Every year, around this time, Chris and I leave the Bello homestead to meet with other married wedding photographers from all over the north east, to hang out, recharge the batteries, talk shop and, of course, have some serious fun.

This year’s venue for the this year’s We Click retreat was a 6 bedroom house near Killington, VT. A little skiing, a little hot tubing,  a lot of eating, tons of fun, some shop talk, and inevitably the cameras come out. This annual retreat - now in its 3rd year - is organized by our fabulous friends Matt & Enna of Grazier Photography. Thanks guys we had a blast! Here is this year’s cast of characters (Photo courtesy of the very talented John & Kim Sanderson of Sanderson Images):

Check out their blogs for more images from the retreat.

From left to right: John & Kim Sanderson of Sanderson Images, PA; Matt & Enna (& Jackson) of Grazier Photography, MA; Team Bello - that must be us! ; Justin & Mary of Justin Marantz Photography, CT; Paul & Laura Eaton of Laura Eaton Photography, PA; Paul & Crystal of Studiofoto, CT. Sadly, Larry & Tabitha Sherrell of Sherrell Photography, MA, were unable to make this year’s retreat, but they did stop by one day for a visit…unfortunately, just not this day.

On the last evening, all of the gear came out and the photo frenzy began!! Here, Matt takes a portrait of Crystal…hello close up!

Justin Photographing Paul & Crystal, with Laura & Paul getting in on the action

Laura showing off her one handed technique!! Don’t try this unless you’re a professional!

Paul chimping …

Chris chimping as Matt entertains Paul!

Crystal - with Chris & Mary - modeling the Eatons’ very sweet 50mm f/1.0 Canon lens. I’ll be asking Santa for that baby this year!

Matt finally got Chris in the spotlight for a portrait. Can you tell she’s not used to being the other side of the camera? It helped that Matt is a total clown!

Then i jumped in for a few. This is one of only a handful of photos we have of us together. Cheers Matt. It’s a keeper!

And thanks to the Sandersons, I have this cool shot of myself! I quite like it, if I do say so myself!!

All in all, it was another fun retreat. Cheers Matt & Enna for organizing everything! You guys rock! We had an awesome time and can’t wait for next year! Although, I think next year, I’ll be skipping the late-night dash out the hot tub climb up a snow-covered hill and race back down with a roll antics!!! You wouldn’t guess it, but icy snow will seriously cut up warm soft flesh. Ouch! It was fun though….and definitely funny to watch.

Check it out :

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video courtesy of Laura & Paul Eaton of Laura Eaton Photography & their cool 5D MkII

make sure the video players volume is on!

Happy First Day of Spring everyone! We don’t know about you, but we are soooooo looking forward to longer days, warmer weather and the feel of sand between our toes. Today was the perfect start to spring and we noticed in our garden some signs that promise greener things to come.

Spring’s first flowers…the crocus. Welcome, welcome, welcome!

With its flower blossoms, our pear tree is looking as eager as we are for warmer weather.

Hope you enjoyed today!

xo Chris & Andy

One of our favorite Cape wedding reception spots is the picturesque Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee. So, when we were asked by the management to do some photos for their website & brochure, we were honored and also excited at the prospect of doing something a little different for us.

We met the club’s very sweet and very talented head chef, Chef Paul Cunningham, who whipped up some of his new signature dishes for us to photograph….staring at these tantalizing tastebud treats made concentrating difficult. We were also there to capture members enjoying an evening at the club’s Grill Room. It was a fun change of pace for us and we even got to sample some of the delights from the kitchen. Next month, we’ll be doing some photographs for the club’s real estate division and fitness center.

We’d like to extend a big thank you to Randy VanTassel, Banquet Manager at Willowbend, and Catering Manager Ann Marcotte for making this happen. And, our thanks wouldn’t be complete without a big thank you to Chef Paul for filling our bellies so joyously!

Here’s a few of our favorite shots:

Chef Paul

Signature dishes….be warned…if you’re at all hungry, you may want to skip past these; they could put you over the edge!

Club members enjoying dinner in the Grill Room:

Willowbend at night:

Last summer, at the ridiculously fun Willowbend wedding of Molly & Guy, we had the pleasure of working alongside Hyannis-based make up artist Vanessa Lees. Vanessa recently asked us to take some headshots for her to use on her new website and in some marketing materials. While weddings are really more of our thing, we’re happy to help fellow wedding vendors, particularly ones as nice as Vanessa.

The session took place at Salon By Design, where Vanessa works both as a make up artist and esthetician. We had a great morning together and got some fabulous shots. During our time together, we came up with some ideas for a cool 5″ x 5″ tri-fold card/brochure, which is a product we also offer our wedding clients as unique Save-The-Date, Thank You and/or holiday cards. This was the first commercial product we have done and the results are pretty cool so we thought we’d share them:

That’s Vanessa’s face on the front of the card. Open it up and you see the pink page on the right, and the “Making Dreams Come True” page on the inside of the front cover. Open it up all the way and you now see a photo of Vanessa with her bio and contact info and all her pricing info is in the center spread…pretty cool, right?

And here are Vanessa’s favorite photos from our session together, both of which were used in the brochure.

Thank you Vanessa for being such a fun model!!