Laurel McConnell Photography

Hitched: Meghan & Kevin at the Skansonia

August 28, 2008 – 11:39 am

Romantic vintage is how I’d describe Meghan & Kevin’s wedding celebration on the antique Skansonia Ferry boat last month. I love how she put together the soft greens, romantic roses, and dreamy creams, all inspired by a turn of the century styled cameo necklace Kevin gave to Meghan while they were dating.

I love the attitude of this shot… so funny!

A little post-nuptual champagne and lounge on their fabulous velvet couch.

This was their sugary sweet signature cocktail. When Meghan and I were planning out the photography details at our last pre-wedding meeting, we had a little side conversation about what their drink should be called. They both have rather uncommon last names, so after a little name scrabble, the “Megvan Steensbak” popped out of my mouth. I was delighted to see this on the menu at the bar!! Naturally it’s one of my favorite shots of the day :)

I’m not much of a cake gal (cause if I ate the cake at every wedding… well… let’s just say I’d have to buy new pants!), but it looked so good I had to try a bit. YUM!!!

Venue: Skansonia Ferry

Dress: uber romantic design by Maggie Sottero at Wallingford’s I Do Bridal

Flowers: Ballard Blossom

Cake: designed by Iska of Cake

Transport: British Motor Coach

Wedding Photographer: Yours truly!

By Laurel | Posted in bellies, real weddings, wedding planning | Tagged photography, Skansonia Ferry, vintage wedding, wedding | 3 comments Hide The Love | Add Some Love

ONE LOVE PHOTO -

I had to come back to look at these again. So very very nice! Love your style, just the right mix of candid, posed and SWEET! Nothing seems forced or over done. The color correction and tones are perfect!
Airika Pope -

Gorgeous, stunning, amazing. Laurel, you rock my socks off! Great job with all of these!!!
Barbie Hull -

ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!? THIS IS SO ROMANTIC!!! GOOD WORK!

Get Gorgeous Goods For Your Wedding By Giving Back

August 20, 2008 – 3:32 pm

Finally. It’s “The” Announcement. The one that you all keep hearing about, but maybe you already heard through the grapevine cause we’re not very good at keeping secrets.

For the last 10 months, myself and five other gals in the wedding industry have been working on something very, very special.

It all started out over a bit of wine, as all great ideas do :) We wanted to do something great for our community while creating a buzz in our industry. So we created Get Hitched, Give Hope, Seattle’s first non-profit organization aimed at brides, grooms and the wedding industry that is dedicated to raise money for great causes!!

Our Event: October 23rd at the newly renovated Arctic Club Hotel

Our Draw: Get Gorgeous Goods While Giving Back. Top notch vendors and businesses have donated some great items that are useful for your wedding (and most can be used by anyone, so drag your moms and co-workers over too!). There will be drinks, apps, auctions, raffles, and of course, the famed jellybeans, wink wink!

Our Featured Charity: The Making Memories Foundation. They are sort of like a “Make a Wish” for adults, granting wishes to stage 4 breast cancer patients. We want to be able to grant like 12 wishes… which means we’ve got to raise something like 50 grand. We’ve got a great community and wonderful friends and clients, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to!!! We’ve been SO INCREDIBLY FORTUNATE with our wonderful sponsors, so we anticipate that every dollar donated (through auction, raffle, and money raised at the event!) will be going straight to MMF! Bid it up!

Our website is HERE.

Tickets are HERE.

Donations can be made HERE.

Check out our lovely fantastic and most awesome sponsors and friends HERE.

See how your business can be involved HERE.

See more about our founders HERE, but specifically Michelle Engvall, Barbie Hull, Kelly Simants, Eliza Truitt, Michelle Loretta, yours truly.

See you THERE!!!!

OH, and if you’re going, you’re a sponsor, you’re a friend, you’re a client, or you’re a believer, spread the word by embedding this tile on your website or blog or email! Help us pack the house!!! You can either use this graphic tile, or embed this code that automatically links to the GHGH site:

<a href=”http://www.gethitchedgivehope.com”><img src=”http://www.gethitchedgivehope.com/extras/giver_tile.gif” alt=”Get Hitched Give Hope” /></a>

By Laurel | Posted in giving | Tagged bridal charity, charity event, Get Hitched Give Hope | 4 comments Hide The Love | Add Some Love

Jenna Karwoski -

We will be there! What an awesome cause and a great way to give back. Nice work to you and your lady friends for doing such a fantastic job with your organization! It was great seeing you tonight!!!!
kris -

I’m spreading the news, hope it helps!!!!! Lots of Love!!!! I am so proud of all you women, way to think big and outside of the box!!!!
Barbie Hull -

Ooooh Yeah!! This’ll be the greatest party of the year - and for a good cause! Whoohoo!!
Jen MacNiven -

I added you to my blog and I’ll be purchasing tickets soon! Way to go sista…this has got to feel so good! Can’t wait for the big day!

It’s Not Prostitution If It’s For Charity

August 20, 2008 – 10:59 am

That’s right, the person who pays the most gets to take you home (or around town anyway).

Recently Seattle Metropolitan Magazine held their annual Seattle Celebrity Singles Charity Auction in a swanky unfinished loft in downtown Seattle. Local singles (and non singles alike!) bid on local “celebs” and their awesome packages all for a great cause: the Moyer Foundation’s plight to help children in distress. Over $20,000 was raised as folks bid on their favorite football star, musical actress, Google CEO, PNB dancer, actor, and many more. It was a super opportunity for me to hang out at yet another party (DANG I love this job!), snap some fun pictures documenting a great cause with my pal Jeff LaPlante, and scope things out for our own upcoming charity event!!

My favorite moment of the entire night was watching Portland’s local celeb emcee Poison Waters and Q13’s Lily Jang put two patrons against each other in a hot bidding frenzy over one oh-so-dreamy Google CEO and his, eh hem, package. I had the best seat in the house to document this all go down, right in the middle of the superserious bidders. I think McGoogle brought in the highest bid, even. Good on ya’ chickie! You just did a great thing for many, many, kids!

By Laurel | Posted in giving | Tagged charity event, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine | no comments No Love Yet | Add Some Love

Welcome Baby Sam!

August 17, 2008 – 2:03 pm

What a whirlwind week it’s been! While over on the East Coast in gorgeous Maryland last week shooting Billy & Julie’s wedding, timing was just too perfect to swing by DC and hang out with DJ Kane and Natasha to see their beautiful baby girl. Actually, Natasha had hoped to have me shoot the live birth (WOW! Talk about an honor!), but apparently baby Sam had some other plans in mind! She came a couple of weeks early, and man is she just the cutest gal with the coolest mohawk ever! I couldn’t wait to navigate through DC’s crazy streets to see them (THANK YOU GARMIN!)- the last time we saw them was last April for their gorgeously romantic wedding in Florida. Thank you SO much Kane and Natasha for allowing us into your lives for all these special moments! (hahaha, including following Kane to work to see how his studio works- we even got to listen to some live calls from listeners of one of his three radio shows for DC’s Hot 99.5 and Tampa’s 99.3 FLZ!) See you guys again, soon, I’m sure!!!