Li Ward photographer of pets and weddings. Fat Orange Cat Studio is a fresh and candid boutique photography service in Boston, Massachusetts.

So excited to have Merinda and Ben’s wedding featured in Grey Likes Weddings yesterday. All the environmental shots were not taken during the wedding, though I included them in their final disc. I took those while walking around on my own in Edgartown. I’ll be back to the same venue for a wedding in October. Can’t wait! MV is the best.

Things to do while in New Orleans:

1. Eat beignets at Café du Monde
2. Have dinner at Cochon
3. Order chargrilled oysters at Felix’s
4. Sit at the Hotel Monteleone‘s Carousel Bar and enjoy a Vieux Carré
5. Buy perfume at Hové
6. Sit in the courtyard of Pat O’Brien’s with a hurricane
7. Meander around St. Louis Cemetery #1
8. Take the free ferry across the Mississippi River to Algiers
9. Take a streetcar to the Garden District
10. Find a sweet olive tree and inhale deeply
11. Drive an hour west to Oak Alley Plantation – the live oaks are massive with beautiful octopus arms! Be sure to grab yourself a mint julep to enjoy while walking the grounds.
12. Crash a wedding parade in the French Quarter (we crashed 3!)

We spent some of the holidays in New Orleans with my mom. It’s one of my favorite places on earth. The colors, the smell, the fauna, the food. All a little strange and very very secksy. I only spent grades 3 to 5 in Baton Rouge but every time I go back it feels a little like home. I thought of having my wedding at Oak Alley Plantation, but maybe I can photograph one there instead…?! Or any of the ones held around the French Quarter so I can a legitimately be a part of the awesome brass-band wedding parade without their photographers shooting me dirty looks? Would work out nicely since their high season is the Northeast’s low season…I dream and I scheme! Anyway I hope to be back again soon, if not for wedding then for all the crawfish I can eat! With the camellias in bloom! Spanish moss swaying in the warm spring wind! Jazz!

All taken on film except for the night shots.
Film developed & scanned by the fine southern folks at Indie Film Lab!

Today has been a great day for press! Briar & Jason’s fall wedding has just been featured on 100 Layer Cake.

I did their engagement photos over a year ago around grounds of MIT, where they both went to school and met. Of course by the time the wedding day rolled around, “geek chic” factored in big, from the venue, to the invitations which Briar designed and letterpress-printed herself, to the beakers-and-flasks-turned-terraniums, to the awesome MIT class rings that nearly half of the guests (give or take) were wearing. I loved all the careful planning and details that went into making this wedding unique and personal. And the fact that Briar chose to wear her glasses as usual. There was some debate as to whether a glasses-free look would be more “appropriate” for a wedding, but since the lens were glare-free and Briar felt more herself with them on, they stay put!

Congrats to you both!

Oh and special thanks to Sarah E. for assisting that day!

Shot with a combo of digital & medium-format film

So excited to be featured today on Oh So Beautiful Paper, a stationery design blog focused on the art of wedding paper goods. I’ve been working a long time getting this post together…can you tell?  I barely wrote a thing, hoping that you’ll just skim over that anyway and look at the pictures. We went for a more behind-the-scenes feature. If you wonder why it takes me so long to get these projects done, it’s because I write & write & write & write about a million rough drafts…

All photos courtesy of Melanie Mauer Photography

I did a whole bunch of lettering throughout last year for Tiffany & Brandon’s September 2011 wedding in Kentucky. Photographer Melanie Mauer was nice enough to send these photos of a few pieces on the job. In addition to the table cards and escort cards seen above, I also lettered place cards, their Save the Date envelopes and their main invitation envelopes. I wish I could show you some photos of the main invitations but they do not exist. I ran out of time because, as usual, lettering takes about 100x’s longer than I always think it will! So I am really happy to see these in action. You can see more from Tiffany & Brandon’s lovely wedding here.

So, to interested calligraphy parties, I have finally learned my lesson when it comes to estimating these projects. It is so very labor-intensive (an entire season of MI-5 played in the background before I completed a set of envelopes), and as much as I love the whole process (I got paid to watch an entire season of MI-5!), I must keep my priorities on the photography aspect of my business. So I am taking a very limited amount of calligraphy clients this year. They need to be all officially in the books months in advance (ie if you need to get your invites out by July, you will need to book so that I may set aside time for lettering in April or May. If you’re mailing your invites out in March, it’s already too late). So if you’re right now even slightly sort of maybe thinking about incorporating hand-lettering into your wedding, give yourself a day or two to decide if it’s a definite yes, and if it is, contact me ASAP!