Wedding photographs are my favorite type of photos. They show off all the beautiful and lovely details of a wedding day and a couple’s love for each other.  But what is even more magical is the post wedding moments. Yes, a post wedding photo session. When you have Matthew Druin Photography to capture it all, it is even better. Today’s feature is all about the post wedding details, and that means a “trash the dress” session. However, there is no trashing of the dress, but instead this couple is immersed by the most gorgeous surroundings which makes for a perfect “post-wedding” photo session. The location is just stunning and I am obsessed with how whimsical and romantic the settings are.   I have to admit, the first image that caught my eye was the one with the bride and the horse. Okay, how sweet is that? I LOVE it. I can go on and on about this breathtaking photo session, but I will let you take a look for yourself and see all the lovely details. Okay, one more thing… that bridal gown? Dying over here. Just extraordinary!

From Matthew Druin Photography…

After Maria & Kyle’s Atlanta wedding in April, they wanted to take even more photos in their wedding attire. After talking it over a bit, we decided on a semi-trash the dress / bridal type session that would allow us to capture some really beautiful photos of them. The main goal was not to trash the dress like other sessions, but if it happened in the process, no one was worried about it.

In search of a whimsical and romantic location, Maria talked to her friend Nancy about using her beautiful property deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia and she was more than willing to help out. We made the three hour drive and although the weather called for rain, we were very lucky and it turned out to be a perfect all day. Once we arrived, we met up with Nancy and her husband Tim, who were both beyond generous and more than willing to help in anyway.

After Maria and Kyle were changed and ready to go, we started in one of the barns. We were constantly followed by a curious block cat who just loved clawing and riding on Maria’s dress. I guess that’s trash the dress by cat. Once we finished with the barn area, the real adventure started. Nancy took us on a tour of the rugged back hill terrain of the mountains in a Cadillac Escalade no less. Surprising the Escalade handled extremely well as we crossed small rivers, drove on the edge of vertical cliffs, and over steep rocks. It really felt like an African safari, at least to us city slickers. We were only missing the wild animals.

As we journey deeper and deeper into the mountains, we would stop at various locations that looked interesting. Some times getting to the location took some legwork climbing through poison ivy and barefoot across jagged river beds. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices to get what you want. Even being as succeeded as we were on the side of the mountains, we would occasionally run across a random person or two. Of course they would take one look at Maria and Kyle in their wedding attire, riding around in an Escalade, and laugh. I couldn’t blame though, we really kind of stuck out.  

Battling the ever setting sun, we eventually headed back to capture some photos with one of Nancy and Tim’s many horses. Between all three of us, we had about a half a day of riding experience. None the less, Nancy and Tim stayed with us the whole time to help us through it all. The black cat also made his return and showed us all how to ride a horse with ease. When Maria first mounted the horse, it took a minute of so to adjust. The particular horse we were using had what Tim called an “easy mouth”. I’m not 100% sure if the horse was trained that way or that’s just how the horse was naturally, but meant it didn’t take much on the reins to make the horse move in any direction. 

Maria quickly figured the out when she pulled back slightly on the reins to adjust herself and the horse started to quickly back up. The more he backed up the more she would pull trying to keep her balance. Faster and faster the horse ran backwards until he tripped on some wood and both Maria and the horse went down! I was in shock as all this took place and had no reaction to anything. As they fell to the ground Maria’s amazing rodeo clown skills came out and she some how did a flip / twist type of thing and rolled out of the before the horse actually landed on her.

Both Maria and the horse were perfectly okay, but after such a jarring and traumatizing experience, you would think Maria would be over the whole “photos on a horse” idea. Ha! Of course she wasn’t. She dusted herself off and hopped right back up there like she was about to go herd cattle. We took our time and slowly finished all the photos we need just as the sun really began to set.

All in all, it was really nice to get out of the city for the day and spend time with some awesome people. We had an incredible time and an amazing adventure that none of us will soon forget.