New Smyrna Beach Wedding - Jennifer & Chase

Jennifer & Chase's wedding day started out like any other day. Bright, hot, Florida sunshine beating down all day. Well almost all day, right up until 15 minutes before their wedding was scheduled to begin. They had planned for a beautiful outdoor ceremony at Venetian Bay overlooking the lake and courtyards of the Town Center. Unfortunately mother nature had different plans for them. Since they say it is good luck to have rain on your wedding day, Jennifer and Chase are covered in good luck!!! The sky literally opened up that day and dumped buckets of rain down on us. The ceremony was moved to the country club where the reception was being held. Although many of us were drenched, most every single guest showed up and the wedding went off without a hitch. We had to improvise for most of the photos considering we could not go outside at all and had limited space to move around among hundreds of wedding guests. We made it happen though, and the entire wedding party was so wonderful to work with. Jennifer and Chase are so perfectly suited for each other. They remained calm the entire day and I'm pretty sure they could have gotten married in a hurricane and been happy. These two really are one of the sweetest couples you could ever want to meet. Once the reception got rolling, it was hard to stop. There had to be magic dancing pills slipped into the food because these guests were rocking all night long. Here are some of our favorite shots, followed by a slideshow complete with crazy cake faces.

Jen & Chase, thank you so much for having us there to capture your wedding day. It was so much fun, we absolutely love you guys! We hope your honeymoon was fantastic and that these pictures bring back lots of great memories from a very memorable wedding day!

Lots of love,
Mel & Brad

New Smyrna Beach Maternity Session

Liza of Liza Edith Photography is an incredibly talented photographer based out of DeLand, FL. Brad and I got together with her and her family back in June to shoot a family/maternity session. Since this was her final pregnancy, she has now given birth to four boys, she wanted to document this milestone by taking some maternity photos. We met up with her and her family in New Smyrna Beach for the shoot. Unfortunately there was a huge thunderstorm rolling in that day and our outdoor shooting got cut short pretty quickly. Despite the torrential rain and lightning we still managed to get some great images. Here are some of our favorites.


Her oldest and her youngest... aren't they just too cute together!?



The whole family







Under the bridge seeking shelter from the storm





Isn't she beautiful







Someone else was wanting in on the action...







Liza and her husband Craig... they are so entirely in love you can just feel it when you are around them.





A little lovin' at the end is always good. :)






Since these were shot, Liza gave birth to her healthy baby boy Daniel. We are so happy for you guys and can't wait to come down and meet the newest member of your family.

Watson 4th of July

These are a little late, but we have been so busy lately that its been hard to find the time to post on here as quickly as we would like to. Better late than never I say! These photos are a compilation of ones Brad and I shot (well mostly Brad) Ones Mark shot and ones Bobby shot... so its a hodge podge from multiple cameras but its still good stuff.

Over the 4th of July holiday Brad and I spent some time in New Smyrna Beach with our friends Bobby, Erin, Mark, Dara and Brad Hogue (yes you must say his last name.) It all started a few months back when the boys planned to go to the Coke Zero 400 NASCAR race on Saturday after the 4th. We decided why not go down on the 4th and just make a whole weekend out of it. So we did. We had a cookout complete with lemon freezes made by Erin and wild games of corn hole followed by fireworks over the river. On Saturday, the girls and I went shopping in Orlando and Mt. Dora that had Segway parades, a cupcake adventure, Ikea and a quest for P.F. Chang's. Sunday was a lazy beach day. We all had a great time and here are some pictures of the happenings over the holiday weekend.

Friday the 4th of July:

Erin brought these awesome Etch-a-Sketch style cups that you just scratch your name into.




Lemon Freeze time... so yummy but if you drink them too quickly you get serious brain pain.





Cornhole in the back yard













Saturday morning we awoke to UFC for dogs



Love this shot... I can't believe Jackson actually got her tail.



The boys got some beach time in before the race











Brad Hogue got lost in the waves





Lunch at Breakers

Brad Hogue


Mark


Bobby


Brad and Bobby sharing a moment



The boys were off to the race complete in redneck garb. Notice Brad's civil war inspired beard. Yeah... we call it trucker chic





Bobby and Brad Hogue take their relationship to the next level





It was Auburn vs. TN cornhole while they were tailgating.







Brad decided to become an official race fan and bought a race hat and t-shirt





The hotness

































The girls and I went shopping while the boys were at the race. We didn't take too many pictures but we did manage to snap a few during our quest for antiques and cupcakes in Mount Dora.











There were Segway tours going on in town and we thought it was hilarious to see 15 people in a line parading through town. All I could think of is Gob from Arrested Development and his Segway awesomeness. Oh Gob...



Our antique hunting quickly turned into a quest to save the cupcakes. We found the best little cupcake shop where we bought fantastic treats to take home to the boys... buuut it was closing in on a million degrees outside that day so we had to figure out a way to get them home safe and sound. We began our quest to purchase a styrofoam cooler (not as easy as you might imagine) and ice. After several stores and multiple U turns we found exactly what we needed to get our cupcakes home. See... safe and sound and absolutely delicious!




We finished our shopping day off at Ikea and then decided we needed some PF Chang's for dinner. Sadly both PF Changs we found had 1-2 hour waits and we were starving. We settled for Olive Garden and headed back home to await the boys.

We had so much fun during this trip. We hit the beach on Sunday for some sun and relaxation by the water. Everyone headed back here to Jacksonville that evening and Brad Hogue flew back to Memphis on Tuesday. I'd say overall our 4th of July was a success. Cupcakes, check. Jorts, check. Thats all you can really ask for isn't it?