wedding trends: something blue and headpieces

You wouldn't know it by my Mom jeans, Costco boots and circa 1998 North Face fleece, but I looooove fashion. I truly do. This year I am committed to make that a bit more obvious when I walk into a room. Mom jeans, be gone!

Early last year I developed a strong love for the birdcage veil. I wanted to shoot a bride wearing a birdcage veil so bad I almost offered a birdcage-veil-discount just to get photographs of one on my memory card. Lo and behold, the wedding gods worked their magic and gave me four beautiful Birdcage Brides:









Well, it's a brand new year, and brand new wedding season, and because I am a sucker for something vintage and something unique, especially on your wedding day, imagine how I feel about this:



You get a fabulous headpiece and your something blue all at once! I first fell in love with headpieces when I discovered Twigs and Honey, and this one comes from the brand spankin' new wedding site that my beloved Anthropologie just launched, BHLDN. They have all things wedding with that vintage flair, and if the headpiece is a bit too much flair, try these adorable shoe clips:



Happy Browsing!

engaged: stefanie and kyle

Sweet Stefanie and Kyle . . .



are my first couple of 2011! Their wedding is just around the corner and I know it is going to be beautiful, and very special. We shot in some freshly fallen snow on a very sunny afternoon, but they brought their A-game . . . Stefanie totally rocked the camera, and even Kyle realized he'd enjoyed himself when all was said and done.

I think he enjoyed watching Stefanie work. it. out. :) Stefanie, you are beautiful!







In the six years they have been together, I don't think Kyle has ever picked up Stefanie and spun around with her . . . ;) Funny fact: I always thought that the pick-her-up-and-spin-her-photo was totally cheeseball, but I love it now because you can't help but laugh, which makes for a perfect little candid shot . . .

Weeeeeeeeeee!







I wonder what color their kids' eyes will be :)



And my favorite of the day . . . I love taking photos like this at every shoot, because it's the type of photograph that when you put it on a canvas and hang it above your bed, it becomes a piece of art, versus all the lovely little 4 x 6s of framed, smiling faces.



To see more from this shoot, click here for a slideshow!

Stefanie and Kyle, thank you for being so fabulous! Much love :)

perfect combinations

I have been quite connected to my computer all evening . . . back and forth between the PC in the office, with the Pandora tunes in the background, and the laptop at the bar counter, spinning intermittently to catch a scene from Big Love, or tell a shortie or two that Mommy can't do that right now. I had an entirely different blog post planned, but for some reason stumbled upon one of my first weddings that I love just as much today as I did then.

This wedding encompassed everything a wedding should be about: a vintage dress that belonged to the groom's grandmother . . . a completely relaxed bride who had a lifetime of best friends stand as her bridesmaids . . . a truly emotional ceremony between two people who were there for the marriage, not for the wedding . . . and a venue that has become a solid favorite. This was my first wedding at Roys' Barn back in the ancient ol' year of 2009, and as soon as I saw the sunset and wheat fields, I was and have been completely hooked.

Claire and Steven's wedding images were also images I was processing in a vintage style for the first time, and I can honestly say that I wouldn't change much about them taking what I did then versus what I would do now. It is a style that I LOVE incorporating into my work :)

Happy Sunday to all, and to all a good night!









I use this one on some of my business cards : )

what a man wants

I know I have said it before, but I loooove boudoir shoots! . . . and a couple weekends ago I had a few girlies here for some Valentine's mini-sessions. One of the girls very graciously gave me permission to post a few photographs to remind you that you need to book your shoot soon! ;) In all honesty, I got such amazing feedback from these girls that their significant others raved about how these photos were by far the best gift they've ever received. Makes my heart so happy : ) Please know I only post photos on my blog with additional permission and that if you are not comfortable having an image posted and tell me No way, sister!, I am absolutely understanding of that!

all you need is love

Happy Valentine's Day to all out there! . . . I have been thinking of a blog post to write all day about the topic, but I'm not sure anyone would take me seriously. I have learned that while Valentine's Day is what most consider a "made-up" holiday, it is kind of nice to have a day where society tells you that it is very important to tell the ones you love how you feel, whether by a beautiful card or a bouquet of flowers. I bet the effects of Valentine's Day bring couples together for long enough to realize it's much better off to stay close, be kind, and say I love you.

My Valentine's Day has unfolded beautifully . . . 55 degree weather in Montana, sunshine, and an amazing bouquet of completely unexpected flowers from my own personal Valentine. Joe was quite honest about his feelings towards Maui and two Coach purses equaling one pretty sweet show-your-love holiday, but handed me a beautiful card this morning and followed through with flowers that he - ahem - requested be somewhat tropical because I am missing Hawaii so much. And he personally requested orchids, because, well, he knows I love orchids. It's ridonculous how much I love this man.

This isn't us . . . I figured you've seen enough of us since my Maui post . . . but Bud and Jamie are also very much in love, and they deserve a little shout out because they are waiting on baby boy Ian Michael to make an appearance any minute now. Their wedding was my last of 2010 and happily landed me on the Mayan Riviera for four days in October . . . slideshow and full blog post to follow. :)



I send much, much love to my blog readers tonight, and hope you all feel numerous sources of a wonderful, unconditional love, too. : )

maui: the story

I am not going to tell a poetic story, or cry onto my keyboard about how amazing my boyfriend . . . but he is, and it was. Amazing. Maui sounded so cliche to me until I got there, when I realized we landed on a very green, sunny slice of heaven :)

Here is my story :)

So first things first . . . Joe gets a lovely little piece of mail telling him that Pacific University's Island Eyes conference this year is on Ka'anapali Beach at The Sheraton. Sounds marvelous! I say . . . Sounds expensive! Says Joe. And honestly, I'm not quite sure at what point we decided to do it, but within a few months of this beautiful brochure arriving in our mailbox, we had two tickets booked and a giant write-off planned for River Rock Vision Center. :)

Here is the view from a lounge in our hotel:



Day One on da beach . . . we had some work to do in the tanning department ;)



Day Five on da beach . . . my work is done :)



I took a lot of photos of palm trees.



See?







Fresh from the ocean! When Joe first told me that he LOVES to be in the water most of the time, I was a little concerned that we wouldn't be spending a lot of time together because I'm a big beach-sitter-people-watcher and usually only go in for a minute to cool off . . . but I jumped in everytime he wanted to and we swam and swam and swam and dove into waves and it was absolutely perfect :)



The most famous Black Rock was at our hotel, and while we never witnessed the official dive or lighting of the torches, we saw a LOT of people jump off the rock. We were planning on doing it on our last day but the comfort of the poolside chairs and cocktails and sandy beach and happy hour kept us back :)











Awww . . . The MoJoe . . . I'm a big fan of NOT taking individual photos of one another the whole vacation, so we had to use Joe's long arm a few times :)





THIS cracks me up because this is how Joe sleeps, and always has since he was a babe. Arms stretched nice right behind the ol' noggin . . . whenever I wake up and see him like this I always smile (sometimes in my mind because it's soooo early) . . . it's his quirky little thing that I adore.





And this is what it looks like every morning from room 6413 . . . Joe went all out on this vacation to give us the best of the best of everything he could, including a room on a cliff with unobstructed ocean views. I've already said he's amazing, right?



Here we are at dinner, one of our last nights in Maui, having our best meal at Cane & Taro.



And my most favorite part of the trip . . . I fell in love with Joe a little bit deeper, not because of the material products I received, but because he has the desire to truly make me happy. And Coach makes this girl happy. We were just a few nights into our trip and walking around Whalers Village when he brought me into the store and said, Pick out a bag, Mo. I said, Ha, yeah right, Joe. And he looked at me and said, I'm serious. I want to do this for you. Well, I didn't want to argue with him anymore about it because, I mean, we were on vacation and who wants to fight on vacation? So I picked out a bag. And then I picked out a clutch. And he got a lot of points on his Visa. : ) And here we are at the Coach store expressing our true feelings about the situation.



So what exactly did we do, you ask? It was a perfect week of relaxing by the pool with a cocktail, laying on the beach, snorkeling black rock. We took a day off from the sun to visit the aquarium and drive up the coast. And we spent our last day at the North Shore in Paia and driving the road to Haleakala Crater. We got everything we ever wanted from this vacation . . . time together, a complete break from work and the real world, warm air, the sound of the ocean. Ahhhhh.

Bye-bye, Maui. I promise we'll be back next year!

nicole and alex: september 25, 2010

What a beautiful wedding!

Nicole and Alex's wedding this past fall - on a perfectly warm, beautiful, sunshiney day at the most fabulous Chico Hot Springs - was so emotional, in all of the most perfect way . . . the emotions, both tears and laughter, were felt with every bit of themselves. They were a joy to work with . . .

















Flowers were designed by Leslie Lukas of Leslie Lukas Weddings & Events . . . she is not only one of my very best friends, but an amazing floral designer. The blues, purples, turquoise, greens, peacock feathers - it was truly a phenomenal bunch of flowers!









Here is a slideshow of the wedding day . . . Nicole and Alex, thank you for being so amazing!