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

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

Hooray for winter weddings! Another hooray for teeny tiny weddings! I had a wonderful time hanging out with Kate & Phil and their immediate family as they gathered for an intimate ceremony inside Back Bay’s Ames-Webster Mansion. Kate’s dress is by J.Crew, lipstick by Tarte, and her bouquet is courtesy of that little flower stand next to the Back Bay Station. Heh. We started at the Lenox Hotel and then everyone walked together to the house. The wedding party was so small and the mansion was so enormous (and on sale for $18 million!!) that we were all able to fit comfortably in the staircase landing, where the ceremony was performed. Cocktails, toasts, and dinner afterwards at Gaslight Brasserie in the South End. Kate & Phil then jetted off to Paris and were married again in an even more intimate and romantic ceremony. Just the two of them. This was all a far cry from their original plan of a large Boston hotel wedding in the summer. Smaller and simpler suited them to a T. Congrats to you both!

Here are Elaine and Ben, married on a beautiful fall day at Turner Hill in Ipswich. It was an unseasonably warm autumn, and even in late November all the leaves hung on and were only beginning to change color. Elaine and Ben were looking super elegant that day, she in her grandmother’s fur stole and he in his dapper uniform. I so loved this wedding. Everyone was smiling ear to ear which makes shooting so easy and so fun. Special thanks to my friend (and former co-worker!) Alisa for assisting!

Mix of digital & medium-format film

Best investments of 2011:

• Spider Camera Holster. You are wonderful.
• Think Tank International rolling camera bag
• Dansko clogs (not pretty but oh well)
• Shoe inserts from the Walking Company
• Portable calligraphy light table
• Open House party at Audrey’s
• Jen Huang’s photography workshop in NYC
• Blogging templates from Design Aglow
• Adobe InDesign
• Wool trousers from j.crew in black, navy, grey and GREEN!
• That orange shirt from anthropologie with the big flower on the side (have it in grey too!)
• NARS lipstick in Dolce Vita
• Odwalla energy bars
• Hairspray!
• Mamiya AFDii 645

Thanks to Dan, Lisa Rigby, Jen Ing, Abby Christensen and Jen Huang for some of these photos!

Now that the 2011 season is officially over, I thought I’d share a little behind-the-scenes of sorts – my DVD cases! I include high-resolution images in my photography service. The dvd covers are from most of the weddings I’ve done this year. Several are not included as some couples wished to remain private, and there are a couple of early ones I am just realizing I never got around to blogging, erps. I’ll get to them! Anyway as you can see I tend to be a little more traditional with the photo cover, keeping to a simple, classic portrait of the handsome new couple. The back is usually some detail from the wedding. Around wedding #3 I started to include calligraphed names of the bride & groom on the spine, but sometimes I’m not able to fit it into my workflow for reason or another…such as August and September when time seemed to be so scarce and I just needed to get things ordered. Everyone did end up receiving a stamp from the calligraphy though (except for Anny and Caitlin, ack!).

See some cases in action here.

I hope everyone had a wonderful first holiday as a married couple and thank you for choosing me to be your photographer! It has been an amazing honor, and an amazing year.