Author Archives: Amanda Raney

{Just Married} Emily + Ethan

Today I have for you the photos from Emily and Ethan’s wedding day: May 11, 2013 • Como, Mississippi. Hooray!

You may have seen Emily and Ethan on the SWP blog a few months ago, when I took their engagement photos in Memphis. I was also asked to do their wedding photography, which I was thrilled about! They told me that it would be at Ethan’s parents’ home in Como, Mississippi and that it would be a very intimate ceremony, with only a handful of family members in attendance.  Because I’m quite familiar with Como – it’s only about 15 miles from the town where my family lives – I had gotten it into my head that this wedding was taking place on a farm. I was thinking cows, bales of hay, a pasture…I could not have been more wrong! Ethan’s parents’ home is a 100 year old “rambling” house. It was gorgeous and a perfect setting for this wedding.

Wedding cake & cupcakes:  Lady Bugg Bakery • Groom’s cake:  pecan pie from Muddy’s Bake Shop

Emily’s bouquet

A quote from Emily “Our ceremony stand featured photos of all of our grandparents who couldn’t be with us in person, but they certainly were in spirit” 

I loved the wallpaper in this section of the house, and the pretty lavendar and green accents around the windows. This was the stairway leading upstairs, where Emily was getting ready for the ceremony

Getting help from her sister Jaime

Getting some love from her sister Amy

Emily’s headband was BEAUTIFUL – a laurel leaf design, I believe

Here comes the bride! Escorted by her mom and dad.

Sooooooooo excited!!!

Super stoked to be pronounced “man and wife”

“You may kiss the bride!”

A celebratory recessional 

Stealing their first moment alone as husband and wife

For me, this gentleman stole the show: Ethan’s grandfather, Gus. He was amazing! 

The precious Olivia, Ethan’s niece. She was hilarious! 

After the ceremony was over, everyone just hung out around the lovely front porch. Such a relaxing wedding!

Time for cake!!!

Requisite: cutting the cake photo

Soooooo cute!!!

Next came the group photos. As you’ll see, I was dealing with a real cast of characters!

At this point, I’d said it was time for Emily’s sisters Amy and Jaime to join us for the next set of photos. I sang “Sisters, sisters” from the a song that was in the movie White Christmas. Little did I know that the Bell sisters knew ALL the lyrics to this song and proceeded to sing it and do a little dance number. Apparently it was something they’d done before 😉 

The Bell sisters were having a BALL together

Ethan’s side of the fam!

A few portraits of the bride and groom!

This is Emily with their friend Kimberly, who was the mischievous one who suggested we climb up to the railroad tracks for a few photos

Then there was more porch sittin’ and a whole slew of toasts from friends and family. And there were, of course, lots of tears and laughs during the toasts.

Once the most of the guests were gone, the bridal party just spent the rest of the night visiting with each other and having impromptu dance parties

Family portrait: Mr. and Mrs. Ashby and their dogs Murray and Penny ♥

I want to thank Emily and Ethan for inviting me to document their wedding. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and hope their life together will be filled with much joy as they clearly felt that night.

{First Birthday} Eli!!!

Sweet baby Eli!

Eli is the son of my friends Annie and Jeremy. I did some maternity photos of Annie before Eli first graced this world with his presence, but I had only gotten to see the baby in passing before  the day of his birthday party. Boy, had I been missing out! I immediately cottoned to this little one. I always enjoy a baby who’ll let me tote ’em around 🙂

The house was decked OUT in all things Disney and Mickey Mouse! Including Eli himself!

Eli and his buddy Ethan

Couldn’t resist a couple of extra pictures of  Ethan, too!

There were plenty of friends and family on hand for Eli to visit with during his party

Time for the smash cake!

Eli really wasn’t too on board with this whole “smush cake around with your hands and shove it in your mouth” scenario…

They brought in Ethan to see if he could help pique Eli’s interest in the cake.

Spoiler: It didn’t really work 🙂 So it was time for presents!

It’s little wonder than Eli was so tuckered out that he ended the party asleep in his grandmother’s arms…

New digs!!!!

Not new digs, per se, but a new layout.

I spent a number of hours yesterday morning, live chatting with tech support at my web host. I don’t want to bog things down with boring details or IT jargon (mostly because I don’t really understand these things myself!) but….it turns out that the WordPress theme I’d been using for the past four years had left me vulnerable to some sort of hacking. I was ordered by the tech support guru to delete everything associated with my old blog theme and choose a new one. *sobbing* But I spent so much time over the years choosing photos for and lovingly creating nearly 90 custom banners for that theme!!!!

So many custom banners…Death Cab for Cutie banner, I’ll miss you! 

But I decided to take this as a good opportunity to change up the look of the blog a bit.  After all, I’ve been the queen of looking for silver linings for YEARS before there was an oscar-winning  movie made about them 🙂 Hacked WordPress theme? That means you get to pick a new one that’ll spruce up the place! Silver lining!

I’ve got a number of blogs in the works, so I’ll keep ya’ll posted as I get those up here!

As Seen On: Ducks.org

One of my photos used to advertise an event Ducks Unlimited is doing with the Memphis Redbirds baseball team in August!