Saturday, April 11, 2009

wedding: lindsay and michael




lindsay and michael got married last month at the shadowridge country club in vista, but it took us a bit of time to get the photos processed since their wedding was the weekend before ours, but we are sure you will think it was worth the wait. we are posting the first half of the wedding now and will have the rest up shortly, so check back soon!

lindsay and michael were not only a ton of fun, but are two of the most photogenic people we have met. we noticed this first when we did their engagement session, where they both swore that they hadn't done professional pictures before, we say yeah right!

i spent some time with lindsay and her girls while they were getting ready, and james hung out with michael and his boys. we've noticed a trend in weddings (including ours!) where the grooms love to be the center of attention, and michael was no exception...













lindsay looked so amazing we couldn't stop photographing her all day...








michael and lindsay chose to see each other before the ceremony, which we love since it gives us so much more time to get some really great pictures. here are a few of our faves...













check back soon for part two of this post!

Friday, April 10, 2009

baby payton has arrived!




we met chrissy and taylor last month for a maternity shoot, and they told us they were due on march 17, which was about 10 days before our wedding. we were a little nervous since we were sure we would be running around like crazy the week before, but we were able to get over to their house and get some great pics of baby payton before she got all fussy.

we like to get the babies within the first few weeks of their birth, because they like to sleep a lot and we can usually mold them into cute shapes, but not payton, she was only asleep for a few pictures and then wanted to be part of all the action...















i love her squished up face here...



look at how small her foot is!





congratulations chrissy and taylor on the arrival of such an adorable little girl, we look forward to seeing you in a few months when she is sitting up!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

chrissy and taylor: baby on the way

its been so long since we posted any of our photo shoots that chrissy and taylor have already had their adorable baby, and we have already done photos! anyways, here are some of our favorites from the maternity shoot that we did last month...

we started near the coronado ferry landing, where we had a great view of the city, and chrissy and taylor were fantastic models...













after a quick outfit change we headed over to the little park near the bridge where they have all these overturned boats...







chrissy looked absolutely amazing and was completely at peace here...




and taylor was truly happy and excited, even if we were playing paparazzi a bit!







we would normally say that we are excited to meet your new addition, but since we already have, we'll just say congrats again, and we are happy to be part of your lives. we'll be posting the newborn shoot soon, so check back this weekend.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

back on the blog--our wedding details




as many of you know, james and i had been planning our own wedding over the past few months, and we just got married on saturday, march 28, so that explains our very long absence from the blog. we are super far behind in posting, but i wanted to take the chance to share with you some of our fabulous pictures, posted on our photographers' blog and our wedding details as we have had some questions on where we got everything.

here are the details: we got married at the la jolla financial building, which has an awesome patio and is catered by norm bradley at the imperial house, and is super affordable. norm is so easy to work with and will do anything and everything to make your day extra special. andrea roy at gila rut salon in hillcrest was responsible for my amazing bridal hair (and the rest of the stylists at the salon did all the bridal party) and jennifer emerick from stila transformed me to be beautiful on my wedding day. and if you were wondering how james and i looked so buff (in james' case) or toned (in my case), we owe a special thanks to chris adams at 24 hour fitness in mission valley, our personal trainer who got us into the best shape he could (considering we didn't give up our cheeseburgers).

for the most part, we used smaller vendors with whom we had a relationship, and we weren't disappointed. jeff and erin youngren of the youngrens captured the magic of the day, and fit in perfectly with our wedding party--everyone commented on what a great job they did all night long, and they are super fun to work with. we are so glad we chose them as our wedding photographers, and knew from our first meeting they were the ones for us.

our cake was from crumbs of paris, chocolate and vanilla cake with chocolate chip filling, it was absolutely delicious--we got so many compliments which is rarely the case with wedding cake. all the flowers were done by michelle shumard at sweet pea flower company, she did an amazing job and designed exactly what we were looking for at a price that was extremely competitive. gary davis from sounds perfect entertainment provided all our entertainment, and he did an absolutely fabulous job not just with the music, but he made sure we never wanted for anything throughout the entire evening. the music was great and the party didn't slow down once (we'll post our playlist later). rae peterson provided our day-of coordination, and she did a great job ensuring that all the details were taken care of.

we bought candy and cookie jars from the container store and had our friends and family make cookies for the favors, super personal and very yummy, they were a huge hit with everyone and very affordable. the lanterns were from asian ideas, an online store that sells everything asian and ships it super fast. gary brought the lights and hung the lanterns (with a special thanks to atlas for the decorating advice!) which made the tent look magical for the reception.

finally, i got my dress from isis bridal, which is the perfect bridal salon, located in mira mesa. they have dresses in every price range and the service is excellent, so much better than the larger salons in the area. the bridesmaid dresses were from david's bridal, cotton with pockets, super-comfy and really affordable, and the shoes were from target. james got his and the groomsmens' gear from macy's--all calvin klein suits which we got at an amazing price, much better than renting.

we had the most amazing wedding, everything was exactly what we had wanted, and we are enjoying a relaxing honeymoon now in hawaii. we'll be back posting pictures soon, aloha!

Saturday, February 28, 2009

my bouquet

i posted a few weeks ago about our fabulous florist, sweet pea flower company. well i wanted to share a sample of michelle's work, a prototype of my bouquet. michelle and i talked several times about what i wanted, and she captured it perfectly. here are a few shots...








the main flowers are pink ranunculus, pink roses (ballet slipper), cream roses, cream liseanthus (?) and hypernicum berries. the cool brown things are fiddlehead ferns. can't wait for the wedding!

congratulations james!

after two long years of arduous studying, giving up weekends of fun for hours of cramming for exams, james has officially graduated!!! to celebrate, i got him a little surprise, something he had been wanting for a very long time...don julio real tequila. for those of you who know james, he is a tequila aficionado and has a huge, and now more complete collection.












and now its a 2-month break before he starts his masters program, just enough time to get married and go on our honeymoon :) congrats james, i am so proud of you!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

second time is a charm: gage



as a present to his good friend, one of our grooms who you might remember from last year asked us to do newborn portraits. we were super-excited to do these pictures, thinking of all the cool things we could do with the marine corps uniform and the baby. but alas, with babies, some things are just not meant to be. though we tried and tried, we couldn't get little baby gage to stop crying, except for a couple shots.







so we told alison and stefan that we would gladly reshoot the pictures, and 6 months later, we had magic. gage is super-photogenic, loves to smile, adores his daddy (and his mommy of course!) and is just an all-around great baby.









gage is really into his tongue right now, we couldn't keep it in his mouth for most of the shoot, but its adorable...



plus, alison and dave live in this great house that has this amazing natural landscaping--this was all literally steps away from the front door.








finally, we moved back inside to avoid the rain, and got the perfect family photo...




gage, we're looking forward to seeing you again soon, thanks for being such a great baby this time around :)