Leah Haydock Photography: boston public library wedding photographer

Boston Public Library Wedding Photographer :: Published in The Knot

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Hello! Did you miss me? I've been enjoying the wedding off-season with all sorts of travel, photography education, house renovation, catching up with friends and family and lots of cooking, drinking and eating fun!

We're about to enter early spring engagement season and I can't wait for this snow to be gone and to see some green in the trees! Lots of engagement pictures coming up very soon and then the 2015 wedding season starts in earnest on May 2nd!

Before the snow melts let's remind ourselves of a beautiful winter wedding that was just published in The Knot magazine, New England. I simply adore being a Boston Public Library Wedding Photographer, it's such a unique, historic and visually stunning wedding. When you have a winter wedding at the Boston Public Library and your couple is as great (not to mention beautiful and handsome) as Katherine and Greg then it's a photographer's dream!

Pick up a copy of the magazine to check out all sorts of fun articles and to see LOTS of wedding inspiration! Katherine & Greg hired an amazing team of vendors including:

Flowers by Petalena incorporating paper flowers made from the pages of Pride & Prejudice

Amazing hair and make up by Dani Wagener and Lindsay Griffin:

After a wonderful ceremony at Old South Church, guests made their way to the wedding reception at the Boston Public Library (hugest thanks to Jessica and The Catered Affair team). Check out these wedding pictures in the Guastovino Room - the textured silver linens - so amazing!

This was one of my very favorite pictures from the day:

You can see the full blog post of Katherine & Greg's wedding with LOTS more pictures here: Winter Wedding at the Boston Public Library :: Boston Public Library Wedding Photographer

And check out the wedding film from the inimitable Long Haul Films (you're looking for video? Quick! Book them!)

Come back tomorrow, I have more lovely published weddings to share with you!

Boston Public Library Wedding Photographer :: Jessica + Scott (Part II)

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

aaaaaaand I'm back! Did you miss yesterday's post? If so you need to go check it out right now to see Jessica & Scott's wedding ceremony at the Boston Public Library. Also please pay special attention to Jessica's Jimmy Choo heels - this will prove useful later in this blog post.

So Jessica and Scott are now married - hoorah! We snuck upstairs with the wedding party to take some pictures. It seems only appropriate to get your reading on in the reading room. A most studious wedding party:

Cocktail hour was in full swing with music by The Bob Band:

Couples sometimes ask me "How much time do you want for pictures?" and I explain that the question should really be "How much time do YOU want for pictures?". I'm very conscious that it's your wedding day and not a photoshoot and so I'll work with you figure out how to maximise time for pictures with minimal time away from your party. Jessica and Scott happily ducked out for pictures at various points during the evening which was awesome. In an ideal world I'd have 30-60 minutes with the two of you throughout the day to get some really beautiful and creative portraits (plus it's nice for you to have time alone!) but I've worked with just 10 minutes in the past. Of course then you get less pictures but it's your day not mine!

I loved the flowers and uplighting in the reception room of the Boston Public Library, it's such a beautiful and unusual venue for a wedding. Jessica and Scott made a donation to Autism Speaks in lieu of favors and decorated the tables with peacock feathers:

The new Mr & Mrs. Johnson! Loving Scott's expression here:

Happy first dance:

I adore this picture that Audrey caught of Jessica's grandparents watching their granddaughter dance with her new husband. Audrey has spent the last year assisting me at weddings and operating the photobooth but with shots like these she'll be second shooting a lot more next year :)

Although their wedding was in the relatively formal setting of the Boston Public Library Jessica and Scott really wanted a relaxed party atmosphere for their friends and family so they kept toasts and the various "events" to a minimum. It was awesome - none of the million interruptions throughout the night and just tons of dancing fun! Jessica's dad did a beautiful welcome toast however:

Whilst guests enjoyed the wedding cake AND the fabulous candy bar, Jessica and Scott stole out for another 3 minute picture break:

I normally have a favorite image from each wedding but I'm really struggling to pick just one favorite from this wedding! SO many beautiful pictures of these two, this image in the reading room is definitely in the running!

After I posted part I yesterday I got this email from Jessica:
OMG, dying!! And crying!
I hope tomorrows blog post contains a section titled "grandma dancing". I am sooooooooooo excited for a picture viewing party! Cannot wait! :-)

Ask and ye shall receive. Just for Jessica, I present "Grandma Dancing", I believe the the music playing was "Sexyback"

If you read yesterday's blog post you would have seen Jessica's stunning Jimmy Choo wedding shoes. I am somewhat of a shoe fiend myself but I inevitably have to change into flats after a few hours. So I was beyond impressed to see Jessica dancing in them all night. From the time stamp data encoded in the images I can see that Jessica put her shoes on 7 hours before this picture was taken.

Kevin of Good Times Unlimited was the DJ at the wedding, I've worked with Kevin at least 3 times now and he's awesome. Fabulous music and knows how to keep the dancefloor packed without resorting to some of the weird party games played by other DJs.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all for today. I need to go and brave the queue in the store to buy ingredients for the appetizers I need to prepare for tomorrow. Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and families! Oh go on then....one more! Thanks to Matt Grazier who was trapped behind a large iron door to hold my light for this one!

Jessica & Scott - how much fun was this? From our initial drinks in the Oak Bar to rainy day pictures in Newburyport to night time engagement pictures in Boston (featured in Style Me Pretty **here**) to your most amazing wedding. It's been so great getting to know you both. Thank you for trusting me to document your wedding.

Come back on Friday to find out all about a rather special print sale....

Boston Public Library Wedding :: Boston Wedding Photographer :: Jessica + Scott (Part I)

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Do I have a treat for you today?! And tomorrow! It's the most beautiful wedding at the Boston Public Library!!! I know Jessica and Scott have been waiting patiently to see their pictures so I'm just going to jump straight in and get to it!

Jessica and the girls got ready at the Westin Copley Hotel, love her Sottero & Midgley gown:

Jessica works at Tiffany & Co. Let's just say there was some of the most beautiful jewelry at the wedding and that the bridesmaid gifts were pretty awesome!

Adored the flowers. I wish we had smellovision on the blog as Jessica's bouquet had the most amazingly fragrant flowers. All flowers by Joseph Cardalisco:

Chooooo chooooooo! You might be thinking "Wow! Beautiful Jimmy Choo shoes but I bet Jessica kicked them off for dancing!!" and you would be wrong. I shall prove this to you in part II of this blog post ;)

I have major ring envy over Jessica's yellow diamond Tiffany engagement ring. Paul - if you're reading this (you check my blog every day right?), it's our 5 year wedding anniversary next week and the official 5-year gift is yellow diamonds....

Scott was getting ready with the guys over at the Fairmont Copley but he stopped by the Westin to open his gifts from Jessica:

The Ultimate hair and make up dream team were in attendance. I've said it before and I'll say it again but I would guess that hair and make up run late at around 70% of weddings causing stress, cutting short the time you have for photography and even making you incur overtime/late fees with transportation. So when I see that Joanne from www.JoyaBeauty.com and Lena from www.HairThatMoves.com are listed as fellow wedding vendors I heave a huge sigh of relief. I know that everyone will look and feel absolutely beautiful and they'll be ready on time. Hoorah. Here's Lena putting the finishing touches to Jessica's hair. I think Jessica might have been a ballerina in another life...

Time to get dressed!

I had the talented Matt Grazier of Grazier Photography as my second shooter for this wedding. Matt hung with the guys as they got ready and the next two images are his:

Back with the girls, everyone was ready on time and Jessica made a toast to her closest friends:

Really Jessica? Really?

The 2012 wedding season has been remarkably kind to my couples in terms of weather but alas, on Jessica & Scott's wedding day the heavens opened. On the plus side, if you have to have your wedding indoors there really isn't a more beautiful venue in Boston than the Boston Public Library. It was a little too early to head to the library so we figured we'd walk over to the Fairmont Copley Hotel where Scott was getting ready for the first look. Incidentally, the Fairmont Copley is another one of my favorite Boston wedding venues, **here's** a wedding I photographed there last year. Amy is Jessica's best friend and maid of honor and she helped keep Jessica out of the rain on the way over:

Very sweet first look:

Matt's image is on the left below:

When I posted this sneak peek on my facebook page (which you REALLY should like if you want to see more pictures - maybe I'll put up some sneak peeks of Jess & Scott's photobooth pictures there...) I had a message from someone asking me if this was a real wedding, they thought I'd hired Jessica and Scott as models...!

Here come the groomsmen:

Work it Jessica:

Although it was POURING down at this point we used the sheltered Courtyard of the Boston Public Library for wedding party and family pictures. I may have gotten completely soaking wet but it was all good :) Loved the bridesmaid dresses by Jasmine Belsoie: