Elaina and Cameron’s wedding at the Point Defiance Pagoda here in Tacoma might have been a little short on sunshine, but it definitely was not short on fun! Blending two very different cultural backgrounds, the couple entertained their guests — and us! — with very diverse traditions sprinkled throughout their wedding and reception. But before embarking on the fun, Elaina and Cameron tucked themselves away in separate rooms to get ready with their attendants. With a nod to his Scottish heritage, Cameron and his boys dressed in traditional kilts.

Meanwhile, the Pagoda was set up with a distinctive Asian flair, from the origami placecards and red Chinese lanterns to the fortune cookie and chopsticks favors. Because the couple was expecting quite a large crowd of guests, the reception tables, already dressed for the party, were squeezed into the back of the hall to leave room for the many rows of chairs for the ceremony in front. This can be a great timesaver at many venues, although it did make things a bit cozy.

To kick off the ceremony, Elaina and Cameron hosted the performance of a Japanese taiko drumming group (of which Elaina normally is a part). It was such a fun and dramatic way to start the ceremony, and the guests definitely sat at attention!

Following the ceremony, Elaina and Cameron broke out one more surprise tradition: a German log cutting, which symbolizes the first tough task that the married couple must face together. Proving they can put up with a lot, this happy couple sawed the log in a drizzle before we headed out on a quick tour of the Japanese garden for portraits.  

After another taiko performance, the couple switched gears to embrace Cameron’s Scottish heritage with a traditional haggis feast. Escorted in by a bagpiper, the haggis was presented to Cameron, who gave a quick toast and made the first cut before it was served along with a whole cooked pig, head and all. It was a dinner menu to remember!

After the meal, the usual toasts and dancing rounded out an evening of fun.

Congrats to Elaina and Cameron!

We shoot most of our engagement portrait sessions at pretty places, usually either around Point Defiance Park or at the Museum District in downtown Tacoma. So, it’s a fun change of pace when we have clients who choose our Grit City option instead! Even better, Katie and Jered bumped up the factor another couple notches by bringing their Harley along for their shoot. Jered builds custom bikes, and Harley road trips have been a big part of their relationship, so including their ride in their engagement portraits was for more than just adding another piece of eye candy.

We kicked off the photo session at Wright Park, which really isn’t gritty at all, but provided a nice counterbalance to the urban photos we took a bit later. The cherry trees were in full bloom, and we got some of our favorite shots from under this one particular tree.

Then we headed down Stadium Way to the old Elks Temple, which is a key stop on our Grit City sessions — although not for much longer, as McMenamin’s will begin restoring the old girl into one of their awesome brewpub/entertainment complexes soon.  From just this one building, plus a quick dash across Broadway to the Rampart storefront, we captured a bunch of awesome images with and without the bike.

Our final stop was just a few blocks over to 11th Street, and then down to the Murray Morgan Bridge. We’re among those who think this historic bridge should be restored so that cars can once again drive across it to the east side of the Foss waterway. But, in the meantime, we love how we can pose our clients in the middle of this pockmarked road, with the bridge’s girders soaring overhead.

Jered invested some time into detailing his bike for our shoot, and its mirrorlike surfaces proved too tempting to resist creating a few reflection photos. Scott was also drawn to its skinny side mirror, which proved exceptionally difficult to squeeze two reflected faces into. The photo you see below is actually a composite of two images, one with Jered’s face mostly intact and the other with Katie’s. Photoshop to the rescue yet again!

We shot their wedding at the Lodge in Point Defiance a few weeks ago, and highlights from their wedding will appear here soon.

Regulars of FeedTacoma will remember seeing occasional posts from the Wallflower Blog in 2008 and 2009 … and then we disappeared for a while. During our absence, we migrated our blog from Blogspot to a self-hosted Wordpress platform that is better in so many ways. It’s a lot more attractive, for one, and the photos are quite a bit bigger now. It also has a great keyword search feature, so if you ever want to see what a Museum of Glass or Lakewold Gardens wedding looks like, just run a quick search. We’re really happy with how the new blog turned out, and we invite all of you to check it out!

Expect to see about a post a week from us, primarily featuring weddings and engagement portrait sessions shot at some of Tacoma’s most visually interesting places. Our next post, coming up in just a few minutes, features a Harley-inspired engagement portrait session in the grittier side of Tacoma — one we love just as much as the prettier, more polished side that most of our clients opt for.

If you’ve never heard of Wallflower Photography before, hello! We’re Laura and Scott Schoeggl, Tacoma residents since the mid-1990s and owner/photographers of Wallflower since 2002. That practially makes us grizzled veterans in today’s photography market! Wallflower specializes in premium wedding photography, featuring a blend of unobtrusive, true-life photojournalism (hence the “wallflower” name) and creative, magazine-worthy portraiture. We’ve won a bunch of awards from organizations like the Wedding Photojournalist Association and Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, and have been published in all three of the Puget Sound region’s major wedding magazines. We run Wallflower out of a 110-year-old house in the North Slope Historic District, three blocks from Frisko Freeze, where we live with our year-old boy Caleb and golden retriever Bailey.

We love seeing people comment on our blog posts, and we hope to hear what you think of our photos, so don’t be shy!

— Laura and Scott

In contrast to their super-sunny engagement portrait session in the middle of February, Elizabeth and Aaron’s wedding was held on a rainy, blustery day! That didn’t stop them from having a great time, and the happy couple even braved a few, cold minutes outside with us to get some awesome portraits in front of their wedding venue, the historic Pickering Barn.

Elizabeth and Aaron’s event was split across Pickering’s two barns, with the Dairy Barn prepared to host the reception, and the ceremony held within the rustic — and unheated! — Hay Barn. Luckily once you get a lot of guests all packed in together, there’s plenty of body heat to go around, and their nuptials went off without a hitch.

Once their vows were complete, everyone headed into the cozy Dairy Barn for a reception filled with laughs and plenty of sweet moments between this gorgeous couple.

Congrats to Elizabeth and Aaron!

Earlier this spring, we joined Alli and Dan for their wedding at one of Tacoma’s classic wedding venues, the Washington State History Museum. Let me tell you, Alli and Dan — and all their friends — definitely know how to have fun! This was a very entertaining and joyful wedding.

Alli and Dan didn’t want to see each other before the wedding, so we split up to start Laura off with the girls while Scott took Dan and his attendants on a mini tour of the museum district to get some great portraits.

The couple held their ceremony in the grand lobby of the Washington State History Museum, which has soaring ceilings and arches that add a lot of drama to the scene.

We followed up the brief-but-sweet ceremony with portraits of the happy couple together and with their wedding party, before heading into the cocktail hour for mingling with guests.

Before we wrapped up the wedding portrait session, we had to grab a quick shot of Alli’s shoes. The poor gal had admitted to us that she’d lost her wedding-day shoes in the bustle of getting ready and instead had to wear the camouflage ballet flats that she’d been wearing earlier in the day. At least she was comfortable all night with no blisters!  We later heard weeks after the wedding that those fancy wedding shoes were still M.I.A!

Upstairs, the cocktail hour was in full swing as the guests prepared to hear some toasts.

With the reception well under way, we grabbed the wedding party and headed outside for a quick collection of night portraits. Of course, it started sprinkling just as we got outside, but we still managed to capture some fun portraits of the full wedding party under the arch at Tacoma’s landmark Union Station. Knowing that we were shooting under very low light conditions, we also brought out our trusty video light to add an extra splash of light on the couple while photographing them under the Bridge of Glass (near Museum of Glass) before heading back inside. The glow of the bridge’s ceiling made for a fun and very different look from the portraits we created of Dan and his attendants earlier in the day during bright sun.  

The reception was lively from start to finish, and included a lot of enthusiastic dancing, plus a humorous garter toss that involved a little extra “support” from Dan’s twin brother.

Our congrats to Alli and Dan! We hope your marriage will be filled with as much laughter as your wedding day.