Utah Wedding Photographer-Melissa Kelsey

Ani and Stephen | South Carolina Destination Beach Wedding

melissakelseyphotography — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:05:47 +0000

Ani and Stephen are two of my very good friends. They met in art school in North Carolina. Stephen moved to Utah and years later, they reunited, fell in love, bought a house, and decided to get married. I had the honor of photographing their beautiful wedding in Folly Beach, South Carolina, just outside Charleston. I’d never been to the south before and I sure liked it. I tried okra, collard greens, barbecue, boiled shrimp and peanuts, blue crab, and shrimp and grits. That last one was my favorite.

Ani loves mermaids (look closely!)

Ani likes to be careful with the earth and support local and independent artists. Throughout the planning process, she was careful not to buy unnecessary items for the wedding, supported independent artists by purchasing her beautiful handmade guest book on Etsy, had her feather hair piece custom made, and used her mother’s recycled glass bottle collection for flowers and decoration. She and Stephen had their wedding rings custom made at local Salt Lake City jeweler, Charley Hafen Jewelry. Our friend Soozee designed the invitations and made the beautiful shell necklace that Ani wore with her wedding gown. The alter for the wedding ceremony was a big piece of driftwood found on the beach.

Ani and Stephen took part in what I call a First Look. The bride and groom meet before the wedding ceremony in a special, private meeting where they can really enjoy the moment. This allows the couple to get all of the family and couple formal photographs done before the ceremony. After the “I dos”, they can get their party on! Every time I do a First Look with a couple, it’s very touching. This time, it was especially moving because Stephen and Ani are dear friends. Ani was crying, I was crying, and even Stephen was crying.

It was truly a friend and family affair. I was the photographer, our friend, Soozee was the floral designer, and my husband, Todd was the officiate (you can become a reverend, rabbi, or priest on the internet). We all stayed in a beautiful beach house, right on the ocean and it was fantastic. Everyone should get married on a beach. Some of the friends:

This last one is me. My intern, Jenny, insisted I put it on here.

Flowers: Soozee Torreano

Cuttle Fish Guest Book: Grimm on Etsy

Feather Hair Piece: Patika Starr

Photography: Melissa Kelsey Photography (of course)

Recycled Glass Bottles: Ani’s mom’s collection

Rings: Charley Hafen Jewelry

Bride’s Shell Necklace: Soozee Torreano

Dress: David’s Bridal

Leather Flip Flops: Rainbow Sandals

Mermaid Panties: Victoria’s Secret

Officiate: Todd Kelsey (my hubby). Oh, and he’s retired. He doesn’t do weddings anymore.

I Feel Kinda’ Fancy! | Published Wedding Photography

melissakelseyphotography — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:26:37 +0000

I’d been waiting and waiting for the new issue of Utah Bride and Groom Magazine to come out. I was at the grocery store and saw it, the coveted issue! I grabbed three and proudly plopped them down on the check stand. The checker guy was a little confused, “You want three?” and I replied, “YES I DO”. You see, a couple of my photos were in the magazine.

It was my goal for 2009 to get in a local wedding magazine and I did it! I also got in the latest issue of Latter Day Bride Magazine. I must thank the lovely Brittany, one of my 2009 brides, whose dream was to work for a wedding magazine. She got her little self an article and 4 page spread! She asked me for photos for the article and I thought she’d use a few, but man, they’re all over that article! Thanks, Brittany!

And finally, a shout out to David Pilkington of Montauk Motion Pictures. He was featured on The Utah Bride Blog. I love working with David and especially like his romantic, artistic, vintage style. Check out the beautiful video of mine and David’s mutual bride, Cassandra here: Utah Bride Blog. Thanks to David for mentioning me.

I am so thankful for the opportunity to be shown in these wonderful places. Thank you, Utah Bride and Groom Magazine, Montauk Motion Pictures, Utah Bride Blog, and Latter Day Bride Magazine! Also, thanks to my bride and grooms featured in those photos.

Pretty Pictures For My Brother | Fine Art Photography (or something like that)

melissakelseyphotography — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:00:26 +0000

My brother, Jared wants to hang some art on his walls. He wants to choose from my photos and have me make a gallery wrap canvas for him. I’ve been meaning to share, what I call my “pretty pictures” here for some time, so why not kill two birds with one stone (totally, no pun intended with some of the photos in this series). These are just photos from around my house and backyard. The forms, colors, and magical life of plants kind of fascinate me.
Back to my brother–he is my younger brother and he’s tall. Besides that, he’s a pretty impressive guy. He’s speaks fluent Spanish and runs a big, industrial laundry facility. He’s only 23. He’s also in school, working toward a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. From what I understand, he’s a pretty good skateboarder, too. I’m proud of him, as you can see. Anywho, here are the photos!

If you want a print or canvas gallery wrap of any of these, just drop me a line at melissakelseyphotography@gmail.com and I’ll send you the details.

Wedding Albums | Utah Wedding Photography

melissakelseyphotography — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:14:15 +0000

A prospective out-of-town client recently asked to see photos of my albums. Well, here they are for all to see! Each beautiful wedding album is customized to fit the style of each client and crafted of the finest leathers, papers, and fabrics.

Deluxe Flush Mount Leather Albums. These popular albums are a combination of a traditional leather album and carefully designed pages, printed on photographic paper and permanently mounted to thick stiff substrate. This results in a durable album that is classic yet modern at once. Many fun, funky, stylish, and timeless leathers and fabrics to choose from with lots of cover design options. Go classic or get creative with your album cover.

Raw Linen Coffee Table Books with Embossed Personalized Cover. These beautiful books are like a published, hard-bound art book. Available in a variety of elegant colors with gorgeous marbled end papers (or basic black). Available with Personalized Slipcase or Clamshell Box. One image per page. These books hold 100-300 pages.

Luxurious, hand crafted, silk matted wedding albums. These heirloom albums are hand made with fine silk cover- fabrics and ribbon, and archival artists rag paper mats. Photographs are carefully mounted behind mat openings. Available with corset ribbon binding or plain binding. Lots of delicious color combinations to choose from. These are simply elegant and simply to die for!

Welcome to Melissa Kelsey Photography!

melissakelseyphotography — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:25:54 +0000

Thanks for stopping by! I’m a wedding and portrait photographer, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m a transplant to Utah from Northern California, where I grew up skiing and enjoying the outdoors with my family. I moved to Utah to go to college (and ski) and here I am, 13 years later, married to a wonderfully supportive husband and have two cute, black Labs. I’m passionate about photography and life. I get really excited when I get a great shot (as many of my clients can attest) and I’m not afraid to act like a dork in public.

Check out the video below to get a taste of what an engagement session with me is like. Let’s go!

Video by Orton Films

1st Presbyterian Church Wedding-Sneak Peek

melissakelseyphotography — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:51:40 +0000

Kristin and Justin were married at the 1st Presbyterian Church in a beautiful wedding ceremony in September and had a lovely reception at The Point. Here’s a sneak peek of the wedding photos:

Wedding planning-gray is chic for wedding color schemes

melissakelseyphotography — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:00:48 +0000

Grey, grey, grey. I love grey…and, I love to spell it with an “e”, although I spelled it with an “a” for the title of this blog post. Why? So Google and other search engines can understand it. Sorry, getting a little technical for the general audience with that one. Anyway, check out the real point of this post below!

Wedding planning-gray is chic for wedding color schemes from Melissa Kelsey on Vimeo.

Anyone notice the nostril twitch at the beginning? Ha!

Note to self: get more sleep before recording a video blog post to prevent dark under eye circles and don’t wear hair like that again.

Photo by: Ingrid Sanchez of I Studio Photography

Trash the Dress! Utah Wedding Photography

melissakelseyphotography — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:00:09 +0000

If you haven’t heard of the concept of Trash the Dress, you probably will begin to hear about it more and more now. Trash the Dress, which was begun by photographer, John Michael Cooper, has made it to the Today Show.

Trash the Dress isn’t about trashing the dress as much as it is about creating artistic, fashion-inspired images of a bride in her gown. I also like the term Rock the Dress, which can be a little more tame. These awesome photo sessions are ususally done after the wedding day, but even if you’re aren’t totally up for trashing your dress, you should definitely rock your dress. You can rock your dress during your bridal session before the wedding. Rocking the dress means having a fashion inspired concept, venturing into places where you might not normally feel comfortable taking your dress, but still keeping it pretty clean and completely undamaged. Besides, you can get the thing cleaned!

Rocking or trashing the dress can also include the groom. Sexy post-wedding shoots are perfect for this.

So, who’s game? Let’s do it!

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Bridal Buzz Blog and Pearls Events Blog

melissakelseyphotography — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:00:28 +0000

It was kind of strange to find that a photo of mine from my blog, had made it onto two wedding planning blogs. Those of you that are familiar with wedding planning blogs like Wedding Chicks or Style Me Pretty are familiar with the idea boards they feature. Well, mine made it onto one of those idea boards. I wondered where all those photos came from! I thought they were submitted by photographers, but turns out, most of them are copied from photographer’s blogs. It kind of feels like someone took something from me without asking, but I’m also grateful and flattered to be on these blogs. As long as I’m given credit and a link for these instances, I guess I’m okay with it.

The blogs:

Bridal Buzz

Pearls Events

My photo is 2nd from the left on the top row.

Mikey and Machel’s Engagement Photos on the Utah Bride and Groom Blog!

melissakelseyphotography — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:26:51 +0000

Woohoo! I made it on the Utah Bride and Groom blog. Utah Bride and Groom is only the most awesome bridal magazine and wedding planning source in Utah. Mikey and Machel are such a great couple and I loved their engagement shoot. Thanks for bringing that champagne along, Mikey!

Check out the full post at Utah Bride and Groom, HERE.

And…you’ll be seeing more of me on the Utah Bride and Groom blog soon, as well as in the magazine. I’m so excited!
Check out wedding planning ideas, photos, and information at www.utahbrideandgroom.com.