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

Sarah Parrott is not the only one who’s counting down the days to her wedding to Rich this September. I am too! I cannot wait to photograph this DIY, homegrown, on-a-farm wedding. Their lovely letterpressed Save the Date card, which Sarah designed and produced herself, just landed in my mailbox this week. If so much love and attention to detail was poured into this little 5×7 piece of paper, I can only imagine what would happen when given a whole farm to dress head to toe! (Oh there IS another indicator: Sarah’s growing vintage plate collection to be used as the china at he wedding!)

This past November we had our engagement session and Sarah brought along her magnesium plate that would be used for her letterpressed Save the Date card.

Since then she’s been busy putting the plate into action, and you can see it as the rectangular piece raised slightly between the red sparrows. It’s actually a magnet!

Calligraphy by Grace Edmands Calligraphy. I want to be a calligrapher too. So badly.

The wedding will take place at Pineland Farms, an equestrian center and working farm in Maine, and so of course everything horse-y, farm-y and Maine-y is reflected in the cards, right down to the vintage postage stamps.

Yes Sarah has introduced me to the strange and wonderful world of vintage stamp collecting. Now, I’ve heard of collecting postmarked stamps of course. I did a little of that myself as a kid. But this notion that people have held onto sheets and sheets of stamps for ten, twenty, thirty years – unused! – that then sell for 2 to 3x’s their face value is something else altogether! I am fascinated. And here is Sarah painstakingly collecting and using only the right ones, some of them from the 80’s I think, for her Save the Dates. I can only imagine what the invitations are going to look like…

Read more about Sarah’s Save the Date cards here on her wedding blog.

Just a few quick photos from 2009. A few days after Christmas I assisted Lisa on a night-time engagement shoot at La Salette’s Festival of Lights, Attleboro, MA. What a scene! What a couple! The groom-to-be proposed with a “will you marry me” tatoo on his inner arm. He stripped in the sub-freezing temps so we could photograph it. It is really beautiful. I love the typography, the curlicues and all the flourishes. I wonder if they will use the same on their invites? Anyway, in between holding off-camera lighting and coats, scouting out spots and directing pedestrian traffic, I sneaked in a few shots. These are more “in betweeners” – moments when they’re waiting for equipment to be set up, moments just after the main shutter’s been clicked.

See more of Lisa’s pics – and my mad lighting skillzzz – on Rock ‘n Roll Bride too!

So speaking of curlicues, I tinkered with a temporary wedding logo. A calligrapher is devising a new one, and if she follows my wishes it will be chock-freaking-full of gratuitous curlicues. You won’t be able to read the text, the cat will look like he’s sitting in a briar bush, it’ll be nothing but scrolls. Yeah! Hopefully she won’t listen to me. It’s been hard to hold back with the flourishes. I think it’s related to my ruffle kick of late. And my goal to wear more red lipstick and more heels in the new year.

I’ve known my good friend T. now for ten years now, holy goodness, and just by the nature of being in your twenties and hawt, you may imagine that during those years I have met and/or have heard about a boyfriend or two. Or three. Or eleven. Heh heh. So when T. brought her latest boyfriend C. for us to meet several years ago, I was friendly but cautious. When they stayed together, I was optimistic. When they moved in together, I was impressed (I’m so mean). When they went on vacation to Budapest and Nice together, I was jealous. And when she came back and showed me her flawless rock of an engagement ring, I was convinced. He finally wants to keep you, hooray!

I like giving her a hard time. ;)

Their lovely and intimate wedding & ceremony were held in October at the beautiful Roger Williams Botanical Garden in Providence RI. There was not a hired photographer to be found. Between me, the groom’s sister-in-law who is a professional photog, and especially the Uncle Bob Studio of Photo and Videography, we got the whole thing covered.

Actually it was a good thing they didn’t officially hire a photographer, because methinks there would have been a serious thrown-down in the aisles, with possible spilloverage onto the guests…

The ceremony was officiated by an old family friend of the bride’s, the DJ played both hip-hop and Cambodian line dancing music – yes there is such a thing – the open wine and cordial and cupcake bar made overindulging a little too easy, and the maid of honor cried even though she said she wouldn’t. All in all, a fun and beautiful wedding. I am so happy for my little friend T. and most thankful to C. for finally making an honest woman out of her. Oh I only jest! Congrats to you both!!

Subtitled: My First Official Wedding Booking from Complete Strangers and Engagement Shoot
And sub-subtitled: What I’d Want as a Wedding Photographer

A recent engagement shoot but a post I meant to write months ago…

Let’s see, where do I start? I’ll start from the beginning. Back in September of last year I announced to a small group of friends both in my personal life and in the crafty community that I was going to start a pet photography business. One crafty friend in particular pointed her housemate Sarah to me. Sarah had just gotten a rescue puppy and wanted photographs taken. For whatever reason, I didn’t see her email until several months later, and when I did I could barely contain my excitement. And hoped I hadn’t put her off with my very late response. Because not only does Sarah have a dog, but she also has a custom letterpress and screenprinting paper business. I love paper. I love letterpress. So much. You ask anyone and they can corroborate.

So here I was, in need of some grown-up thank you cards, while she needed photos of her Simone. We were able worked out a swap. And it worked out beautifully. In case you haven’t’ seen it yet, here are my photos of her Lab mix Simone, and here are Sarah’s beautiful letterpress cards that I still have a hard time using. There is something magical about seeing your name and biz in the age-old art of the letterpress, knowing the effort that went into making each card one. by. one.

During Simone’s shoot, I remember in the car ride with Sarah and how we got to talking about paper, photography and all things weddings. She had recently gotten engaged to her boyfriend Rich, and had started a blog to document all the ideas and inspiration for her wedding.

We’re talking a little about our hopes and dreams.  I wonder if I would branch out into other forms of photography such as weddings (NO. Too hard), she’s describing her wedding and all the yummy DIY details and “mini-themes” that she’d like to incorporate. There was no date yet, but this girl knew what she wanted. And as she’s describing more, I started changing my mind about photographing weddings on the spot. I thought, This wedding sounds wonderful! Dahlias and horses! I could be niche wedding photographer for soley “homegrown” weddings like Sarah’s envisioning, and be really happy working with creative brides, I could! But she was thinking of using a friend photographer at that point, so I didn’t press. Not that I knew then if weddings was something I could or want to do anyway.

But I tell you, I went home that day and read her wedding blog from start to finish. I love how very wide-ranging yet specific her vision for their wedding is. The theme is Homegrown. Immediately that word brings very pleasant associations. I didn’t have to read the rest of her blog to immediately picture mason jars, hay bales, wildflowers, cows, sun low on the horizon, and for some reason, checker boards (that’s just me).

Giddy with inspiration after reading her blog, I googled:

intimate wedding
picnic wedding
shack wedding
cemetery wedding
wedding in the woods
classy DIY wedding
homegrown wedding

to see what was out there. I decided if I ever seriously got into wedding photography, that, those, would be my niche.

Fast forward a couple of months. I meet a Boston wedding photog (hi Lisa!) and second shoot with her on several events for experience which was really, really great. After thinking it over, I decide I want to get into weddings, make a blog post about it, but don’t really follow through with details, other than I want to do “specific” kinds of weddings. I wasn’t sure what my approach would be – narrow my focus right out of the gate, or just photograph as much as I could for more experience? Or maybe I should just hold my horses and concentrate on getting my pet photog business firmly rooted first?

But I threw that post up to just get it out there…and thought about Sarah and her wedding the entire time I wrote it.

So I was beyond flattered, excited, happy, SURPRISED when I get an email from her in mid-summer, asking me if I’d like to photograph her wedding. !!!!! was my response, and then a YES PLEASE, followed by a ARE YOU SURE? This was my first official booking and I couldn’t believe I was getting Sarah & Rich! The location is on a working farm in Maine! There will be cows and horses and dahlias in antique milk glasses that she’s collecting! There will be mismatched vintage china from all the antique shops she’s scoured in New England! There will be a lot of exclamation marks!! The only problem is the date – a whole year away. It can’t get here soon enough!

Now we are all caught up. Both Sarah and I are getting our dream weddings, hee hee. I’m so excited. We are a match made in heaven.

She and her fiance Rich aren’t a bad match either. :) This past weekend they came up to Boston from their home in Providence, RI for their engagement shoot. It was my first e-shoot and my extreme nervousness about it prompted me to go Type A and map out a possible shooting route. Since they got engaged in Paris (the boy knows how to do a few things right too), I thought it would be fun to make the shoot Parisian themed. Boston can look very European, you know, so it wasn’t hard.

We started off with cocktails at Bouchee Brasserie on Newbury Street, posed in front of a gothic-style cathedral, window-shopped at a Michel Delacroix gallery exhibit, walked down Commonwealth Ave mall (which was designed in the French boulevard style, did you know), and ended at the Boston Public Garden. They were fun, playful, happy, gorgeous. And cold. Oops!

The last shot is a mirrored photo of Sarah’s letterpress plate that will be used for their save the date cards. Isn’t it wonderful to be so creative? I can’t wait to see the real thing.

So, in short (ha ha too late for that), I was already very happy to have found my official Fat Orange Cat Studio stationer in Sarah’s Parrott Design Studio, so I am pretty much beside myself and honored that they’ve including me in their wedding plans. They are so fun and easy to work with, have so much class and style that I can’t wait to see how all their wedding planning unfolds. Check out Sarah’s vision and her lovely writing on her blog, Homegrown Wedding. And her custom stationery biz blog, Things Are Better With a Parrott.

Now! Back to your Thanksgiving plans. I have stuffed mushrooms and sweet gingery mashed potatoes to make!

Finally! I’ve gotten around to posting my favorite images from Katarina and Brian’s wedding at the beginning of October. The ceremony and reception was held at his father’s Italian restaurant (named Catarina’s Italian Village!) in the seaside town of Narragansett, Rhode Island where the groom grew up. When I spoke to them just a month and a half or so before the wedding date, they hadn’t even sent out invitations! Wedding planning was understandably slow-going, owing to the very recent arrival of their baby girl, seen above looking adorable in her little red dress with matching cardigan. But not to worry! Jennifer from Esq. Events swooped in and got the party planning started, and everything fell into place. There were beautiful rose bouquets in fall colors, a 3-tiered cake, a one-woman accordion band, limoncello toasts, a 90-year-old dancing fiend,  parents and a bridesmaid all the way from Sweden, and sparklers which we used to uh, smoke out our bride and groom at the end of the day. Get! Get thee to a honeymoon!! Ah, all their stealing of kisses and holding of hands was enough to make the remaining icebergs melt. It was a real honor to be a part of Brian and Katarina’s wedding day.