Branding Changes!!!!!!

I'm soooooo excited about some changes that I'm making to the site.... they are minor revamps, things to make the site look fresh... Revamping the logo, the site, business cards etc etc... advertisements and all that good stuff.... Such a process I can't wait to show everyone.... if you are on my myspace you've gotten a sneak peak but that's not what I'm going to go with so I'm taking that bulliten down!!!! You'll all just have to wait and see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maria and Chris Sneak Peak

This was one of my favorite photos from the wedding and I wanted to give everyone a sneak peak. I'm not done editing the photos yet but a blog and slide show are to come :)

I just might have the bestest Mom on Earth!

Tomorrow is my birthday, I will be 27 lovely years old.

I really really really hate birthdays because I hate getting old. I'm pretty sure this stems from always hearing my mom not want to turn 30, then not want to turn 40 and even today when I talked to her she was rather annoyed with the age she will be turning this year... LOL so It's instilled in me to hate getting older!

Anyway, Mom called me Monday all excited telling me about the package she was sending me for my birthday, she was all proud of what she had gotten and was very excited to send it off and for me to get it. If Mom still lived here I would have gotten these gifts long before my birthday cause the woman can't keep things to herself, lol, but since she moved away to PA she's been much better about hiding them! LOL (I would always have a knack for finding my presents weather birthday or Christmas and it always ticked her right off)

Anyway, I received her package today right before I went to lunch with Kimberly (who was born on the same day as me, in the same hospital, of the same year!.... so weird)

I rushed to open everything.... all my gifts were in a gift bag and individually wrapped in paper with words on it like... Wonder, Dream, and Love.... which is super thoughtful of Mom since it takes a lot of all three to start a business....









And each gift was hand picked by Mom to be very very thoughtful from my little shower set here that has a peticure brush and stone in it...


You think it's Vera Bradley but nope look closer.... closer! do you see it yet??? M-I-C (see ya real soon) K-E-Y (why because we like you) M-O-U-S-E!!!!

Yes... I'm a dork


I got a magazine with Ty Pennington on there... Mom knows I had a crush on him a while back and I love love love doing carpentry work.


She knew I was reading the book P.S. I love you but hadn't seen the movie yet so now I get to see the movie since I finished the book a week or two ago!!! so exciting... the the must love dogs... how appropraite for Wes and I... lol


And another book by the author of P.S. I love you!!!! yay!!!!!!


The book had a sweet note inside...


Mom has always been one to pick up things that remind her of us kids.... and in her note she tells me about the $$ she sent in my card to help me get my ring (blog and post about that later) and also things that she's been picking up here and there for months. If she still lived here I'm sure that as she picked these things up she would have given them to me right away because Mom sucks at keeping things a secret. I have the same issue I get it from her I suppose when I find something I know the person will love I want to give it to them right then not wait for the holiday or birthday!!!


This... made me cry... I love love LOVE these movies they are my all time Fav movies all three of them. And when Mom moved she took with her all the VHS tapes... all my disney movies, funny movies everything went with her cause I just wasn't really settled. And we don't watch VHS anymore in fact I don't even know if the VHS player works that we do have... so I have hardly any of the movies that I loved as a kid... and when I opened this and saw it was the collection of all three I broke into tears. My mother is just soooo thoughtful, she's got the little things down and all of these gifts really mean so much cause we are kinda far apart now and we don't talk all that often but often enough to keep in touch, and just knowing what little she did know about my day to day life she nailed all my gifts right on the head! Made me wish she was here to hug her as I opened everything!





And finally my card... Even down to the card folks! She knows I love fairies.... and my card is sweet and thoughful AND has fairies on the front... this has to be the best set of gifts I've gotten... This birthday has been a pretty good one... and it's not till tomorrow... I hope everything goes good tomorrow and it doesn't get spoiled... lol





Oh and one last final note... My card is a halmark card... LOL total inside joke!!!! I know none of ou will believe this but when I was growing up I was a bit of a pain the ass! LOL no sugar coating it for blog readers! I wasn't exactly easy to raise or get along with... When I was a teenager Hallmarks slogan was "because you care enough to send the very best" and boy did that get me! So no matter what holiday it was I got everyone a Hallmark card from the Hallmark store, no if's and's or butt's about it! My Mom worked across from the Regency Mall for years where there was a Carlton's cards (I think it that anyway who knows maybe I didn't spell that right) and would get me a card from there... I mentioed the slogan to her once... and I was truly upset that my card wasn't from Hallmark, and from that day forward all my cards weather graduation, birthday, Christmas or just cause from Mom have been from hallmark and on occasion she'll write on the back under the Hallmark logo... "because I care enough to send the very best" LOL!!!!!

Love you Mom!

Encouragement When I Really Need It....

So... I've been a little down and out lately... a few of my closest friends have had to listen to me throw essentially a pitty party for the past couple of days... but this email from a potential bride lifted my spirits!!!

I think I found who I am looking for......And YOU'RE the one, I have looked all over for a photographer who has a sense of style and has a portfolio as well put together as your is. I have a passion for photography as well so I too have that eye to capture something simple and make it beautiful.

I will talk with my fiance and let you know what he thinks, but in my honest opinion I would love for you to take our wedding pictures.

Starts out like she's about to let me down, and instead she gives me a huge high compliment! I'm in a much better mood now :D

Lets just hope her fiance goes for it!!! :D

Just to Blog

That's right, I'm blogging just to blog... I have to stay in the habit of these things or else everything gets all bogged down and I completely forget about doing this...

This weekend was a highly productive weekend for me... I had a couples shoot Friday, Small Wedding on Saturday and then Sunday we did the Dad thing.

Sunday, Pops came over to Granniema's house (yes I have strange names for just about everything and everyone) Wes and I made ribs (that we kinda messed up, but all in all they were ok) Granniema made corn on the cob and baked taters. It was a pretty good day. It's even nicer that Grandma's house is a pet friendly house so we got to take both IG's and Jersey with us....

Saturday's wedding didn't start until around 4:30 well the wedding was at 5:30 but I started at 4:30. I'll have to say that I didn't get a lot of time to get to know Maria and Chris, they answered all my questions and I knew they were a lovely couple and very fun and highly normal but I didn't really get a feel for either one of their personalities. I met with Maria a few months ago about the wedding and did the whole meet, greet, contract thing and we keep up a bit on MySpace but not as much as some of my other clients and I do. Her wedding was a total blast, it was at the LeJardin House on Park which is an amazing place!!! Simply amazing, great little venue!!! And everyone just had fun! Which is ideal when it comes to weddings... (no worries there will be a blog about that later :D)

Friday, I got to meet another Navy wife named Jessica! She made her hubby wear his working whites (you know the HOOOOOTTTTTT uniform) around Downtown Jax for their photoshoot. He was such a good sport about everything!!! It was a nice little shoot, good to be out in the afternoon air and get a little exercise in....

Speaking of Exercise I recently went in halfzies with Wes on getting a Wii and Wii Fit... that little machine and board are AMAZING. I've been doing it for 5 days now... (took father's day off) and I can feel a difference in my posture and the way I feel. I'm sore, and feel worked but in a good way. I can't believe this little thing works you like it does!!! It's so helpful cause it tells you when you are doing exercises correctly and scores you accordingly, cause you always want to better yourself of whoever else is using it so that's a very smart feature! I've been doing Yoga, Strength exercises and also some low impact cardio which is great cause Lord knows I'm never carting myself to the gym. I made a goal to lose 22lbs by Sept 13th! and I plan on getting there!!!!

Ashley and Shawn are Married!!!

Ashley and Shawn are about as cute as cute couples come and they are so in love!!! You can see all the emotion when they look at each other. And their Wedding was sooo beautiful!!! There were so many fav photos I had to use part of their engagement slideshow song also their first dance song (also mine and Wes' song) to fill in the space :D

New Signature....

My new photo signature... Drum roll please......




Matches the site and everything. I tried it out many ways, getting loads of advise from my myspace friends :) and finally came up with this and I feel I'm pretty settled on it...

However, the photos that I'm going to post from Ashley and Shawn's wedding have only the flowers at the bottom, I preped them for myspace before I nailed down the new signature....

Ashley and Shawn, Sneak Peak....

I posted this to my myspacers a few days ago, since I knew Ashley's maid of honor was dying to see something!!! LOL



This photo is so stinkin adorable!!! It was actually the grooms Idea not mine, but I love it!!!!

Also, my new photo border! looks just like my website right!!! that was the goal! :D I'm still torn on weather or not it's too busy or if it's just right. I guess only time will tell. I've asked around, of course but everyone says it's very elegant (which I'm totally cool with) I just don't want it to be overwhelming or distracting :)

Donna and Ricky are Married!!!

It was last summer I believe that I met Donna and Ricky. I went to their aunt and uncles house (who are also part time photographers, no pressure!!!) for a consultation. We did a total of two consultations there and the one thing I remember was Donna requesting loads of photos of people having a good time and of course any incriminating photos of people that were less than sober :D

Donna sent me friends request on my myspace page where I got to see more of their personalities. Donna is kinda obsessed with Batman and her and Ricky even dressed as batgirl and superman for Halloween!! There is an adorable photo of Ricky's grooms cake below that mentions Batgirl and her Superman









This is pretty well the first time I've done the jumping photo... turned out super cute if you ask me...


Donna has beautiful blue green eyes!!!!








This is bar none my fav photo from their Wedding!!!! I swear he dipped her every time they kissed, soooo cute and sweet!

Sex In The City... errr I mean San Marco...

As the world knows Friday was the premier of Sex in the City on the big screen. My pal Scarlett Lillian posted a blog about going to see it and I opted to jump on the band wagon with her and her girls (already knew two of the other girls going Kenzie and Cory)

However, the tickets for the 9:50 and the 10:30 showing were both sold out by the time I made my way around to getting them. Which was likely a good thing I was a bit sleepy anyway and wanted to completely chill before Ashley's wedding the next day...

We headed out to BB's which is one of my fav restaurants had cosmos

($12 for a super strong drink that I pretty well only ate the sugar stick out of!) but well worth it when you consider the company and great food!

And due to my strict rule about being behind the camera not in front of it, I opted to take photos of the girls after dinner doing the sex in the city walk, in the middle of the street :D We got honked at a time or two but again... well worth it!!!!

Scar made a slideshow of the photos taken that night, there are a couple of me... We had such a great time, I'm not all that girly but I really enjoyed my night out with these divas!!!!

Summer Time Assistant....

I received an email from Tracy a couple of weeks ago that said:

"I am a student at the University of Rhode Island and I am in Jacksonville for the summer. I am interested in learning all I can about the business of photography, and I was wondering if you would like an intern or "helper" for the summer. I don't want to be paid, I just want to learn about the industry."

Well my first thought was ummmm ME??? I'm still learning the industry! LOL well I met with her and told her what I'd need as far as help with my shoots and that I'm not sure if experience holding a flash and reflector will help her get an internship in NYC next summer but a free set of hands is ALWAYS welcome!!!

Tracy sat in on my "meeting" with Tara about Ashley and Shawn's wedding and then I asked her you wanna help out, and she said sure... I had her show up right before the ceremony barely said two words to her before it started other than hey, and thanks for coming! LOL I had almost forgotten to call her to confirm the location and time... It was hectic to say the least... She was such a good sport patiently waiting in the wings for me to ask her to do something... she picked things up well, even posed for me to do a couple of test shots!!!

I'm really looking forward to working with her a little, she's so sweet and cute! Here are the "test shots" I took of her during the reception...

Such a good sport!!!!

Lack of Blogging

I feel like I haven't blogged in FOREVER!!!! and for that I'm sorry! I realized the other day that I post like 2+ bulletins a day on MySpace... and I suppose instead of posting them there I could blog all those silly thoughts and sneak peaks... of course most of the people that subscribe here are on my friends list there... but what about the rest of the world that sees my website and wants to view my samples.... Hmmmmm might start double posting my thoughts and ramblings on both... :D

That being said I'm pulling up my latest bulletins and posting them here... :P

May 27th, sneak peak from Donna and Ricky's wedding on the 24th... one of my favs!!! the cross in that church was amazing!!!!



May 29th... subject that's kinda hard for me to talk about...

OK, I typically don't let people I don't know deep into my world, and seeing how I'm about to send this to like 500+ people it's a bit hard for me.



I'd like for you all to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.



My health is becoming an ever present issue in my life. I've been borderline diabetic for years and I'm getting more and more signs of being full blow diabetic. Obviously I want to keep it under control but that means the biggest thing I've battled with all my life, my weight, has to change and get under control.

Sooo I'm cutting almost all carbs, and having NO carbs at dinner, I somehow need to find the motivation to go to the gym but I need a gym partner, LOL

So if you will all just kinda say a little prayer for me, my Dr. wants to see a difference in weight by July 1st when my appointment is... So I've got to get on the ball!

:)

May 31st, Holy Momma-cita....

I swear I've been busier this week than I have been in a long time.

I seriously haven't had this much going on since Feb when everyone was wanting to do v-day photos!

I had a wedding Sunday that was about 9 hours... and fun!!! then didn't really get to rest the next day I did photos of a photog friend of mine for her website.



Then every day this week I have had something going on!!! I had two wedding consultations (keep your fingers crossed for me!!!) Lunch dates and dinner dates and things around the house. Computer issues (had a virus) so I had to spend most of the week backing up files instead of editing.

:( but I didn't want to lose any photos to some stupid virus and I was behind on my backing up of files anyway so this really killed like 3 birds with one stone, saved my photos, computer is safer now (although I'm still having issues with firefox) and my photos are 90% all backed up! yay!!!!

I'm prepping for my wedding tonight, with a nice restful day (might even nap in a bit just because it's a late wedding) Donna's wedding photos should be done next week as well so i can start working on Ashley's....

I had a client complain about the color saturation in some photos that had been edited so I need to do a re-edit of those to make sure they printer is printing to the correct specifications, I mean things shouldn't be neon, bright yes and colorful yes but they shouldn't print neon.

So I have a busy week next week as well... and my fun boy meets girl photoshoot Saturday!!! unless I kill my brother for going to NYC with out me this weekend (thats where he is right now!! he sucks!!!!!) I think I found a girl for the shoot, yay!!! it should be soo much fun... I need to get with Emily, Tara's friend to find out how to make the comic strip stuff I think this shoot would look neatas a comic book story... you know me always trying new things!!!

Ok well I'm off to my nap... or at least a good romantic movie, to get me in the mood!!!!

And finally... June 1st, my sneak peak from Ashley's wedding Saturday...



Share one of my fav photos from yesterday!!! This couple, they are so sweet, and so cute...

Now before I post the photo I have to tell you that I sat on the floor going through all the photos from the wedding, and this one made my bottom lip poke out! So I turn to my husband and say... "Honey (in that dramatic, this is he most wonderful thing ever tone) look at this photo, I love it!!"



So I turn the camera around to let him view the photo, which I love and he says to me what's so special about the bright white light in the corner....

This folks is why we are not a husband and wife photography team.

I thank my lucky stars for Tara!


OOOOOK I think that's about it.. and most all of you should be caught up now... I debated on posting the "health" one... I don't like getting personal with a whole bunch of strangers but, I expect my clients to be open and real with me, how can I expect that if I'm not willing to give it...