Jenna Leigh Weddings | Hawaii Wedding and Engagement Photographer
Mix an uber talented wedding and engagement photographer, a stunning couple, some beautiful mural art in an urban setting...and voila, you have Jenna Leigh Weddings behind the scenes promo film.
When I met Jenna at a photography meetup over two years ago, little did I know that we would immediately become friends who would spend every week "working" together on some project or event....I use the word "work" here loosely because we have too much fun and love our jobs way too much to call it work.
Fast forward two years, and now, not only do we share an office together downtown, but I assist her at most of her weddings and engagement/elopement sessions, (I have been to over 20 of them with her in the last yea!r), we've traveled to Kauai (read about our Kauai adventure here), and Maui, and we always find time to share our love of music as we travel to and from weddings and sessions. Man, do we ever make a great harmonizing team.
I so proud of the photographic art she produces for her clients, but even more happy to now call her my dear friend.
Jenna's passion for her work speaks for itself, she loves what she does and it shows in her photographs. Her couples rave about how they love her romantic style of shooting and how she captures the true romance between them. I have watched her work at over 20 weddings and can tell you first hand this girl LOVES her job and LOVES photographing love.
She is so passionate about wedding photography in fact, that she created the first annual Hi On Life Photography Conference which takes place here in Honolulu March 6-9, 2017 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. This is no ordinary wedding photographer conference, Oh no, Jenna's "go big or go home" motto applies here. She has world renowned, award winning wedding photographers Susan Stripling, Two Mann Studios, Jeremy Chou and many more super talented photographers speaking at the workshop, as well as three sunrise styled shootouts and three sunset styled shootouts, a private luau and an epic dance party to follow. Its shaking up to be a pretty epic three days, so if can skip on over to Oahu within two weeks or you are a wedding photographer in Hawaii and you haven't purchased your tickets, you need to get on it today! Everything Jenna touches turns to gold so I just know this is going to be an amazing conference.
The engagement promo shoot was filmed in the Kaka'ako area of Honolulu. This was such a fun shoot to film. The couple was gorgeous, the model couple looked like they just stepped off of the runway (the bride is Miss Waikiki and .absolutely stunning and the groom looked like a GQ Magazine model). The urban Kaka'ako setting was a perfect place, the juxtaposition between Christina and Morgan's stark black and white wedding attire against the color and vibrant urban backdrop looked amazing. And the PowWow Hawaii artist murals were on point as always and such gorgeous backdrops for their photos.
Typically Jenna's weddings are on the beach or at a more rural venue with a very romantic feel, so this shoot was so fun for me to film as it really shows how when somebody as talented as Jenna get's a camera in her hand, anything is possible.
It doesn't matter where her clients are, she always finds a way to use the landscape and her surroundings to create magical, romantic photographs for her clients.
I always love to watching Jenna work, she just gets "in the zone" and is so passionate about capturing that perfect moment between her couples.
For Romantic, Timeless, and Elegant & Epic
Wedding and Engagement Photography, get in touch with Jenna!
A few stills from the session...
Still images by Jenna Leigh Photography
Flowers For The Soul
As an entrepreneur, it is vital that you set aside time to focus on your well-being.
As a workaholic and perfectionist to a fault, I put 1,000 percent in everything I do, which means I give my clients and my family all my time and attention and almost ALWAYS neglect my own inner voice telling me I need a mental health break from the 24/7/365 mom-preneur life.
If I didn’t set an alarm on my computer to remind me to eat lunch or to get up and stretch or even to stop what I am doing to go pick up my kids from school…well I would probably forget them all. I try to keep a healthy balance on my home/work life (set office hours, no computer time until my kids go to sleep, leave my phone in the other room during the evening, etc), but the pull to work-work-work is real my friends.
So when my photographer friend Allison said she was attending a workshop at a floral boutique, I was excited at the thought, but I have to admit I had to stop and think about it….did I really want to spend money on myself…would my family be upset if I were gone for a Saturday afternoon….are there any edits I have pending that are calling my name to be finished, etc. I had to remind myself that I need a break from working so hard, and from being a mommy and from being glued to my phone.
We invited some girlfriends (who are all, of course, photographers) and I grabbed my big girl camera (you know, the one that isn’t inside my iPhone) and off we went to make floral crowns at Paiko. The Paiko ladies taught us how to make floral crowns, which are very similar to a traditional Hawaiian haku lei.
Once we all gathered the materials, surprisingly we all got really quiet (this is not the norm for our group) and quickly went into floral designer mode and created our masterpieces. This sense of calm came over me, my creative juices started flowing and time and space didn't exist. At that moment, nothing else existed except me and those flowers. There were several flowers to choose from, but my eye was drawn toward the tropical flowers and I decided to make a statement with my side flower crown design.
My brain sooooo needed this break from technology, from entrepreneur life, from motherhood and wife mode...if only just for a few moments. From now on I am going to make an effort to take more time for myself. We had an absolute blast and I don’t regret for one minute taking time for myself.
Afterwards we couldn't help but do a little mini photoshoot in Kaka’ako neighborhood and eventually ended up in front of the many fabulous Pow Wow Hawaii murals by local artists.
This little guy just "spoke to me" as we left the store. I just knew he needed to be a part of the Sweet Rain Media team. He's a mini succulent. I call him "Little Green". Don't judge. What, you don't name your plants?
Thank you to my gorgeous girlfriends photographed above, who made my day so fun...Allison of Allison Gipson Photography, Jenna of Jenna Leigh Photography, Colleen of Colleen Cordle Photography and Andrea of Mi Amor Photography. Love you girls!