Holy Cow! This place is AMAZING!

Joe and Nick have a long history of photography together. For those of you who don’t know, Joe photographed Nick and Maddy’s wedding 10 years ago in Austria. Since spending 2 weeks together in Austria and Germany for the wedding, Joe and Nick have been best friends. They ended up shooting for the same wedding photography company in Detroit and then, after both moving to Anchorage, Nick shot for Joe’s company (Chugach Peaks Photography). Along the way, Nick ended up shooting Brook and Joe’s wedding in Homer, Alaska (definitely one of the coolest wedding locations ever). Now that Nick is back in the “lower 48,” Nick and Maddy have Blue Bend Photography and the four of them have to travel to hang out – since Joe refuses to ever leave Alaska

The four of us love outdoors stuff and decided to tackle the Kalalau Trail in Kauai. It traverses the North Shore (Nepali Coast) of Kauai 12 miles from the end of the nearest road. It’s pretty rough terrain, but totally worth it. It is, by far, the most incredible scenery we’ve ever seen. Because it’s only accessible by foot and is a pretty long hike, the beach is pretty much your own when you get there. In one of the photos you can see our camp site in the bottom of the photo.

After the hike we rented a house in Hanalei and hung out for the week, soaking in sun and good company.

All these photos are either Joe’s or Nick’s. Some of them we’re not sure who’s is who’s… so we’re throwing them all in together and posting them on both our blogs. Hope you enjoy!

I’m always so honored when I see stuff like that. Again, to all of you out there, thank you!

The Obsidian Collective is a creative media production company based in Western North Carolina. Our goal is simple: to bring top-level media production to our clients.

Our team is composed of film and television professionals with over 15 years combined industry experience working on major market projects from New York to LA.

From film and television to commercial advertising and promotional video, our members’ combined work falls across a range of media production. In addition to a growing body of regional commercial and promotional media, the company’s recent work has included the feature film “Sol” (now being distributed internationally) as well as music videos, multinational corporation industrials, and company re-branding campaigns.

Obsidian Collective is focused on creating the highest quality content
to meet the needs of each business.

We look forward to being able to deliver an extraordinary product to our customers. One of our favorite things that we look forward to delivering along with a full length wedding video is a short (2-3 minute) “preview” video with both video and photos more in the style of a MTV video. We’re confident that with Blue Bend’s photos and Obsidian’s video and editing that we will deliver something that no one else around is offering!

On Sunday, Nick met up with Bianca and Rick at the Biltmore Estate (just outside of Asheville) to photograph their wedding at the Biltmore Deerpark. Most of the family stayed at the Biltmore Inn, which made things really nice for getting ready together and heading out for photos. The couple planned in enough time that we had almost two hours to drive around the Biltmore property and get lots of variety. They decided to see each other before the ceremony, as well, which allowed us to have tons of time for wedding photos and they didn’t have to be gone for a ton of time after the wedding ceremony. The wedding planning was done by Mary Bell of the Flower Gallery and the details were gorgeous! All of the little hanging lanterns with real candles were all hung one at a time! It looked amazing! The food was, as usual for the Biltmore, amazing – but then it always is

For other Wedding Photos from Biltmore, please see the following: Deerpark Biltmore Wedding Photos, Biltmore Estate Bridal Photos, Biltmore Lioncrest Wedding Photos, Biltmore Estate Engagement Photos, Biltmore Estate in Summer, Biltmore Estate Spring Bridal Photos, Biltmore Estate Winter Bridal Photos, Biltmore Estate Couples Photography

On Friday afternoon we headed up to Boone for the weekend. Kacey and Wade made the trip to Boone from Tennessee with 100 of their friends and family for a beautiful weekend at the Crestwood Inn. The Crestwood Inn is an amazing hotel just to the West of Boone off Shulls Mill Rd. and down from the Parkway.

Friday night Kacey and Wade had their Rehearsal and dinner. I got to photograph and meet most of their friends and family that night, which made the next day really relaxed for most people. Their minister happened to be Kacey’s minister from when she was in high school. He came all the way there from Hawaii to marry them. I got the feeling that everything about the wedding was very personal.

Kacey and Wade decided to see each other before the wedding, which gave the three of us a ton of time to go and get photos. Since the Crestwood is so close to the Parkway we ran up there, braved the cold and got a bunch of great stuff at the Cone Manor and downtown Blowing Rock. Sometimes people ask me about my opinion on seeing each other before the wedding. This is a perfect example of cool stuff you can do with enough time – seeing each other before the wedding allowed us to have over 2 hours for photos. Had we have waited till after the ceremony, we would have only had a couple of minutes to shoot, and it would’ve been in the dark since the sun set during the ceremony.

Becca and Steven were in Asheville for the weekend for some pre-wedding stuff and met up with me for an engagement shoot. Both of them – especially Steven – love craft brewed beer and Asheville is known for its breweries. We decided to head down to the Southern Appalachian Brewery to get some photos. Their wedding is next June in the Outer Banks (long ways from Asheville!) on a pier hanging over the ocean. I can’t wait. It’s going to be awesome!

One of the most beautiful spots to get married in the Asheville area is the Claxton Farms. The spot is surrounded on all sides by mountains and is only about 20 minutes from Downtown Asheville. Sarah and Jeff chose the fantastic 11-11-11 to get married and had it early in the morning. The weather in Asheville was gorgeous and at 9am the light couldn’t have been better. It was for days like this that I moved to Asheville years ago.