedding films (also vintage style Super 8 films) and film/stills fusion pieces. For the present, that's going to be specific to the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metro area . If you're interested in hearing more about that, give us a call at 888.577.6355. We'd love to explore the possibilities with you.

Got this one up bright and early since today's a travel day for me… You'll have a pretty good idea how far along I am in the editing process judging by where this group of photos falls-- it's all details from Ann-Maria's prep time.  Make sure you check out the most unique set of wedding shoes I've seen in 5 years of documenting weddings after the jump...

Going to try something a little different this season in the way we handle real weddings posts, with sneak peek images for the week leading up to the full story post.  I may refine this a little over time with one day for details or location, you know, work in progress.

Today's sneak peek image after the jump...

Today's image is a little different-- wanted one that showed off the gown in that great light just before the storm rolled in, with just a subtle touch of facial expression, but not enough to take the focus off her lovely dress.  Tell us what you think in the comments!

First wedding teaser image of the 2011 season!  Congrats to Ann-Maria and Kevin!

A lot of times we talk about weddings as an event where two families become one.  In reality, many bride's and groom's families really meet for the first time on the wedding day.  Not so with Drew and Heather's families.  I've been able to spend a lot of time with them, at birthdays and engagement sessions and location scouting, and I can tell you for a fact that they already were melded into one family long before this wedding day.  There wasn't that feeling out process.  Instead, what you see in these images, whether it be from Heather and Drew or their parents, friends, relations, even vendors, is this sense of unbridled joy.

More images after the jump...

It certainly didn't hurt that the wedding took place at a magnificent family farm just outside Louisville, with amazing scenery, great prep rooms, lovely staircases and all those other things that make photographers happy (like a pair of equine wedding crashers who watched from their neighboring paddock!).  In addition, since Heather and Drew's favorite meal is breakfast, we got to enjoy the flying flapjack stylings of Chris Cakes of Indiana.  If you sign on with them, get ready to catch your meal!

At the end of the day, Heather and Drew snuck away with me for a little portrait session, giving us a nice mix of the scripted along with my usual Love. Unscripted. style...

If all these photos below aren't enough for you, even more are available to view on the Ian Lozada Photography page on Facebook, so please check them out!