Carolina Inn Wedding | Chapel Hill, NC | Tara and Cole

wedding

Mar 30

This is not your ordinary Carolina Inn Wedding.

Yes, it's pretty. Yes, it's classy. Yes, it is everything you would want to see in the always gorgeous Carolina Inn.

But this is less about the place and more about the story of how Tara and Cole got here.

Sometimes in life you find yourself at the end of your patience and you want to give up on whatever's got you down, because history has shown you that's what you're supposed to do. And so you let go, you move on. Then suddenly life throws you a curve ball, one you didn't expect but maybe really wanted, or as Tara told me your "world changes."

That's exactly what this whole Carolina Inn wedding was all about.

Tara and Cole had been previously married and both of them had nearly gotten to the point of accepting a life without a true life partner. I think that is a situation a lot of people find themselves in at some point in their lives.

Though Tara admitted that her background in science, she works to bridge the gap between politics and environmental science, allows her to be open to that which we do not understand. And so when she least expected it, she and Cole found one another and from the first date she said there was just this sense they both knew they were destined to be partners.

This is some real life fairytale stuff! This is every romantic movie ever made, and it played out for these two and their families.

So I knew, when Tara and Cole shared this with me that their intimate Carolina Inn wedding was going to be something truly special (and here are some of my other favorite intimate wedding moments). And it absolutely was from the moment I met them in the lobby until the moment I left them later in the evening.

Between their wonderful family and friends to their kids, it was such a beautiful evening. Tara's daughter was just as Tara had described to me, "a fiery free spirit", jumping up when Tara and Cole exchanged rings to make sure they were to her specs and planting a kiss on Tara's rear end during the ceremony to dancing and laughing all night with friends.

And Cole's two boys, both perfectly in their teens and doing what teenagers do best at these functions which is to be stuck between the adults and the too little kids. But they were awesome enough to let me make some portraits of them towards the end of the night.

I don't photograph a lot of January weddings, though I would love to photograph more (check out this other winter wedding), and Tara and Cole's Carolina Inn wedding, but their whole day was just an intimate family event and I was really humbled to be a part of it!