Henry and Jacy's Oakhurst Baptist Wedding

Jacy and Henry’s wedding started off with a first look at Agnes Scott College, Jacy’s alma mater. After a quick portrait session with the entire wedding party, everyone fled the heat and headed to Oakhurst Baptist Church.

Once at the church, Henry and his crew waited for the ceremony in the church library while Jacy and her crew waited in the church’s parlor, what used to be home to the Love sunday school class.

photo by sharon mcmahon

Jacy couldn’t find her vows, which led to several minutes of dismay, evidenced by Jacy holding her hand to her head. Finally someone printed the vows out for her bringing the stress level in the room down dramatically.

Photo by Sharon McMahon

The ceremony itself was heartwarming and funny … and not very long. :)

The wedding rings.

A laugh during the first dance.

Jacy dancing with her Dad Jerry to the song “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”

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Best of 2020: Part 3

2020, for all it’s difficulties, was a good year for me, as far a photo contests go. I won 17 from the Wedding Photojournalist Association for photographs I took that year.

Here are a few of my favorites that did not win awards, because we all know, awards are only worth so much.

COVID weddings are precious and few

2020 has been a strange year for wedding photographers, as well as event planners, florists, cake artists, etc. Needless to say, COVID has cut deeply into our livelihood. The weddings we have photographed since March have been small. Many we had booked have been postponed or downsized.

That makes the few weddings we were able to photograph this year that much more special.

Here are a few recent award-winning images, the first two from a COVID-aware October wedding and the last from a February reception.

Tiny Wedding at Chateau Elan comes with a Big Surprise

When Cynthia first called to tell me that she and her beau were planning a tiny wedding at Chateau Elan, I had no idea what big surprise awaited. I’m not sure Cynthia even knew at that point.

Cynthia and Brian had to postpone their wedding several times due to injuries and COVID-19. By the time the final wedding date came around, Cynthia had cooked up something romantic, fun and beautiful for their wedding day … a carriage ride.

Check out the photos below to see Brian’s response to her entry atop the carriage, and to see more photos of wedding prep, ceremony and the subsequent horse-drawn carriage tour of the property..

Photo by Sharon McMahon

Brian’s face when he saw cynthia arrive in her carriage.
Photo by Sharon McMahon

Photo by Sharon McMahon

Coming soon … posed photos from Cynthia and Brian’s wedding.

Wedding venue: Chateau Elan Winery & Resort

Elopement photographer Atlanta

What a wedding photographer does when there are no weddings

COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantine has left a lot of couples scrambling to reschedule their weddings. A few have decided to have a very small ceremony right away with a larger get together later. But many have simply postponed until they feel certain they’ll be able to celebrate with friends and family.

Wedding (and event) photographers, like myself, look at our calendars and see open dates from now until we don’t know when.

So, I decided to create my own assignment. Take porch portraits (lots of photographers are doing this) of Pine Lakers showing off something that has been helping them survive quarantine. I’ve been especially interested in photographing artists and musicians with their instruments, art work, journals, sculptures or paint brushes.

In addition, I’m asking each person to write a little something about what’s keeping them going while they’re hibernating.

Here’s a portrait of Amy Pence and a poem she has written about quarantine.

Amy Pence, Tree Side of the Lake

Ways to Stay Inside the Inside
by Amy Pence

[A softness, as if from everywhere, is touching the earth – Rilke]

Preempt your regular programming to go bullseye into the universe.

Love the muddled memories of your created earth.

By midnight, develop a routine--

--quickly dispense.

Travel down rabbit holes, but burrow lightly.

Enact two dozen varieties of flora—one that billows from your palm.

Make furious love to your shadow. Over a threshold, imagine a constellated real.

Piece together the rough details that cradled your birth.

Watch your fear, but protect the young in their thriving.

Experience one ecstasy a day:

-          the split apple’s tart future

-          the velvet anemones turned to sun

-          the masked fisherman

as he lets the fish go.

Make allowances for the composition of bread and other transcendent materials.

Forget the hands that may have disfigured you & remember the ones that

drew you to beauty.

If don’ts once hindered you, turn them into a softness.

Contemplate the highest ceiling—all the star charts—reconstructed from our rough

anatomies.

Initiate a different touch. Keep going -- 

See previous porch portraits

See next porch portraits

Grace 1720: Perfect for an Intimate Wedding

I often get asked by potential clients or wedding planners if I know of a nice venue for a small wedding or rehearsal dinner.

I’ve recommended quite a few places over the years.

Recently I added Grace 1720 in Peachtree Corners to that list. It made the list after I photographed a small wedding that took place in an upstairs private dining room.

My only disappointment that day … was that I couldn’t stay to share dinner with the bride and groom and guests. I had a prior commitment that kept me from enjoying what I could tell was going to be an amazing meal, (because the food looked beautiful and the crab cake appetizer I had was one of the best I’ve ever eaten.)

Having a small wedding? I’m happy to book wedding coverage in the 4-6 hour range, unlike most luxury wedding photographers.

A Faith-Centered Wedding at Holy Trinity Episcopal in Decatur

Mary Martha and Nathan’s lives center around their faith and so it was no surprise that they would plan a faith-focused wedding, as well.

According to Mary Martha, “Although we also looked forward to the reception, the ceremony was the most important part of our wedding day.”

Their service followed that traditional Episcopal celebration and blessing of marriage, complete with communion. Mary Martha said that it was important the they celebrate the sacrament with friends and family.

While the ceremony was Episcopal at its core, it incorporated aspects of Nathan’s Quaker tradition. And friends and family played different roles from reader, to acolyte, to organist and choir member

Here are a few favorites from before the ceremony, while Mary Martha and Nathan were getting ready. And a few more from their ceremony, taken inconspicuously from the sides and the back of the sanctuary.

Wedding Planner, Smooth As Butter

Church, Holy Trinity Episcopal

Venue, The Georgia Freight Depot

Atlanta wedding photographer