Island Photography
Mike and Allie Hawkins
1. Name of Business?
Island Photography
2. What services does your business provide brides?
The husband and wife team of Mike and Allie Hawkins of Island Photography have been professionally photographing weddings for over 12 years from California to the Carolinas
3. Business Philosophy ?
We try to leave every situation, person and event better then we find it. For Mike and I, it is about taking care of the people who in trust us to capture their most precious memories. We LOVE what we do and hope it shows in our work!
4. What things help set you apart and make you unique on the Outer Banks?
First thing that comes to mind is that both Mike and I have been capturing weddings together for over 12 years. We can read each other so well and we love that we offer a male/ female and husband/wife perspective. NOW FOR THE BEST PART… Once we are finished shooting your wedding, the beautiful photos will be delivered to you on disc and YOU own the copyright to print and reprint all your favorite moments.
5. How long have you been in business and where?
We started our career in San Diego in 1997 right after we got married. We both have always had a passion for photography so we put the word out to some friends and co-workers and before we knew it we had done 800+ weddings in San Diego. We were ready for a change in 2005 and moved to OBX to be near Mike’s family.
6. What is some of your best advice you would give a friend who was going to be married on the Outer Banks?
Your wedding will be a once-in-a-lifetime photo event. Making your wedding photos spectacular has just as much to do with matching personalities and client relationships as it does with talent behind the lens.
On your wedding day, it’s important to have professionals you can trust to capture memories of your day’s events and forever document the special moments of friends and family. This said, go with your gut and find someone you trust to tell your story. Make good choices then let it go!
On your actual wedding day we believe “Brides shouldn’t wear watches!” Instead relax and enjoy the moment!
7. What is your favorite part of your job?
(Allie) I LOVE the getting ready shots and all the anticipation that builds for the ceremony! (Mike) I’m always 5 feet from the groom when he sees his Bride for the first time coming down the isle. That look on his face never gets old!
8.Where is your favorite place on the OBX?
Our house. We love being home and spend a lot of time in the pool or walking our dogs to the beach.
9. What are your favorite hobbies or passions beyond your work?
Mike and I LOVE to SAIL! We lived on a 50 foot Catamaran in San Diego for 3 years and just love the feeling of cutting the engines and hoisting the sails then letting go and letting the wind do the work… just magic!
10. Just for fun, what would your all time favorite meal be?
This is a hard one! Mike loves IN and Out Burger (west coast thing) and Allie loves crunchy taco’s.
Mike and Allie love their work
Mike and Allie Hawkins of Island Photography are a husband and wife team with more than 10 years experience photographing weddings together. Having begun their careers in San Diego, CA, they moved to Duck, North Carolina five years ago to take on new challenges and be closer to family.
Wedding photography is an interesting anomaly. It has just as much to do with matching personalities and client relationships as it does with talent behind the lens. On your wedding day, it’s important to have professionals you can trust to capture memories of your day’s events and forever document the special moments of friends and family.
Mike and Allie know what to look for, know where to be and how to capture the important images of your first day together as husband and wife, all while keeping things fun. This allows you to celebrate, relax and enjoy the big day.
Though specializing in wedding photography, Island Photography is a great choice for special events and family beach portraits too. As the premier photographers on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Mike and Allie are referred by many of the top venues throughout the OBX. These include: The Currituck Club and The Whalehead Club in Corolla, Duck Woods Country Club in Southern Shores, The Hilton Garden Inn in Kitty Hawk, and the Sanderling Inn and the Saltaire in Duck.
Mike and Allie travel the entire Outer Banks, including the Northern beaches of Corolla, Pine Island, Sanderling and Duck; the towns of Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head and Manteo; and the Southern beaches of Rodanthe, Avon and Cape Hatteras.
Island Photography’s goal is to produce images with personality; images that are fun and dynamic; images which convey senses of strong feeling and emotion. Mike and Allie love their work and would enjoy the opportunity to photograph your Outer Banks Wedding. Please call Island Photography directly at 252.489.8003 or visit their website at islandphotography.us. Live, Laugh, Love!
Island Photography’s Samples
Picture Slideshows
Wedding Pictures
Mike and Allie Hawkins
Island Photography Outer Banks, NC
252-489-8003
Island Photography is featured in these articles:
Allie & Mike,
Hi. Got the links. The you tube is so nice, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9RUT3UrMg thanks for putting our wedding song in it. The pictures are great!!!!! Thanks for all your hard work and being there for our wedding day. We are so glad we chose you to do our pictures, you two do an amazing job.
Thanks again,
Megan & Kyle
Allie-
I cannot stop watching this amazing video. You and Mike made our day so amazing and special and we cannot thank you enough! So many creative and fun ideas and you really captured “us” and how easy going/fun loving we are. Everyone from the wedding keeps talking about how amazing you two were. We really can’t thank you enough!
What a perfect capture of our day!
Talk to you soon!!
Brandon and Tracy
OMG!!! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!!
this is too great, we really thank you! perfect!!!!!
you’ll definitely know the next time we’re in the outer banks!
francesca loves it too!
CHEERS,
sheryll, tony & francesca
Hello Allie & Mike.
I wanted to tell you how please we are w/ the pictures on the you tube slideshow! They are truly AMAZING!!! Your ears should be burning b/c our family & friends can’t stop complimenting your work. Thank you for being so dedicated to your job and making these memories into beautiful pictures! We can’t thank you enough!!! We received the CD’s so quick and haven’t stopped looking at the pics yet
Just wanted to let you know we got our wedding album last week and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! We can’t stop looking at it and showing it off to everyone we know! Thank you both so much for all your time and efforts to make it perfect. Talk w/ you soon!
Jamie & Matt
Hi Allie,
I hope you are well.
We LOVE the pictures!!! You all did an awesome job. Everyone has commented on how good they are. You are amazing! The YouTube video is a great way to share the photos for those that just want to see them.
Thanks again for everything,
Jenna
Thank you so much for being patient with me during this whole adventure, I have so enjoyed all my pictures thank you so, so much! You and Mike are truly the best and one day if we have a family I am looking forward to having you and Mike capture many amazing photos of them as you have done for Vic and I. With your help and amazing talent this will be a day that I will never forget, and I will always enjoy looking back at all my photos.
Thanks Allie
Hi Mike and Allie,
We just want to thank you once again for making our wedding day so special. It has been six months since our wedding, and our friends and family still talk about the amazing pictures!!! We love every single one of them. Both of you made our engagement pictures and wedding pictures so much fun, we could not have asked for anything better. We hope all is well and we hope to see you again!!!
Luis & Candy
Allie & Mike,
I received the links!!! OMG amazing, breathtaking and magical. I had to watch the videos over and over as I was suppose to be teaching.. We are looking forward to the CDs and link to view all of them. So far… FLAWLESS and WONDERFUL. Thank you so very much for being there on our day. It meant a lot for my family and our friend that you two captured our love.
With love,
Melanie & Travas
Mike and Allie, thanks so much for the great pictures!! You guys really did capture the beautiful day and moment…..I will recommend you to anyone and everyone I know getting married…Thanks again!!!
Ashley and Jason Harrell
OMG!!!!!! Just got the photos!! I LOVE THEM!!! You guys work miracles! Thank you soooo much. Dave is gonna flip; he be back on Sat. from the fishing tournament. Thank you so very much again Allie adn Mike! We love you guys!
Eve
All I have to say is………… YOU ARE AWESOME!! We had such a blast
with you yesterday and you are sooo talented! Chip and I owe you one
big time! Thank you!!!!
Dear Allie and Mike,
Between the vail falling out the hair clips falling out, what to do before we left the house, hair spary and the reception- you are amazing and my saving grace 
Where do we begin?! We are so grateful to have you- Island Photography- as such an intricate part of our amazing wedding day. We both obviously knew that we struck gold the first time we talked over the phone and then meeting you guys too. However, if it weren’t for both of your expertise, I’m not sure the wedding would have gone as smoothly as it did. The moments that you were able to capture on camera are truly priceless. They bring tears of joy to my eyes when we see them. It is pretty amazing that the quality of pics taken by you take our breath away each time we view them. We were thinking about the first time we view the slide show you put together on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEWf3l0VEbk
and we were speechless. They are the most gorgeous wedding photos we and our families and friends have ever seen. Allie~ Just a personal thanks to you for keeping me straight
We are so appreciative of every thing you both did from the bottom of our hearts,
Paige and Chris
Allie
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for everything!!!! We had an absolute BLAST working with you and your wonderful husband Mike! You guys were the perfect pair for our wedding and helped us relax, and enjoy the day.
Thank you so much for sending the you tube slideshow out. We actually looked at them during our honeymoon and could not stop laughing and smiling. Truth be told we looked at this video every night before we went out while having drinks. It was a great reminder of the best day of our lives.
All of our friends and family had a wonderful time too and kept raving about you, and our other great vendors. We could not be happier with our choice to go to Duck for our wedding. Thank you again for making our special day so wonderful.
We absolutely recommend you and are grateful to have found such helpful, professional and generally great people you and Mike are.
Love,
Em and Mark
Hey Allie!
Oh my gosh I saw all of the videos on you tube ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. We also got the disc in the mail yesterday and looked at one of them last night. Thank yall so much for being there on our special day and capturing the moments that we will remember forever. I can’t express how grateful I am and again I am truly so grateful for everything that you and Mike did for us!.
Hope yall are doing well and hope to see you again soon!
Hi Mike and Allie! I know it’s been almost 2 years since our wedding in May 2009 on Mother’s Day, but I sincerely cannot thank you for the wonderful pictures you both produced. We currently live in Virginia Beach and one of my girlfriends picked up a wedding brochure in her hotel just for fun on her vacation to look through. However, there was a pleasant surprise to see a few of our wedding pictures in it with Jade (golden retriever ring bear) and the picture with the sunglasses plus groomsmen! That’s sooo awesome! We could not have asked for any one better to take a snapshot of our special day! We love you both and thank you sooooo much!
We absolutely LOVE the photos. Thank you so much for everything. I can’t thank you enough – the photos are amazing and we love the you tube video we’ve been able to share with our family and friends around the world. And, of course, Allie you were SO helpful in getting that veil on!
Best,
Chrissy
I just can’t say enough great things about you, Mike & Allie! Our photos turned out AMAZING and we couldn’t be happier with the results. One of the best things is how FAST we get our photos and discs! We loved being able to look at all the photos and relive the day while on our honeymoon. It’s obvious you love what you do and know how to do it WELL!
Thanks again,
Ian & Katie
Mike & Allie,
I don’t even know where to begin…you too were simply amazing! It was obvious that you both enjoy your job and have such a passion for photography! We are so pleased with the pictures, they are so beautiful. It’s certainly going to be difficult to choose the pics for our album. You hear horror stories about newlyweds not receiving their pictures for months and months but within 10 days after our ceremony we had our hands on the CD and not to mention the beautiful sneak peek of our pics on the precious youtube video you had created within only a few short days after our wedding! I can’t thank you both enough! We have received so MANY compliments and will recommend you to everyone! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
Love,
Kimberly & Jason
These look great! Thanks so much to you and Mike! I know my family will treasure these for years to come.
Best,
Lucy
Mike & Allie!!
Can’t believe we are close to our 1 year anniversary already!! Mel and I THANK YOU sooo much for all the hard work you both did and for sharing our special day with us!! You both did an amazing job!! It was such a pleasure working with the both of you…we had so much fun!! We LOVED the video on Youtube and getting our pictures within a week..we couldn’t thank you enough!! Mel and I absolutely LOVE our pictures and because of you we are able to relive our special day over and over again!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Absolutely wonderful! Such a professional experience we had – as my husband says – - “we loved everything about our daughter’s wedding but the photographers stood out above everything” – You two are truly special and we could not have asked for more.
Walt and Cindy Johnson
Allie, We loveeeeeeeee the pictures! Thanks so much! Polly
We just wanted to say thank you for being a part of our special day.
We couldn’t have asked for better photographers! We have had so many
comments on our wedding photos. Everyone has told us that they are the
best wedding pictures they have EVER seen! We will be recommending you
to family and friends who visit OBX. We look forward to having you all
take our family photos in the up coming years! Thanks again for
everything! We LOVE our photos!
Allie & Mike,
We LIVE to tell you how much we absolutely LOVE our photos and continue to LAUGH about the fabulous time we all had during our session in OBX.
Thank you for helping us celebrate the importance of family and capturing the best time of our lives!!
With Grateful hearts,
the Scribano & McCullen families
Back at ya – - – Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Bob and I cannot stop looking at our photos. Allie and Mike, you made our day even more special than we could have ever imagined. Thank you so much for capturing every special moment. You truly do the finest photography work I have ever seen. We will cherish every moment of our wedding not only because of our love for each other but also because of the very special moments you captured and that you both shared in our special day. We love you guys.
Mike & Allie,
We can’t even express how grateful we are for all your help and hard work on our wedding day and the beautiful photos that you captured! We had a very small wedding with only immediate family, but you were both so great with everyone, from 1 year old Aiden to his 77 year old Great Grandma whose claim to fame is being “allergic” to having her picture taken!!
The day flew by so fast and your photos really tell the story of our day! The YouTube video you created is just awesome and such a great way to give friends a glimpse of our beautiful ocean-side wedding!
We can’t thank you enough and would give you both our highest recommendations to anyone!
With Love,
Katie & Erick Anderson
“Yes, yes, I would use Mike and Allie again. We had such fun with them and they captured the very essence of our event. When we all viewed the youtube video we all cried so overwhelmed with joy, even my 2 year old grandson. The pictures were everything I had hoped they would be and more, and will be a special blessing in all our lives. Armstrong family”
Allie and Mike,
We wanted to let you know how much we LOVE the engagement and wedding photos, and to thank you for being so easy going, creative, and FUN to work with every step of the way. We’ve gotten so many compliments on the pictures that we’ve lost track, and an equal number of comments on how great you guys were about interacting with our guests, honoring their picture requests, and capturing every moment of the wedding without being at all intrusive or bossy. (to quote my brother, “they were like ninjas with camera!”) You made us feel like we were working with friends and not just photographers on our wedding day and really helped to make the whole experience even better than it already was. Thanks so much for being so great to work with and for taking such amazing pictures! I hope our paths cross at some point in the future.
Thanks again,
Jen and Brandon
Island Photography is who you want for your wedding day, dont waste your time looking at any other photographers.
Words cant describe how awesome you guys are. You captured our wedding day perfectly. The pictures tell our story perfectly, no words needed. You guys went above and beyond to fulfill all our wishes, even building me a ‘bridge’ so my dress wouldnt touch the mud! Amazing people and amazing work and we are blessed to have had you be a part of our wedding day.
Mike and Allie-
I am so grateful to the two of you, the pictures of Kate and Nick’s wedding are wonderful beyond belief. You captured the joy, love, and energy of that miraculous day perfectly. Allie I particularly thank you for the added support you provided Kate with her hair. We are lucky, lucky, lucky that you were our photographers.
Noel Walker, Kate’s Mom
Amazing pics!!! Enjoy!
xoxo
Kate
Mike and Allie
The photos are just marvelous. You both captured the beauty of the day, the place, the bride, the groom. All the excitement, everything! Thank you for sharing them with family so quickly . Your work is terrific. Again, your work was just magical. I wish I could take a photograph so beautifully.
Wil and Katie’s (9.16.11)grandmother,
Kay
When we started looking for photographers, I immediately knew at the wedding expo that if I had my choice of anyone it would definitely be Island Photography. So glad we chose you guys! The engagement pictures were awesome and everyone loved them…..now everyone loves the wedding and trash the dress photos! You both were so helpful, it was almost like having an additional planner. That is not something I even expected with a photographer. We knew we were in good hands, and it definitely shows. Love that there are the two of you, the videos, and all the images on disc….how could you go wrong with any of that? Thanks so much for making our day even better than it was!
Dear Mike and Allie,
Where do we begin?! We are so incredibly grateful to have you- Island Photography- as such an intricate part of our amazing wedding day. We both obviously knew that we struck gold the first time we talked over the phone and then meeting you guys too. However, if it weren’t for both of your expertise, I’m not sure the wedding would have gone as smoothly as it did. The moments that you were able to capture are priceless. They bring tears of joy to my eyes when we see them. It is pretty amazing that the quality of the pictures taken by you take our breath away each time we view them. We were thinking about the first time we viewed the slideshow you put together and we were both speechless. They are the most gorgeous wedding photos we and our families and friends have ever seen.
We are so appreciative of everything you both did from the bottom of our heats,
Paige and Chris
“The kindest hearts expect no reward and deserve it all the more. You give so much of yourself in the kindness you show and the lives you touch. That’s why you deserve a heartfelt “thank you” and a wish that all the goodness you share comes back to you.” We can’t thank you enough for photographing our wedding. The pictures were beautiful and we had an absolute BLAST working with you. Maybe in a few years we will be looking you up for family photos.
God Bless,
Jenna and Jon
Mike & Allie,
Thank you so much for the beautiful images! Thank you for being such a pleasure to work with. Thank you for all the little things you did to resue us on our big day! Thank you for truly capturing our vision.
Jesse and Rich
Dear Mike and Allie
Joey and I would like to thank you both for the wonderful memories you helped us capture with your breathtaking photos. We were honestly speechless as we looked through the pictures together… the two of you are amazing at what you do! Thank you for making it all so much fun! We had such a blast! Thanks again and again,
Katie Stauffer and Joey Krafty
Allie & Mike,
I just watched this you tube video again and finally can watch it without crying. 17 months ago you all gave Dave,me and our family the most wonderful day of our lives. Allie & Mike – you made it fun that day and every day since when we look at the pictures and the video. A year ago, just 5 months after we were married, Dave was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away on October 23rd. Our time together was shorter than we ever imagined it would be BUT we don’t regret one minute of it. Throughout the 9 months of Dave’s illness we often talked about the wonderful memories of our wedding and watched this you tube video more times that I can count. Thank you so much for helping make these memories so special for us.
Shannon Gallivan Bol