our florist

so we finally finished choosing our wedding vendors and booked our florist, which means we can concentrate on important things like dance lessons and table cards.

after looking at several well-known florists in san diego, we decided to book with sweet pea floral company (website coming soon), a small florist run by michelle shumard. we met michelle through her sister stephanie, whose wedding we'll be photographing later this year. we instantly clicked and it was important to both me and james to pick vendors who we really liked.

here is a sample of what i hope my bouquet will look like, courtesy of our fabulous photographers, the youngrens:

all images from jeff youngren photography

launch of our portrait and kids site!!!

the time has come, it only took a year to build out our kids and portraits site, but it is finally here. if you want to access the site directly, without going to our home page, you can visit it directly by clicking here.



the new site currently features some of our favorite children's photography, and we'll be adding galleries over the next few weeks, so please check back regularly.



to celebrate the launch of our new site, we are offering portrait sessions for $125 through the month of january. these sessions can be used anytime throughout the year, so take advantage of this promotion to get some amazing portraits. think of all the holidays coming up -- valentine's day, mother's day, father's day -- all covered with some fabulous portraits.

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...