It was a beautiful October day when I shot Kayla’s bridal session around downtown Wilmington. And, confession: this was my very first real bridal portrait session! say what?!

Well, I’m pretty sure bridal portrait sessions expired sometime around 2001 up north. I have never once seen modern-day photographers show them on their websites or offered them in packages so I never gave it a second thought when I was shooting weddings. Then I move down here and all I hear about are bridal sessions. And lemme tell you, Northerners, y’all are missing out! 😉

A bridal session is so much fun! You get to spend an afternoon taking pictures of a beautiful woman in a beautiful location and you’re left with 255-too many amazingly beautiful portraits of the bride! It is a dream session for women who love having their pictures taken because there’s no one there to get mad when we suggest 1,000 more poses *cough, the guys, cough, cough*. 

So this particular day, we met at the Graystone Inn which a gorgeous Victorian era bed and breakfast in downtown Wilmington. This is where her and future hubby would spend their wedding night together and where she was going to get ready with her ladies on the day of the wedding so the owners were gracious enough to open their doors to us and we had the run of the enormous mansion. We did some shots inside and outside then we headed to the waterfront to finish the session.

I’m not sure how bridal sessions are supposed to go. All I know is we had a lot of fun, took a lot of pictures, got creative with poses and I was left with way too many good shots to choose from. Of course, the intention behind this session is to have one good picture to post at the wedding reception. It was a hard decision, as you’ll see, but in the future post of their wedding you’ll see which one she ended up loving the most!