Out of Twig Photography

It’s the real in-between moments that tell a wedding story. Parents coming over to hug the newlyweds, the nervous excitement, the goofy friends. When guests are making toasts, Karissa Grantham likes to turn her camera around and snap the crowd’s reactions, seeing them clink champagne flutes and hug each other.
 
“I snap the whole time using digital,” she says. “That way you can go through the pictures from the day and they play out like a movie.”
 
These are the fleeting moments of bliss and heartfelt organic beats that Karissa and Jeremy Grantham — the husband-wife team behind Out of Twig Photography — seek out and focus their lenses upon.
 
Growing up in California, Karissa first picked up a camera in high school. She moved to Virginia in 2007 to attend Liberty University in Lynchburg, graduating with a visual arts communication degree. She started out photographing vintage clothing she’d collected and sold online before easing into engagement shoots. Her business name, Out of Twig, spawned from British slang for being in or out of fashion.
 
Karissa began shooting weddings full-time in 2016 and brought Jeremy — a woodworker by trade — on as a second shooter and partner in 2018 after the two eloped in St. Martin. (They shot their own Caribbean wedding with a tripod!)
 
“We work great together and it was a natural fit,” Karissa says. Today, they’ve shot more than 300 weddings.
 
Out of Twig gets to know couples through a detailed planning and research phase, followed by a wedding package consult over coffee and nailing down a specific day-of timeline plan. They arrive 1.5 hours before couples get dressed, capturing hair and makeup, ceremony set-up, and finishing touches. As guests arrive, they’re in position capturing the sweetest moments from at least two angles.
 
“I try to blend into the crowd as much as I can,” Karissa says. “I don’t like to take over and bring the attention to the camera. The more natural it feels, the more comfortable the photos look.”
 
Out of Twig’s wedding photography style rests in the middle of light and airy and dark and moody, calling on detail and rich color and displaying a cinematic quality that flows like a movie of your wedding day. Karissa and Jeremy appreciate the couple’s desire to focus on what’s most important to them — whether that’s music, food, or the ceremony.
 
“Couples are doing what they want. And they’re really happy with the way the day goes,” Karrisa says. “With photography, we fit into that and make sure we capture what they want to hold onto.”