VERMONT WEDDING PARLOR

We were recently introduced to a wonderfully talented photographer by the name of Kathleen Porter.  Having never met Kathleen in person but admiring her work over the past few years, we were very excited to get to catch up and spend some time with Kathleen at our holiday party last weekend!  Her work is very stylish and approachable with a vast repertoire  of weddings in addition to intimate and fun family photography.  Please read on and get to know Kathleen a little better from our Q & A below.  We are very proud to be able to feature Kathleen as one of our talented wedding photographers at The Vermont Wedding Parlor. We think she is awesome, we hope you do to!

How did you initially get involved with weddings?

My father was a wedding photographer, so I have been around weddings and photography since I was a little girl. When I was old enough to carry his bag around and label rolls of film, he would take me with him to the weddings. It was a looooong day to my 10 year old attention span, but I loved seeing the brides all dressed up. When I decided that I wanted to pursue photography, I did not think much about doing weddings and instead studied photojournalism and the ethics of journalism. It was not until my junior year of college that I interned with a wedding and portrait photographer that I decided, weddings might just be the thing for me.

What inspires you about working in Vermont?

Colors, landscapes, light. Vermont has some very beautiful landscapes that range from open fields to rolling hills to dramatic mountains. I love that I can photograph with several distinct natural backdrops during a given wedding. Many of my traditional portraits of a couple include a vast view of the landscape around them. They chose to be married in Vermont for many reasons and the beauty of it was likely one of them! I love to include that as part of their story. Vermont also has very lush colors depending on the season. Just coming out of Fall, my wedding portraits look like watercolors! A mix of gold, red, green, and orange. Perfection!

What is your favorite part of the wedding day?

Well…I’m a bit of a die-hard romantic and as cliché as it may sound my favorite part of the day is the ceremony. Inevitably I get teary eyed. I am watching everyone during the ceremony; bride, groom, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, and get to see a lot of emotions up close (long lens!). I cannot help but to be dragged into the love and joy of it all! The look a father gives his daughter when he gives her away, the tear on a mother’s cheek as her son reads his vows, the way a bride smiles up at her groom softly while a prayer is being read, the way the groom flexes his hand after his bride has put on his ring. It’s pure, lovely romance!

How long have you been in the wedding industry?

I photographed my first wedding as “Kathleen North Photography” the summer of 2007 and have been building my business ever since! In 2009 after I married my sweetheart, I shortened the business name to “North Photography” as homage to my dad and my maiden name.

What are you passionate about? What motivates you?

I am passionate about providing my clients with the best customer service they have ever experienced. Yes, I am a photographer and yes, I make some pretty nice images, but I also am running a business and I believe that awesome customer service is what makes a business unique. I want couples to hire me not only because they love my work, but because they want to work with me. Recently I bumped into my 6^th grade teacher at a wedding that I was photographing and she said, “In 6^th grade, you were no good at math, not very good at science and talked waaaaaay too much in class…this is a perfect career for you!”

What sets you apart from your competitors?

My ability to go with the flow, keep a level head, and multi-task. Your wedding day can be a little stressful and things can go not as planned, so my goal as your photographer is to be the neutral party that is willing to help in any way possible, so long as I am not missing a fabulous photo op! I have fixed hairdos, sewn wedding dresses, retouched make-up, gotten water, given hugs, dabbed sweat, passed out gum for nervous tummy’s, warded off unwelcome guests, pinned flowers… No, I am not your wedding planner nor am I a good replacement for them (wedding planner’s rock!!), but I want your wedding day to be just as perfect as you do, so anything that I can do to make sure that happens, I do! And I do it with a smile. In the end, your wedding day will have been a perfect love story and with each love story comes a few dramatic notes that make it an even better story to tell!

To learn more about Kathleen’s Photography services please visit her website for Vermont Wedding Photography.