wedding preview: alison and dave

here's a little preview of the wedding we did last night in julian at the pine hills lodge. alison and dave chose to see each other before the ceremony, which gave us a lot of time for great pictures. here is the first look...




alison and dave braved the cold weather and wind to get some sassy shots before we moved inside where it was nice and cozy...








friends and family, click here to be notified when the rest of the pictures are online.

wedding: starlet and cesar

last weekend, i had the pleasure of celebrating starlet and cesar's wedding reception at the la valencia hotel in beautiful la jolla. although the weather was iffy in the morning, the skies parted just in time for pictures in the afternoon. we started out in the very picturesque "la sala" or living room, where there are lots of cool antique-y things.

















we then moved on to the lobby before we made it outside. because it was still a little wet, we didn't venture outside much, wanting to keep starlet's dress some version of white.




















starlet wrote the placecards by hand, in a very ancient form of her native language...




after lunch, we snuck outside to the patio to take advantage of the sunny skies and gorgeous surroundings...










we stopped for a few final pictures of starlet's dress, which she designed herself--attention all prospective brides, if you want a custom-designed wedding dress, just contact me for more info...










starlet and cesar, congratulations on a wonderful wedding and best wishes for a very happy marriage!

back to the gym

it used to be me so i shouldn't complain, but now that i am a 4-5 day a week gym goer, i have to gripe about how crowded it was tonight, as everyone who made a new year's resolution to get in shape appeared at 24 hour fitness at exactly the same time. i mean, who wants to wait in line for a treadmill when you can just as easily step outside and walk around the mall? it is tempting, but lucky for me, my favorite elliptical machine was open, so no shopping.

i think the biggest loser show also has something to do with the craze, i know i am amazed every time i watch the show and see people literally shrink to half their size. now i don't have time to work out for 6 hours a day and i don't eat salads and grilled chicken for every meal, but i do have a glimmer of hope that i can wake up one day and see a slimmed down me. i even took the "before" pictures of me and james so we could pretend we were on the show. and before our wedding, we'll bust through some paper screen to show off our newly toned selves.

so i guess i'll stick to getting up early to get to the gym, though it was 43 degrees outside this morning when i went (yes, i did go twice today, but that is just because i am now on a wedding countdown).

by the way, this whole business of getting in shape and looking good for weddings sure is expensive--between the personal trainer, the new eye creams, bridal bootcamps, the healthier food and the skin treatments, we'll be lucky if we have enough money for the food at the wedding. but as a final point to my relatively pointless post, our trainer at 24 hour (mission valley club) is great, his name is chris, and if you ever need someone to kick your butt into shape, he's the one to do it.

reichert family

later this year, we'll be photographing kalee and luke's wedding here in san diego, but kalee's mom didn't want to wait until august to get some beautiful family photos done. we met in la jolla right before christmas and did a combo of family portraits, a mini-senior portrait session, and a mini-engagement session, all in about an hour!

here are some of our favorite family shots...


























and some of the coolest senior shots around...













and finally, a little romance, a prelude to kalee and luke's wedding later this year...

wedding preview: starlet and cesar

here's a little sneak peek at one of the fashiony photos from starlet and cesar's wedding reception at la valencia hotel in la jolla. more to come soon...

our cake

i didn't think i would want to try tons of cakes, i usually like to make my decisions quickly and without tons of input, or else i suffer from information overload and cannot for the life of me decide. as an aside, how many times do you walk into target to get some shampoo or body wash only to find yourself standing paralyzed in the aisle, unable to choose because there are so many choices? i have to take james with me when i don't have time to linger because he just grabs the first thing he sees.

so when it came to cake tasting, i first chose two places, twiggs (which is right down the street from me) and flour power (which came recommended by a bride i worked with). the cake at twiggs was good, and the man who was helping me was awesome, i liked him instantly and it is a very cute place. they had the best designs too, very similar to what we are looking for. flour power smelled great and the cake was very moist and flavorful. but PRICEY!

so i added two more bakeries to our list--edelweiss (used by our caterer) and crumbs of paris (recommended by a friend). we went to crumbs of paris on a rainy saturday morning and the shop is small, but the ladies were very friendly. we knew we wanted to try the chocolate chip filling, and when we tasted it, we were in heaven--it was one of the most delicious cakes i have ever tasted. we headed over to edelweiss next and the lady there was also extremely helpful, willing to work with us on every detail. the cake was good--we also tried the chocolate chip filling--but we liked the crumbs of paris one the best. plus, they were willing to work with us on the design and price, and they don't charge extra for different flavor layers, which is a nice detail for us budget-conscious brides.

so we are thinking of doing something like this for part of our cake design (photo courtesy of vanilla bake shop) and then having another layer with a pink and brown ribbon.

well that's it for our latest update, almost done with all the planning, just a few more things to go!

happy new year!

well it was a fabulous 2008 and james and i spent most of today thinking about how 2009 could possibly be any better. and then it hit us, we are getting married in 2009, so that will top everything great that happened last year--our engagement, my promotion, my new car, james' new job, our business, etc.

as part of our plan to make 2009 even better, we are launching a new part of our website, targeted at family portraits, kids portraits, babies (and newborns), maternity and boudoir photography, so look for that soon. we will be featuring new promotions as part of our website launch, so check back on the blog to take advantage of these very cool deals.

as a little preview of some of the amazing pictures you'll see on our new site, here are some holiday photos we did of little sam and luke. they are somewhat frequent guests on the blog, and are so adorable, and sam was almost walking at only 10 months! luke likes to be a little stubborn, but that makes him that much cuter.