Tis the wedding season. I always have a lot of brides and grooms looking into photographers right…about…. now! Most of this can be found online through combing the blog, and it doesn’t include my last dozen sessions. Buuuuuuuttttttt, here’s a little video compilation of what we do here! I love watching this… it’s such a stroll down memory lane for me!
Hailey and Dave met when they were both teaching high school math. Bless them. They still work together to this day. They are a very natural and comfortable couple. It was great fun hanging out with them for a formals session just before their wedding day, and then on the big event. Some of the most gorgeous flower arrangements/centerpeices I’ve ever seen, you have to check out those below. Big props to whomever put those together for them, to my knowledge it was a friend! Wow!
I wish I had attended one of these before I got married!!!
This Saturday – January 28, 2011
10am-5pm
USU Student Center
Logan, UT
http://www.bridalfaire.org/shows.html
I’ll be there, will you??
IF you will be there, and IF you mention this blog post… well, there just may be something in it for you! 
I’m always excited to do family pictures for friends I don’t see a whole lot. This hot mama and her daughter live in good ole BC, so we don’t see enough of them. We’ve long joked that my son, Charlie and her daughter should be betrothed, and I really think they should! She is just the cutest, smartest, funniest thing you could see. While she wasn’t really interested in our idea of a photoshoot, she was having a fantastic time despite our efforts doing her own thing. She was playing and laughing and wanted really bad to get in the water. It all worked out in the end, always does, though toddlers always give us a run for our money, what you gunna do!? Anyway, check out these sweet girlies!
I try to stay pretty invisible, especially to people who are not the bride and groom who know they have to deal with me. I like it that way, haha… But if you ‘where’s waldo’ (yeah, I just made that a verb) these pictures hard enough you can find me in them!
Jake and Lisa are sweet and accommodating. They had a really lovely wedding day this last October. The weather probably couldn’t have been any more perfect and beautiful and the Riter Mansion didn’t disappoint. Their friends & family were there to celebrate and enjoy these two and you could tell it was a mutual. I wish these two the best in their journey and all the happinesses out there.
I’m starting my new years resolution to get the blog caught up one day early, how efficient and on top of it am I? Starting off the blogging spectacular with some from October… ooops!
So the Hansens are our good friends. It’s always fun to go out with them, we keep these things as light as possible, but not necessarily as warm. The last family picture we did in the snow, and while the setting was gorgeous we basically had someone crying at all times, haha, lesson learned. So we went a little warmer this year! Don’t tell the IRS, but these guys also always get their sessions free because Jeff happens to be a VERY handy craftsman, and I always have these crazy projects that start with statements like, ‘well maybe we could get Jeff to…’ Anyway, this was a pretty area, great colors and I hope you enjoy.
And lastly a quick word of advice: Families who want fall shoots including colorful leaves, talk to your photographer REALLY early (as in, start thinking and talking in July early), because for leaves in Utah you have to be on top of it. they often last only a very short time, and you need to have your clothes ready and be available with the first sign of color, just in case!
(This picture, is my absolute fav leaf throwing picture ever! Little dude on the left has just the best ever facial expression!)
So before I talk about this gorgeous couple… a couple random thoughts just from observing weddings so much. I have seen many brides make a couple of what I think are assumptions that may backfire and I’d love to help others from feeling any regret or being disappointed. So I hope this helps someone sometime. I never want to tell people, ‘do this’ or ‘do that’…it’s your wedding & I want it to reflect you! But just in my experience these are two things are things I hear/see a lot and I think the first in particular could wind up in a lot of post-wedding regret!
1. Many brides are under the impression that they can step away from receptions/events for a few minutes and get themselves a huge variety of beautiful portraits, like the ones below. In my experience I have yet to see this happen. In addition to the fact that a bride who is scheduled that tightly is distracted and the few minutes they thought they would have become less and less, but also beautiful portraits take time and effort to create! They take a little trial and error with what types of things work for the couple, it takes time for the couple to get comfortable with the process and ‘settle in’, etc. The portraits below are formals – meaning they got into their wedding clothes at an entirely different time/date from their wedding. We spent probably just over two hours shooting, and they were scheduled to be there till we got what we wanted. They did not achieve this in the 10 minutes they had between the temple and their luncheon. Bottom Line: If you want a lot of beautiful shots, you have to invest the time.
2. Many brides are under the impression that a bright sunny day is the only ‘good weather’ to shoot in. On the contrary, too bright of a day can actually limit our options for where and how we can shoot. On top of that, check out a few of the images below - the gray clouds and stormy feel of several of these images has stuck with me ever since I shot them (early October). I remember these, and they stand out for me. While sometimes the weather can be a bother to our comfort level, I say this to brides all the time, ‘it’s amazing how often what looks the best, felt the worst’. Be it bugs, heat, cold, uncomfortable surfaces, etc. In this case, our desire had been to shoot something a little sunsety, but what we got was very striking. Bottom Line: Be open to all types of weather!
Alright, on to this cute, cute couple. These guys are actually getting hitched on black Friday! Beat that, gianormous TV sales! They came to do these early and it was a lot of fun. We got rained out a little right at the end, but these guys were such good sports. And talk about a little model! Kristal worked it! Some people so have that skill… and I’m so glad, cuz if everyone looked like me in front of the camera, scarey! Check out these guys giving model face, and then you can look forward to their upcoming wedding events! See you guys soon!
So I was really excited when Jeremy asked me to shoot for their upcoming wedding. I haven’t really ‘seen’ Jeremy in a billion years, but waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy back in the day, we shared a bus stop. Jeremy and Shelli have a cute story. Turns out they have a lot of mutual facebook friends and Shelli kept seeing Jeremy’s picture under the ‘people you might know’ side of her facebook. So she kept seeing him pop up, thought he was kinda cute, so checked on who their mutual friends were and asked her cousin (I believe, don’t quote me) who was a mutual friend who he was. The cousin got into matchmaker mode and asked if she should hook up a blind date or something. Jeremy got an email that he should ask out her cousin who was in the same town as him, she thought he was cute, yadda yadda… Jeremy promptly filed the email in his ‘to do’ list. And like a true man, didn’t. Haha. So, long story short, they finally had that date. Jeremy had no idea he was in trouble for not calling immediately and Shellie decided to forgive him. Good thing, because it really worked out from that point! I asked Shelli if her cousin is pretty proud of herself for this one, she said, ‘yep’. Anyway, on to the pics, I had a hard time picking out which pictures to show for this session. Shelli is a pretty natural model, and they both look great! The locations seemed particularly lovely and this whole session went pretty smoothly. Of course they have weeds in their nice clothing, but I always say, ‘sometimes things that feel the worst, look the best’! We’ll see these two again several times on the blog, but enjoy for now!
The Shaffers came to do a mini family session with me in September. But it’s not a random connection, Amy I know from High School. Which lately feels like a million years ago, but it was nice to see her and chat. I hope that the hubby and kids didn’t feel left out, but we just had so much to catch up on! She’s a busy mom with these two little boys running around! With one boy running around I wonder how she makes it work! Boys, they are a handful! Check out this fun family, aren’t they sweet!
Lindsay and Shane got married up in Preston the last part of August. Lindsay picked out these locations as she was more familiar with Preston and she did perfect. We got lots of variety in a small area and thus a short amount of time. They chose to do the couple pictures (‘first look’ if you will) before the ceremony and I always think that is such a nice idea for the flow & fun of the wedding day. After the ceremony the couple is in party mode and the portraits take a little time and focus. When planning, the couple never thinks it will be a problem, but more often then not we find it’s hard to get ‘there’ when your mind is with your guests and your party!
Good luck & love in your future guys! You have the most precious daughter, she’s so beautiful!
(Their baby girl! She has the bluest brightest eyes you’ve ever seen!)
