Branden & Janna’s beautiful Landmark Center Wedding!
The newlyweds!
The Landmark Center wedding photos of Janna and Branden. What a wonderful wedding it was too! Nice weather, great people, a pretty venue and much, much more!
We’ve known Janna and her family for many years. Joannie & I had the honor of photographing her brother Julian and his wife Hannah’s wedding almost three years ago. It was such a pleasure to meet Branden during their reception. We could tell it was something special that he and Janna had. You could see it by the way they talked about and looked at each other. Fast forward almost three years and now it’s their wedding day!
The Day Got Off To Great Start
We began their big day at the DoubleTree by Hilton just a few blocks away from their Landmark Center wedding venue. Everyone got ready there and Janna’s dad had his first look with his pretty daughter there too.
After dad and Janna had their special moment, we set off to their Landmark Center. This was the place to be for the rest of the day. Joannie & I took Branden and Julian (his bodyguard) with us in our very packed Honda Accord. Thankfully, we only had to go a few blocks away as it was a bit cozy in there!
Branden had his first look with Janna up on the second floor of Landmark Center with all of the groomsmen and Janna’s dad looking on from below. It was a special moment to remember, and the guys probably have it heavily documented with their cell phones.
Landmark Center wedding party photos were up next, and so we began right there on the second floor with the panoramic group photo below and many fun candids as well.
Fun on the 2nd floor!
As I mentioned, it was a wonderful day weather wise, so going outside was next on the agenda. We created many fun and unique wedding photos right outside Landmark Center, especially some fun images pertaining to football. Branden and some of his groomsmen played football together at Stonehill in Easton, MA. So they wanted to have a wedding photo in a football formation. No problem.
Ready, set, hut!
Janna & the ladies!
Are You Ready For Some Football?
Well, Joannie was working with the girls a short distance away, and they saw what we were up to and they wanted to play too, so they did! The following formation would have been flagged for too many on the field, but on a wedding day, it was no big deal.
Are you ready for some football?
By now, both families were arriving, so we went back inside to the altar area for the formal family portraits and some traditional portraits of Branden & Janna. About the time we finished up, guests were starting to arrive for the wedding ceremony, so the wedding party went into hiding upstairs.
Their pretty wedding ceremony was performed by Branden’s aunt, Rev. Sonya Green and it was quite beautiful with special music beautifully sung by Hannah accompanied by a trio of musicians.
The moment every girl dreams of.
At the conclusion of their ceremony, Branden & Janna included the special African tradition of “Jumping The Broom” as a way to signify the joining of two families and their new beginnings together as husband and wife. Another of Branden’s aunts, Kelly Green made the broom for them, and it was quite pretty.
“Jumping The Broom”
A relaxing social hour on the second floor, followed by the Grand March, an awesome dinner with a marvelous cake, emotional toasts of the newlyweds and a full dance floor filled out the rest of the fun celebration.
Branden & Jann’s beautiful head table.
The garter and bouquet tosses were pretty fun too, with the garter actually being tossed while wrapped around a small football!
A cute way to “pass” the garter!
The World’s Only Light Painting Wedding Photographers
For Branden and Janna’s “Signature Image”, I decided to create a light painted wedding photograph using Landmark Center as the background and using light painting techniques to bring out the details.
As we discovered the week before, at Nick & Brooke’s wedding at The Saint Paul Hotel, Rice Park is the “Pokemon Capitol of St. Paul” (maybe the world). So it was somewhat tricky to pull off the shot with literally hundreds of people roaming around the park in the dark, looking down at their cell phones.
The following image was created using more than fifteen separately lighted elements around Rice Park. Each tree and shrub, the water fountain, and of course our newlyweds were lit with our special high-speed strobes and combined into one pretty light painted wedding photograph. Even Landmark Center was a separate exposure in the finished image. Pretty cool isn’t it? Our thanks to Julian for assisting us as a “human light stand”!
Light painting with Branden & Janna at Rice Park.
Branden & Janna, Joannie & I had a marvelous time with you guys at your truly awesome Landmark Center wedding. We’re honored to have captured your wedding day for you and we look forward to watching your love grow in the years to come. We’re also excited that we’ll get to create what will be a pretty cool wedding album in the months ahead. Thank you! – M&J