But on a realer note? Realer? More real? I love that I get these opportunities to play within my hectic shooting schedule these past few years. Yes, it is work technically….but there is so much room for taking ideas and watching them grow and change into something even bigger and better than we had even thought they could be! So much fun, and so rewarding. Many, many thanks to my talented friends for an amazing trip!

Here is a sneak peek from a shoot we did for the beautiful El Taj Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico a few weeks back! Our stunning model is wearing a gown by the fabulous Ivy and Aster.

Our team:

floral art: Tony Palmieri of Datura A Modern Garden

beauty: DD Nickel

coordination: Candice Coppola of Jubilee Events

fashion and styling: Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the Shore

video: Jeremy White

paper: Nichole Michel of Coral Pheasant

Check back for some more images soon!

XO

All in all, this is where I feel I truly thrive- on the pressure and challenge and trouble shooting that an editorial shoot presents. It’s like me against my own brain, and I freaking LOVE it! Come on and meet our team for the day!

Floral Art: Tony Palmieri of Datura A Modern Garden

Fashion and Styling: Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the Shore

Beauty and prettifying: DD Nickel

Custom, and original paper sweetness design: Nichole Michel of Coral Pheasant

Art Direction and coordination: Candice Coppola of Jubilee Events

Delicious confections: Mark Soliday of Confectionery Designs

This topiary mask hand crafted by Tony Palmieri of Datura A Modern Garden was sa-WEET!

Nichole of Coral Pheasant is soooooooo creative and talented and amazing and has the best accessories and hair! And clothes. She is my adult doll friend

styling and dresses by Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the Shore

cakes by Hope Wright-Martell of A Little Imagination Cakes

beauty by Dana Bartone and Company

floral art by Tony Palmieri of Datura A Modern Garden

lights by Christen and Erik Ryan of Ryan Designs

coordination by Candice Coppola of Jubilee Events

paper by Nichole Michel of Coral Pheasant

This best of contains some favorite shots from my main man Mike Romano and my main third lady Jazzy. Thank you both for being such loyal and hard working people, and such talented photographers!! I love you both!!

C10 Studio: Best of Carla 2011 from Carla Ten Eyck on Vimeo.

While 2011 wasn’t my most prolific year, it was my most rewarding yet.  When I was forced to book fewer weddings because of increasing demands from my other career, my growing family and a new home (yet very OLD – think Tom Hanks and The Money Pit), I was down-and-out and felt like I had been benched.  Like I would be left in the dust by this fast paced and constantly changing industry.  How would I stay motivated?  How could I stay fresh?

What I failed to realize though, is that for the first time I would be able to stop and smell the roses.  For the first time in six years of shooting weddings, I wasn’t overwhelmed by double-headers, late nights editing, and trying to make enough time for the other priorities in my life.  And with more time for my other roles as a husband and a father, I found even more satisfaction from my photography.  I never ran into that middle of the season creative wall that every photographer dreads, and I was able to devote more time to getting to know my clients than ever before.  Thank you to my amazing clients, and thank you to Carla’s irreplaceable studio staff working behind the scenes, for letting me realize this level of satisfaction.

So while my favorites from 2011 might come from a limited quantity, for me, each image means that much more.

C10 Studio: Best of Erik 2011 from Carla Ten Eyck on Vimeo.

That feeling when your heart skips a beat and your breath gets caught in your chest and your eyes get a little watery. That’s the feeling that I love. And honestly, that feeling happened to me more times than I can count in 2011. From belly laughs to nervous giggles, from a single tear to tears streaming, from a tiny hug to full on bear hugs, and from perfect sunny days to catastrophic unseasonal snow storms, 2011 was literally the best wedding season yet. I am so thankful to my wonderful couples for putting their faith and trust in me to photograph their weddings. I love you guys! xo

C10 Studio: Best of Katie 2011 from Carla Ten Eyck on Vimeo.

C10 Studio: Best of Julie 2011 from Carla Ten Eyck on Vimeo.

We all had such an relaxing and amazing time at one of my very favorite places, the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz NY. What a step into a time warp this place is! I have been thinking about taking my team here since the first time I came with my ladies, Beth and Candice a year back, and was so excited when the stars aligned and we all had the time to make it up together… well minus Erik and Mike (who were dearly missed) We skated (see below) well, I got pushed around in a chair- I am a major ice skating scaredy cat! To be fair, the last time I skated I broke my ankle sooo…. I play it safe and regal and get pushed around like the Queen of England! That’s how I felt anyway…

Dave, who is really our 9 year old son Jack in a 6’1″ man body  most of the time… loves being silly. Here he almost really bit it after faking this fall… I, of course, had to shoot it!

The C10 Studio Ice Capades !!

Katie and Julie were our ice dancers for the afternoon!

The ladies of the studio!! Dave feels left out….and so…. he ices us! Or me!

Dominique comes barreling in on the chair! Watch out ladies!

OK. So if you have ever been to Mohonk then you have been privy to some really amazing old tyme portraits that grace the walls throughout the property. They are absolutely beautiful to look at and so interesting to read the captions of… So we were inspired to create some portraits  that reflected the look and feel of Mohonk… I hope those of you that have seen them agree that they do! Jared, Rebecca’s husband, was a willing subject!

I really could have photographed all day, and it was probably best that we did our portrait session at the very end of our stay…! Otherwise I would have not really relaxed. Once I started shooting I couldn’t stop! Inspiration was around every corner, every little well lit nook, or random second floor balcony!

This red couch was one of many that adorn the halls of Mohonk!

Seriously, this one main hall was such an inspiring place to photograph in. There was light in so many places, and textures and nooks to spare!

You wouldn’t know it was actually quite cold here at this point!

I LOVE these rocking chairs, and have been hoping to work them in since the first time I came here!

This area was a gram slam score of a find! I was inspired and motivated and challenged like I haven’t been in a long time… plus it was like a million degrees there! I pushed  the limits of my camera to 4000 ISO and was sweating to the oldies while standing on chairs and using lenses I hardly ever use… yea, it was a nerdy photographer’s dream!

I can’t decide which treatment I like more, the color or the black and white…

BLAH!!!!! (that’s my freak out noise!)

Still keeping things stern… are my BFF Dominique and her husband Rick! Bringing it back 50′s style!

As Dave would yell…. CHECKERS!!!!!!

Nothing like a pipe and a fire! Or schmoke and a pancake!

Dominique, Rick, Jazzy, Jue, Slatie, Dave, Becs and Jared … thank you so much for such and amazing three days, it was exactly what my heart and soul needed!!! I love you guys!!

XOXOXO

Our super fun  in WHITE launch party on Wednesday, January 11th was a rousing success! To quote my husband Dave, it was a ‘rager!!’ We can’t thank our amazing group of friends, business associates, colleagues who braved the style taboo of wearing white before labor day!!! Or after Memorial Day? Whatever! We appreciate the support of all of our friends in the launch of this exciting new adventure! Here are some of my favorite photo booth pictures from the suaree that my husband Dave took!

Meet my fellow In White team members!

The White Dress by the Shore

Jennie Fresa Beauty Library

Beneath the Gown

Vintage Cinema

Jubilee Events

Coral Pheasant

The vision of our night was made possible by fellow In White compadres Candice Coppola of Jubilee Events and Nichole Tremblay of Coral Pheasant- what a stunning evening!!

The biggest thank you and credit goes out to our talented team of creatives who truly made in WHITE’s launch such a success! From the talented gourmands at A Thyme to Cook, the gorgeous Sperry Tent and it’s transformation by Ryan Designs, the stunning white floral decor by Datura: A Modern Garden, the rockin’ band and electric violinist from Elan Artists, the delicious prosecco from VOVETI, the stunning white jeweled cakes from A Little Imagination Cakes, the comfy (and warm) white chariots from Gateway Limo, and our cute and fun props from SayCheese for our black and white photobooth!

Big, BIG thank you to Miss Julie our studio associate photographer for shooting the event- check out her photos here on event jubilee.com!

Thanks again for supporting us all, it really means a lot!!

XOXO

I have been thinking long and hard about doing a video on the studio, to show what we are all about without being too melodramatic or taking ourselves too seriously whilst straddling that very fine line of not being too unprofessional in the process! It’s a thin, badly drawn line at times for us photographers and we have all been known to dilly dally around it what with having access to so much of our personal lives online, via Twitter, Facebook and peeking old school into my windows! See, my thing has always been, love my work, love me, and we will make sweet sweet music together! Yet I struggled with exactly how to show the fun side of us, and the sweet side, the sentimental side, and my smooth dance move side? My I love my team and my family side, and my home, and my mom’s rose bushes and all of my favorite vendors side. All of it is me, all of it is us. And so, Enter the amazing Jim Altieri of Vintage Cinema, and my bff and studio manager Dominique. And Ke$ha. Or as James Van der Beek says ‘K-E- dollar sign- HA’ Check the video here. (it’s listed on my site right under my picture it’s called ‘studio video’)And don’t take it too seriously, just laugh at how foolish we all look, and at how much fun we all had making it! It’s actually fun to watch Ke$ha’s video “Tik Tok’ before and then watch ours to see the similarities!!

So we set up this whole wedding for the video, and then my great friend Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the Shore asks me if we are going to stop in the middle of filming and renew our vows. Huh? Are we? Aren’t we? Well, it seems like common sense when it was asked out loud, right? And so, not even 3 weeks after the initial wedding idea -yes, you heard right- we planned this ALL in less than THREE WEEKS!!! .. .Dave and I renewed our vows in front of friends and family in our back yard! On one of THE hottest days ever in June. It was June 9th to be exact- and there was the craziest storm ever (or what would start the trend of crazy storms this summer!) that day! Temps hit over 100 degrees!

Here is me washing up after shooting our first part of the video, where we have to look like we just woke up after a night of craziness….

*photo disclaimer here: for my wedding part our official photographer was the super amazing Sara Code Kroll of Growing Tree Photographer, now located in PA! She has been an unofficial part of my studio family from the beginning and I couldn’t think of anyone better than Sara to catch the spirit of our team, since she was such a big part of it!! We just LOVE her eye, and her spirit and miss her so terribly now that she has moved! Sara, I can’t thank you enough for doing this for the studio, but also for me and Dave. It means so so much to have these images of my family, my friends and more importantly of my love. I look through these images and am so moved, even now, almost 6 months later.

Since most of the guests here were photographers we asked them to bring their cameras, however- this whole project was TOP SECRET!! So while they were coming to a party here, they did not know what it was until they showed up! I love surprises!! I tried my best to credit everyone properly ,as there were many, many of CT’s most talented photographers who contributed images to my cache of images: Mike Romano- one of my favorite photographers and people in the world!!! And my crew of super talented ladies-Katie Slater, Jasmine Balgobin, Julie Morawski all of Carla Ten Eyck,  Rebecca Hales of Hales Studio, Renee Descoutures, Eric Langlois of RAW Photo Design, Anthony DeCarlo of DeCarlo Photo, Paul & Krystal McNerney of Studio Foto, Danielle Fuller of Beyond the Lens… thank you all so, so much from the bottom, top, middle and sides of my heart!!!!

And, this is THE biggest blog post in the world!!!! It’s BIG BIG BIG…. to go with how full my heart feels, and how happy I am, and what a great year I have had. Thank you for taking the time to look through this…!

Catie Bane of Dana Bartone and co, my girl, my sweet sweet friend and stylist did the honors on me! Catie is responsible for my pink hair as well… she is a master!

Love this!

Miss Julie was getting all dolled up by the talented Miss Lauren Perry of Dana Bartone!

It’s like The Wizard of Oz here when the lipstick goes on… my favorite part!

Ta-DA!

Dave and I decided to do a first look in our front yard- since the back yard was still getting all done up for our ceremony etc…. we opted to have everyone there with us on the porch but still felt like we were all alone!

Mike and Sara tag teamed this- I love both of their perspectives!

But mostly? I love how Dave keeps his hands firmly behind his back!! What’s up Mr. Ten Eyck!!

I can’t tell you how much I love my dress. I emailed Beth and described this- tea length 3/4 sleeve and she immediately said SIRI!!!! I look and feel like Oprah!!

A favorite. Makes me all teary! Dave and Georgie have been dancing like this forever- they call it Giant Steps…

Sara’s take!

Hey Datura!!!! Tony created all of the floral art for our day… it was so amazing!

Enter: our moody son!!

Now you KNOW I had to shoot even though it is my vow renewal…. please!!

The amazing drift wood tables, couches and lanterns were all by our buddies Erik and Christen at Ryan Designs in Rhode Island! We just adore them so much!!!

Our friend Barbara Foley of Perceptions Jewelry in Rhode Island created all of my maids’ jewels for our shoot!!!

I sweat my back yard so much….!!!! and all of these amazing people! All of these maids dresses were courtesy of The White Dress by the Shore!!

That Nikon there was my college workhorse at RIT…ah the Nikon FM!

Candice set up our table with things that we had- my china from our wedding, cameras that I have, our silver… Renee got this amazing shot of Jack after he pepped up!

Our boys. Now, Erik aka Easy E was having a baby that week so we knew he and Jen couldn’t make it so we planned ahead and ordered a cardboard cutout of him so that he could be there in paper spirit! He is now still in the studio aptly named aper Erik.

I shot some details the day after, since we had the storm of all storms and our ceremony was rained out!!!

I used my Mom’s old dress form and put my dress out by this mimosa tree that my Mom had been trying to get to live for years… it is now thriving in our back yard

My Badgley Mischka flip flops were perfect- dressy-ish casual with color and style! On my favorite CT pillow courtesy of uncommongoods.com

Our favors were handmade by my hauntie Donna- her almost famous pepper jelly!!!

Queen Anne’s Lace, peonies and garden roses. period!

We set up the altar table again the day after and I shot it… it was set up as a dessert table / day of the dead altar / table that had people that I love on it and wanted to honor! My family and my studio!

Cupcakes by Hope at A Little Imagination Cakes!! She is AMAZING!!!!!!

This picture is my Mom holding me on the day I was born.

The Wonder Woman and Batman pez were our original wedding cake toppers!! Right near a shot from our big exit from our wedding almost 13 years ago! By the amazing Jaime Greene!!

We decorated a blue atlas cedar tree- the very type of tree that I gave Dave as our wedding present- he gave me a mountain bike… yes we bought what we wanted LOL!! The words are all things that contribute to a successful marriage! yes, RODNEY!!!! Our cat, he really helps.

This now iconic image by the dope Sara!! We have used this for all of our print ads this year!!! There is a sneaky little element here… see if you can find my guy Jack in here!!!!!

Giving Mike the stank eye as per usual!!!

head piece by The White Dress by the Shore!!

This makes me heart ache!!!!

Dave made this swing just for our vows…. sadly, this tree has since been knocked down from the various storms we have had this year- I only saw this yesterday and it made me so sad! But not us, we are still standing tall! ish.

This is my BACK YARD!!! I love it. And that husband of mine too… he is something else!

You can see the mad scramble to cover everything with tarps!! There is a storm a brewin!!!!

We didn’t forget about jack… he was still a little moody…

So we wanted to wait it out, but our officiant aka another bestie Susannah who read at our first wedding- had to go- so we made it happen on the porch!!!! It was so perfect!!

I love these crowd shots- I didn’t see anyone but Dave the whole time it was great to see where everyone was!!

paper Erik!

This shot was by Eric Langlois of RAW Photo Design! These marked as mine are all a mixture of all of the above mentioned photographers!!! DeCarlo, Danielle, Studio Foto

Dave took charge and said since I am always in charge he would like to go first! Got a rousing laugh from everyone for sure

I was a total sap when reading my vows. We have had quite a ride… and thinking about what to say to someone who I have been with for almost 15 years… it’s pretty deep when you stop and think about who we were then and who we are now. I thought about the man he was back then and the man he is now, and can I just say he gets better with age. He loves his family so much. We are so lucky to have him in our lives and now a part of the studio! I love how my sweet son is there, comforting his mama while I struggled to read my vows…

Amongst the sweetness there were some jabs on his obsession with organic food and… the Central CT Snow Snakes!!!!

These two shots were by Anthony DeCarlo… love them!

We had pizza trucks!!!!! So perfect for our vibe, and so yummy!

The only big bummer was this big tree that fell on Susannah’s car as she ran off to a graduation!!!! I told you the weather got crazy!

Ok. We had a fog machine… that SOMEONE (mary Altieri) got a little buck wild with!!!!!!! Set off the fire alarms n stuff. It was epic!

And then the rain cleared up…. and we headed back outside!!

While finishing up filming, and dancing and eating and having fun!

DANCE PARTY!!!!!

Miss Krystal preggo with Miss Penny!!!

My second, by main red bearded friend, Mike!!!

Catie Bane’s little lady Arianna…. !!

Dave and the Ryan’s probably talking about surfing

Photos by Krystal!!

I love this shot that Krystal took of us!!!!!!

love times one million

Yes. It was still 100 degrees and yes Georgie has on flannel jammies!!!!

Eric Foley acting a fool… like always!!!

Thank you for reading this, and looking at these pictures. They are so personal, and make me so happy. I am so so happy to finally share them with everyone and tell my story…! I can’t thank everyone enough for all of their time, energy, love and patience in doing this. Mostly Dave. Thank you for standing by me, and for weathering our storms and being the better couple because of it. Thank you for supporting me and my crazy career choice / love…. thank you most of all for being the best father in the world to our children!!!

XOXOXO

Credits:

video: Jim Altieri of Vintage Cinema

photography: Sara Code Kroll of Growing Tree Photography

beauty: Dana Bartone and Company

wedding dress: Siri courtesy of The White Dress by the Shore

bridal jewels: custom made by  Aquinnah 

brides maids dresses: The White Dress by the Shore

floral art: Tony Palmieri of Datura a Modern Garden

coordination: Candice Coppola of Jubilee Events

cupcakes: Hope Wright-Martell of A Little Imagination Cakes

lanterns, couches, tables: Ryan Designs

maids jewels: Barbara Foley of Perception Jewelry

flower girl dress: The White Dress by the Shore

Carla’ shoes: Badgley Mischka

CT Pillow uncommongoods.com

additional photographers: Hales Studio, RAW Photo Design, Beyond The Lens, Studio Foto, DeCarlo Photo