When we sit down with a couple and talk about their engagement session we always offer a few main suggestions:

1) Choose locations that are meaningful to you.

2) Plan to have an outfit change so there’s variety in your images.

3) When selecting your outfits, stick with solid colors so your faces are the focus.

4) And don’t be afraid to have FUN!

Amber and Joe followed every bit of our advice and their session was so much fun! As cheesy as it may sound, our cheeks actually hurt by the end of the evening because we laughed so much together. This fantastic couple even chose us to design their custom Save the Date Postcards. Here’s the front of the postcard:

 

And here’s the back with helpful information for their guests:

 

 

We started off at Coffee Underground in downtown Greenville.

 

Then to Falls Park for some beautiful back-lit portraits.

 

 

One outfit change later and a quick drive and we arrived at Frankie’s Fun Park, where Amber and Joe had their first date! Part of Curtis and I’s first date was playing mini putt putt so this brought back some good memories

 

Celebrating a hole in one!

 

Stay tuned because up next on the Blog is a Charleston wedding with multiple first-looks, a venue straight out of a magazine, and a kickin’ party! Can’t wait to show off those images later this week.

 

Emily & Curtis

Kismet Photography

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We met Carol and Todd at the Wedding Festival Expo a few months ago when they signed up for our Engagement Session door prize. It must be a really small world because, according to Facebook, we have a few mutual friends already, and Carol and Todd happen to know one of our past couples. How cool is that!

 

 

 

 

Furman’s Asian Garden is such a pretty backdrop!

 

 

 

Their “love shack” for the session!

 

 

 

 

 

Can you tell whose foot is whose?

Curtis & Emily

Kismet Photography

 

 

 

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Boy do we have a lot to blog about! As of March we entered what photographers call the “busy season” so we’re slowly catching up on posting some of our favorite portrait sessions and weddings.

Christine and Stephen, who both attended Valparaiso University, are getting married in a couple of months on a 30+ acre property in Boone, NC. Being the outdoorsy people they are we were looking for a park setting with large trees for their Engagement Portraits. (You’ll find out soon why the big trees were important). And Paris Mountain State Park fit the bill.

This is a slacklining wire. Slacklining is a balance sport that uses nylon webbing tensioned between two sturdy anchor points, aka the trees.

They both make it look so easy!

We can’t wait to see you both in July for the big day!

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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We knew from the get-go that Jennifer and Zach’s wedding was going to be unique and memorable! From the quirky, re-purposed decorations they had in mind, to the character of the Woodburn Historic House, where the ceremony and reception will take place, to the fact that there’s a dungeon downstairs and not to mention they are friends with several of our past couples-turned-good-friends, it all adds up to a wedding that we are really looking forward to in May.

As we’ve said many times, our Engagement Portrait sessions are intended to capture each couple’s unique personalities and interests. For these two lovebirds that included some vintage vinyl of completely non-mainstream bands (I mean have you heard of Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s?!) and Winslow, their adorable pup. Oh yeah, and beer!

Thanks to Blue Ridge Brewing Co. for letting us use their place.

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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On May 29th we’ll be at the Victoria Valley Vineyards watching two of our good friends say their vows…through the view finders of our cameras that is. We feel honored to be a part of Christy and John’s wedding because we have watched their little family grow over the past couple of years and have grown close to them as friends.

As always we try to mix in each of our couples’ personalities into their Engagement Session. For John, a die-hard comic book fan, that meant photographing in his version of heaven on earth, his favorite comic book store! A big thanks to Richard, of Richard’s Comics and Collectables, for letting us take over his store to create some awesome photographs! Like this one…

Our favorite is “Troll John” in the bottom right! What’s yours?

Then it was time for Christy to do something she enjoys, like baking (or perhaps the subsequent spoon-licking!). Note John doing his other favorite activity, playing video games, in the background.

Of course we couldn’t leave their adorable little boy Conner out of the mix. After all he is one thing they BOTH love… a lot!

They had the great idea to simulate their bedtime ritual…(get your mind out of the gutter)
Just a little Nintendo DS play to wind down after a hard day.

While it would be entirely cool for a wedding ring, John’s Green Lantern ring was just a prop.

Can’t wait until the wedding!

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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When you’re around Danielle and Sean you can’t help but feel the chemistry they share and witness the adoration Sean has for Danielle. They both have a real zest for life and have tried everything from sky-diving to Iron Man competitions to even swimming with sharks! With all that adventure under their belts their wedding in April should be a walk in the park

We started off their Engagement Portraits at the Rock Quarry Gardens near downtown Greenville.

Since these two triathletes train on Paris Mountain we thought it would be the perfect place to go to next.

Love the evil tongue face he’s giving Danielle as he clobbers her with leaves!

Sean spent some time in Korea teaching English to children. While there he learned that they use this hand gesture to say “I Love You”.

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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Quick story before we jump into some Engagement Portraits: We’ve been photographing weddings and engagement portraits in Greenville for about 6 years now but from time to time we still get asked “Have you guys ever photographed around that brick pavilion downtown? You know, the one by the river?” We just have to chuckle to ourselves and say “Yeah, once or twice”. The Wyche Pavilion (also referred to as Larkins) is one of the most iconic spots in Greenville, and for good reason! It’s got a lot of character and conveys a certain historic charm in the middle of what is becoming a somewhat modern city center. Plus so many of our couples have their weddings or receptions at or near Larkins or, if not, at least want a taste of it for their engagement portraits. Despite having photographed there on many occasions we always strive to make each couple’s portraits unique by finding new spots or maybe photographing the usual spots in a new and interesting way.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging…

Allison and Jon happen to be having their reception at Larkin’s Cabaret Room in July. Since they love the look of downtown we all decided to photograph around the Wyche Pavilion and Falls Park for their Engagement Portraits.

Here are some of our favorites from their session:

Nothing like a bottle of wine to get a portrait session off to a great start!

Love how you can see a bit of the Greenville skyline in the glass reflection.

Doesn’t Allison look amazing!

And Jon’s not so bad himself.

And this is what happens when a simple “lift and kiss” goes horribly wrong and turns into a wedgie. Sorry Allison. This was too funny not to post. Please forgive us!

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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Now that it’s so cold outside we really appreciate the beautiful weather we had this Fall and what it was like to not have to wear gloves and a jacket while we shoot! This was a really fun Engagement session that took place in October down in Columbia.

Caroline and Kevin, who are getting married next November, wanted to incorporate some team spirit into their Engagement Portraits along with one of their other favorite things, cupcakes! What a combo!

After playing a little catch, we sneakily asked Kevin to “tackle” Caroline. And boy were we surprised when she took off down the field and started running for her life!

But Kevin caught up!

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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Yeah folks, we’re still alive! We’ve had an epically busy summer and this poor blog has suffered the consequences. Well, we finally have a moment to spare to breathe some life back into our little piece of cyberspace.

Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Andrea is the daughter of Scott Pilgrim, a local wedding & events DJ with Jumpin Jukebox and of Nobody Entertainment DJ trivia fame, that we’ve worked with many times over the years and have become good friends. We got to know his family back when we did their awesome Clemson themed Holiday cards a couple years ago. Now Andrea is getting married and we have the extreme pleasure of photographing her and Corey’s wedding this coming May!

Here are some from their engagement shoot we did a few months ago.

Corey really knows how to get his lady to smile and laugh. We think that’s the mark of a truly great relationship.

Nothing like a little serenade to make a woman swoon (or laugh hysterically in this case).

Talk about a beautiful couple, both inside and out!

And did we mention she just graduated from Clemson, and her whole family bleeds orange?!

We always encourage our couples to incorporate things they love into their engagement portraits. What do Andrea and Corey love (besides each other)?……….BBQ!!! In this case, a little Smoke on the Water deliciousness.

Love how they look like they just got caught! Sorry guys, we couldn’t resist.

Now that’s how you enjoy BBQ!

And that’s how you know your soon-to-be-spouse loves you. When they are willing to see past your BBQ sauce-covered face AND help you clean it up!

Can’t wait for their wedding!

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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Unfortunately we have zero time to post some of the awesome new things we’ve been doing, much less some of the many weddings and engagement shoots that are waaaay past due. But we do have a quick sec and thought we’d share some of the great things folks are saying about the images we are posting on Facebook. By the way, that’s where to go to see all the new stuff as it’s posted there first. So go ahead, click on over to our Facebook fan page and “Like” us to see the latest and greatest Kismet imagery. Back to the post at hand…Not many people leave comments on this blog (even though hundreds of people are reading it as evidenced by our web stats) but our Facebook fans and friends of fans are quick to show some love. Check out all the raves one of our couples, the undeniably awesome and fashion-forward Shannon and David, got for their engagement sneak peek we posted. (Names have been blurred to protect the innocent)

As if that wasn’t enough of an ego boost for us, the lovely Shannon posted this recently to our fan page:

Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and gooey inside? Well it does for us! A special thanks to everyone who has ever and will ever say nice things about us and our work either to our face or on some form of media or whatever. It’s that praise and acknowledgment that lets us know we are accomplishing our number one goal: Make people happy through photography.

With love & thanks,

Curtis & Emily
Kismet Photography

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