Jenny & Brandon's Wedding!

My friend Jenny is now married! (well ok, she's been married for over a month now, but I'm still excited!). So maybe some of you remember that VERY rainy day at the end of April? Seriously, it wasn't just sprinkling, it was POURING!!! I was getting very nervous for the pictures afterwards. I was thinking to myself, "It's a very good thing that we did groomals beforehand." And that was very true. However, we were very blessed because literally 5-10 minutes before they came out of the temple, it completely stopped raining! It really was a small miracle (big to me!) that day. But of course that day prompted me to get a "rain-coat" for my camera (which I had my bro-in-law get while we were in the temple). Now maybe I'm ready for any kind of weather. But I was so grateful that we were able to do pictures of everyone without lots of umbrellas and wet hair :) It was a very fun adventure!

Well here are some pictures of Brandon & Jenny!

As you might have noticed in the first picture, these two were way practiced on the "dip and kiss." Jenny trained him good :) And I absolutely love the expressions found on the right hand side of this picture (especially Grandpa taking a picture too!)

That's my funny friend Jenny and her cute personality!

I seriously love this family! I love this next one of Jenny and her brothers.

And they are VERY protective! :)

Ok, so my personal moment in this post . . . Jenny & I! Seriously I love this girl! She's the best! Our friendship started in 9th grade, as I was the "new girl" to the school. I feel like I'm a pretty good judge of people. And I was drawn to Jenny as my friend. I just sensed her goodness and happy spirit. We have had some great times . . . she was one of the few friends who would totally be ok with "imagining" our future husbands and giggling while we described how they'd be. We both were romantics together, and it's so fun to see who we now ended up with! I don't think we could have imagined how great our husbands are - 'cuz they're pretty amazing! I'm just so happy that I had the opportunity to still be Jenny's friend and have the opportunity to take her wedding pictures and see how happy she is with Brandon.

Ok, here we are together as friends!

Ok, now on to a couple favs of just Brandon & Jenny on their wedding day!

A little different edit:

It was an amazing experience being able to be there to see Brandon & Jenny seal their love for eternity. Brandon scored big! And also I am so happy for the awesome guy that Jenny got! I wish them all the happiness and love possible!

Brandon is a goof! But perfect for Jenny!

This was at the very end before they headed to the luncheon. Jenny looks great in that suitcoat!

Ok, now the night before for their reception, I was the "un-official" photographer. Their reception was incredible! It really was for being in a church cultural hall! Jenny had her aunt help out with lots of the details and it really was a beautiful reception! So I did take some shots, especially of some of the details! Let me share with you what they did:

Candy table! (I sort of wish I'd come early to get the full effect of this table . . .but these couple shots will have to do):

Ok, so I'm bragging for Jenny's aunt, family, friends, etc. or whoever made these: They had PAPER, yes paper, flowers! Jenny's aunt taught them how to make tissue-paper flowers, which they spent months beforehand making. I could not believe the detail that was involved with making these, and not to mention the quantity in which they had these at the reception!!! It saved lots of money, was totally gorgeous, and could be kept for many other occasions because they will never die (of course unless a two year old or something gets their hands on them ;)

Isn't that so cool?

And get this . . . they hung this real tree branch with those paper balls from the ceiling too! It turned out really cool!

And look at the decorating involved: they brought this cute picket fense, pillows, white bench, trees, pictures, and lamps to make the line look so cute. Of course I snagged a picture of the couple.

Jenny and her Dad! I have high respect for her dad too. He was always rooting Jenny as well as me on during our high school basketball games. He and his wife are so great at supporting their kids with all of their sports. They never miss a game! Like I said before, I love this family!

Mother of the Bride. Tender moment too.

I actually really liked this bouquet toss picture! It might be my favorite to date! Lots of action ;)

End with my favorite dancing pictures

Seriously it was so fun to be there and capture one of my best friend's wedding! She is so happy and of course that makes me happy too! Hope you enjoyed your sneak peek Jenny & Brandon!

Ashlee - 2009 Graduated Senior!

Meet Ashlee . . . one of those awesome '09 seniors who recently graduated! I had so much fun hanging out with her and her mom for her senior pictures! It was one of those days that looked like it was going to rain, but didn't! So of course we had beautiful lighting!

Ashlee's going to hair school right now and pursuing that avenue. Her red hair is so fun and vibrant! Especially next to all the beautiful spring green! We had lots of fun accessorizing with all of her clothes and shoes! I am really happy with the way it all turned out!

Oh yes and of course one of these days I'll update my senior gallery with some other favs which I saved from this session just for that!

Well enjoy!

I had a little fun with mirrors and a wide-open aperature.

Love this next one. . . I feel like she's some mysterious beauty out of some storybook.

Love the green as well as the "flirty" look! Rock it Ashlee!

I sure loved the red heels!

Beautiful Ashlee!





Congrats on graduating! Good luck on your next adventures in life!

Shout out to 2010 Seniors . . . contact me soon if you're interested in a fun, stylized senior session!

Tenderness

Tenderness is what I think of when I see all three of these pictures...

I'm overdue again for more sneak peeks . . . .and full posts, but I'll get to those sometime this week. This first one was just too precious not to post. I was really excited to meet this family and photograph their newest addition. Big sister was enjoying modeling for me, so it was a perfect moment to capture with her now 2nd brother.

And ok, round 2 for sneak peeks. . . these next two were NOT taken by me!!! Bear with me . . . I'm going to brag a little!!!
From my last post, you all should know that I finally got my new camera. Well there were a few reasons that prompted me to save up and purchase that camera. But one of those reasons came about one night as I rambled about some photography to my husband (he gets LOTS of those talks on a very frequent basis). Well one night in particular I mentioned my desire to get a new/backup camera for all these weddings. And one sentence sealed his fate: "Maybe once you get your new camera, I could second shoot with you." Yeah, he meant 'maybe,' but I was too excited to see a spark of interest that he couldn't take that sentence back.

One of the main reasons I decided to make an 'investment' in teaching my husband photography, is because for the most part, he knows more about my camera than I do! He's always teaching me and is the kind of guy who if he doesn't know what something is, does everything he can to figure it out. Sometimes I'm just not curious enough, as long as I get my pictures looking the way I want them to. But he always has been pushing me to "do my homework" (I thought those days were over!). If I noticed a problem with some of my images in the beginning, he'd always know the basic answer using his knowledge of physics. Well knowledge in physics doesn't always make you a great photographer. But because he did know the camera well enough to shoot in Manual his first time, he was a big step ahead (for comparison, it took me almost over a year to be shooting in full manual and getting the shots almost perfect out of camera.) I just wanted to see if it was something he might enjoy doing with me.

Well I'll let the next 2 images speak for themselves when it comes to how he did. (Ok, so yes I do the editing, we have a stumbling block when it comes to John editing his own images - color blind. But I did minimal editing on these. They really did turn out beautiful out of camera.)

The next one is definitely one of my favorites that he's taken!

Um this last one . . . I pretty much squealed when I saw it for the first time! And again when I saw the finished product! I can honestly say that I LOVE working with my husband when it comes to photography. We are a great team, and he lets me take the lead (he says it'll always be that way - I'm ok with that). He does have the advantage of capturing what I set up and position, my great equipment, and one on one time analyzing various shots, but the key is that he knows how to position himself at a different spot than me, and still find a beautiful moment. He knows the kinds of shots that I want, and did a great job at achieving what I wanted him to.

I have no idea if this will be permanent or not. He's giving it a few months fair chance to see how he likes it as well as how it all works with our family life. But if for nothing else, in the end at least he'll start to be a little more creative so that he can take some precious pictures of Caleb and I together, so I'm not the only behind the camera all the time! Haha!

Yeah so if you liked the pictures you saw from Johnny, leave some comment love! I'm sure I'll post more of his pictures along with my own in the final wedding post (which I'm really excited about the pictures I got too! - don't worry!) Great stuff to come!

Thanks for stopping by!

Greg & Shandi's Manti Temple Wedding

It was a beautiful, perfect day in May. The wind blew very softly, just enough to give life to the beautiful blooming flowers and trees. This was the day that Greg & Shandi chose to seal their love for forever. After knowing each other for over 4 years now, it makes it even more perfect to be finally married to your best friend.

Isn't her ring so gorgeous and unique? I just loved it!

I love this next one:

So this next one was taken at the spot where Greg proposed to Shandi last year! That's right these two had been engaged for a year. How amazing is it that we were able to come back to that same spot a year later with the flowers looking very similar to the way they looked a year ago? Everything is just so perfect in the spring, as well as a newly married bride and groom.

Love this next one as well:

Now we start heading back down for the reception . . . so here's a fun story for you all: I had ordered my new Canon 5D Mark II a week or so ago, and it had been on schedule to arrive this very day. Yeah kind of cutting it close there, I know. Well I went through all of this effort to make sure that I could go pick it up from UPS, and after that I figured everything was all good. I might have had to go pick it up around 7am in the morning if I wanted to use it for this wedding. However, the night before I called the UPS lady and she said that it probably would not arrive till the next week because it wasn't shipped when it was billed. Ahh!! So frustrating!!! Well I prepared for disappointment and planned on just using my faithful Rebel.

While driving home from Manti, I so happened to check my husband's blackberry. (I loved that thing! I checked my email a little too often . . . but alas! It's not our phone anymore. Oh well.) So I checked the phone and . . . I got an email saying that my camera had finally made it! Yay!!! So between the morning wedding and the evening reception, I picked up my snazzy new camera and luckily had a few hours to figure out the differences. Let me tell you . . . I don't think I could easily go back to my other camera. This camera rocks!!!! Especially in low light situations (which was my whole motivation to get it). So there's my interesting story.

Back to the real story for this post (but yes all of the reception pictures were with my new camera).

I just adored their wedding cake!

Their reception was located on the roof at Noah's, which was perfect for that day with a nice cool cross-breeze the entire night on a summer evening. And it also made for beautiful light.

I was so thrilled with the way they displayed all of the photographs from their engagement session and groomal session. They had big enlargements all over the reception center. But this next picture was my favorite. A very large-sized mounted and textured picture from their groomal session. Pretty sure it's a 16x20 print, and isn't that just amazing?!! I love seeing when my clients love their pictures enough to print BIG!

Ok, so aren't they just the cutest? I loved catching this moment when they were totally oblivious to what they were doing. They are paying attention to different people (Greg's flirting with his cute nieces), but subconsciously, they are aware of the fact that they want to keep holding hands . . . no matter the distance :) It was just too cute.

Greg and all the crazy guy friends! I loved this shot!

Headin' out to the decorated car.



Driving off to their honeymoon in Hawaii!!! (yep kinda jealous . . . ;)

Congratulations to you both! I had soooo much fun capturing this special time in your lives which was long anticipated!

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think!

Eleena - Senior Session

Meet Eleena . . . a graduated senior of '09! She also was the winner of the 2009 give-away session contest that I did back in January! We waited until the weather was nice and green to do her senior pictures! I had so much fun hanging out with her for the evening and capturing her fun personality! She really was amazing at giving me lots of different looks, and I now have some great stuff to update my senior gallery on my website (of course I saved some favs for that!)

Enjoy!

Yummy, green, spring-time grass!

The Many Faces of Eleena!

Thanks for entering my contest Eleena, and letting me photograph your senior pictures! Congrats on graduating!