latest work by Cohn Frankel Photography: January 2010

Winner: Bride's Choice Award for 2010

WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced Cohn Frankel Photography has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for Photography!

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

The award signifies that Cohn Frankel Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, including wedding planners, venues, djs, and of course photographers.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

I would like to thank all my clients for nominating me for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards. I'm so happy to get this award for the 2nd year in a row!
For more info about this award and website, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront here.

Mayacamas Ranch and Spa

Deborah and Bradley
October 24 2009

Slideshow
Full set of pics

I had been looking forward to this wedding for months; not only because Deborah and Bradley are themselves connected to the event service industry, but because their wedding was being coordinated by Jenne Hohn, wedding coordinator extraordinaire and director of the International Special Events Society (ISES). I'd shot an ISES event for her last year as a favor, to reach out to her and familiarize her with my work and myself, but this was the first real wedding I'd ever worked with her on and I really wanted to knock it out of the park. Not like it would be too difficult to do a great job with such a creative, obviously in-love couple and everything planned as it was to be he best of the best.

But I think Deb and Bradley are a good example of one of my favorite types of clients; their taste is impeccable and they don't want to cut corners on anything important, but at the same time the material aspects of the wedding are a means to an end, not an end in itself. They want everything to be awesome because doing so brings more fun, more personality, more heart to the wedding and because it provides them a chance to share some of the best things in life with the ones they love.

Mayacamas Ranch is a spa and yoga retreat center located in the middle of a private valley in the mountains of Calistoga that is teeming with natural beauty. It was the perfect place to capture the feel of the wedding that Deborah and Bradley were going for: natural, organic, comfortable, and fun.

rarely do I have the opportunity to shoot the dress outside, for fear of getting it dirty. This one is technically kind of half-in half-out but I think the sun flare is really cool for a dress shot.

I love unique and different flowers, and florists who can take a bunch of incongruous blooms and make them work. By Bonnie Z of Dragonfly Floral.

this dress looks like it was just made for Deborah.

I like it when the guys put their own little personality touches in their clothing too

one of my most satisfying moments was watching people watching my slideshow at the wedding, and hearing 3 seperate groups of people have the exact same reaction to this photo when they saw it for the first time:
"[gasp!] awww...."

Best. Rabbi. Evah. I believe this shot was the reaction to her joke about it being an honor to marry "the two tallest Jews in the world." She was warm and hilarious, and a genius on the dance floor.

because we'd done an engagement session a couple months back, the fact that we were only allotted 10 mins to shoot with the couple alone didn't stop us from getting amazing images. The couple's easy chemistry and the beauty of the location definitely helped...and I guess maybe my skill had something to do with it too. ; )

Deborah's brother greeting her as they entered at the start of the reception.

Deborah's maid of honor needed some hugs to finish her speech.

no shortage of dessert at this wedding!

mmm...sundae bar. They had to beat guests off with a stick to keep them from attacking the ice cream before it was time. I'm now totally addicted to Three Twins cookies and cream and its 100% these guys' fault.

When it comes to Neil Diamond, resistance is futile. You will dance, and you will love it.

the rings, on one of the bottles of limoncello that the couple gave as favors.

Vendors:

coordinator: Jenne Hohn Events Jenne Hohn, Michelle Dillon, and Jill Sandy jenne@hohnevents.com

Mayacamas Ranch info@mayacamasranch.com

caterer: Olive Green Catering tdeserio@earthlink.net

officiant: Rabbi Sydney Mintz 415.751.2535 smintz@emanuelsf.org

flowers: Dragonfly Floral bonniez@dragonflyfloral.com

cake: teenycake

ice cream sundae bar: Three Twins Ice Cream

dj: Rob Doughty 707.253.0868 djrjd@mac.com

ceremony music: Daniel Maya & Mano a
Mano 415.297.9149 dmaya44@aol.com

videographer: Thomas Hughes Films info@thomashughesvideo.com

hair: Francisco Giron 415.346.3939 fgiron@gmail.com

makeup: Glowing Bridal Audrey Crandell glowingbridal@yahoo.com

tent: Zephyr Tents 510.559.8694 jenowsley@zephyrtents.com

lighting and event design: Hartmann Studios

transportation: Pure Luxury

Chaminade Resort and Spa, Santa Cruz

Olivia and Josh
August 22 2009

Slideshow
Full set of pics

By far one of my coolest couples of the year. Olivia and Josh planned a destination wedding in the Santa Cruz mountains, hired me over the phone, and then flew to SF for our first meeting and engagment session in Golden Gate park. Josh is freaking hilarious, and Olivia is beautiful, and they are both of an artistic mind--I knew their wedding would be not only stunning to photograph but fun and refreshing and different.

Oscar de la Renta dress = d r a m a. Look at those ruffles! It was so perfect.

can't have a hot dress without hot strappy heels.

Speaking of shoes, Josh's gift to each of his groomsmen was a pair of custom designed running shoes--each one designed especially for each groomsman in his own color scheme. You can see some of the colors in this shot and Josh's pair in the one below. More shoe shots in the slideshow and online, of course.

I really liked their bridesmaid dresses too- the way the deep purple bleeding into lilac color was pretty and flattering. And Olivia's giant bouquet of baby's breath went well with her dress.

I found out later that Olivia refers to Josh's little chin cleft thingie as his "Flux Capacitator" Did you know they actually sell a replica of the flux capacitator, complete with working lights, for $250 at thinkgeek.com? I want everything on that site btw.

I thought Olivia's dress and veil were particularly pretty in backlit shots like this one

My 2nd shooter Gustavo and I both had the idea to shoot her mimicking the pose in this painting, but I liked his version better. That's one of the signs of a great 2nd shooter for me; when I find myself saying "why didn't I think of that?!" every time I edit their pictures.

I love the drama of this image; the dress, the staircase, the half turn and sway of her skirt and veil, and the body language of the event coordinator handing off her veil and her dad waiting for her at the bottom.

getting giant veil over the head of the bride in one flip: it's all in the wrist.

when presented with a balcony at a wedding, you must take advantage of it.

adorable place cards saying "eat, drink, and be merry"

the lighting and staging of the room was top notch! I could tell even the staff at Chaminade were impressed as I wasn't the only one taking pictures.

and yes, she's an easy crier. What more could I ask for in a bride? : )

the dress was great on the dance floor. The bride and groom weren't so bad either. ; )

the live band, Steve Ezzo Entertainment, was great and everyone stayed on the dance floor all night long.

Vendors:

Chaminade coordinator Shannon Norfleet snorfleet@benchmarkmanagement.com

(Chaminade's packages are all inclusive so they also handled the catering, cake, flowers, linens, etc.)

band: Steve Ezzo Entertainement ezzoentertainment@comcast.net

bridal boutique: Ultimate Bride (Chicago)

and a big thank you to Gustavo Fernandez for second shooting with me.

Saint Raphael’s Catholic Church and Corinthian Yacht Club

Liz and Matt
September 5 2009

Slideshow
Full set of pics

This wedding was kind of nostalgic for me, first of all because Liz first heard about me from her friend (and bridesmaid) Courtney, whose wedding I shot way back in 2005; and second of all because it gave me a chance to finally work with wedding coordinator Kathryn Kalabokes of Dream a Little Dream Events. Kathryn was one of the very first wedding coordinators I sat down with way back in late 2003 when I was starting my business, and awkward and green as I was she was so nice to me and really helped me understand the wedding business. It was awesome to finally work on a wedding with Kathryn and day-of coordinator Brittani Waldman.

a rare quiet moment for Liz during getting ready

we went to a park in downtown Tiburon a few blocks from the CYC to take pics with the couple and bridal party. The sky was gorgeous that day.

The CYC was prettily decorated and full of light. I liked how it backlit everyone during the toasts and first dances. The warm wood paneled walls made it so that light colors in the decor really stood out.

The tables were named after significant places and things in their life together. Most of them were cities or physical locations, so it was kind of funny to see one of them named after this. Is there anything you CAN'T find on Craigslist? ; )