Katherine & Matt Temple

  Ok, this week we'll be posting more highlights from my trip to Austin.  Katherine and Matt were married in the LDS San Antonio Texas temple, with a ring ceremony and reception in Austin the next day.  It was a beautiful day, with the ceremony in the evening.  I loved the chance to walk around this temple in particular, because I remember when it was built and attended the open house and dedication.

  

My favorite part of the building is the beautiful stained glass windows representing the Hill Country area (around Austin, where I grew up).  They looked amazing as they lit up at evening.

 

 

Katherine and Matt started dating way back in middle school, so this was an exciting day for everyone who had been part of their lives.  I'm thrilled to see them so happy.

Next up:  the wedding dinner at Little Italy.

Michelle and Trey: Engagement Photos on the Riverwalk

  While we were down in Austin Texas for Katherine and Matt's wedding, I had the privilege of photographing engagements for another close friend.

Trey was one of my favorite people back in high school, where we were both part of the french horn section of the Westlake High School Marching Band.  (It's true.  I was a nerd.  But a really cool nerd.)  So first, here are their photos, then I'll share a few from the good ol' days.

Because we had a wedding dinner that evening, the only time we could do these engagements was about 4 hours after sunset in San Antonio!  It was a challenge, but Trey and Michelle were amazing!  And with the cool atmosphere of the San Antonio Riverwalk night life and the help of my lighting specialist (Thomas carried all the light stands and flashes as we walked the whole way - he might say he was the sherpa, but I'll give him more credit than that), we were good to go!

  

  

Going back to Austin always makes sentimental.  I loved my high school years and it's always fun to get back in touch with friends from band (or choir, church, theatre, soccer, etc.)  When I got in touch with Trey a month or two ago, I took some time to back through old photos and it brought back so many memories!  Below are (left) 3 of us French horn players during a Westlake football game and (Right) more band nerds partying in the... wait for it... that's right.  Taco bell parking lot.  It was tradition.  And the cool place to be.  That's Trey's car we're sitting on.  It's possible that he and I took it up to 100mph on the freeway when we discovered we had taken a wrong turn that made it way late on the way to an important music competition.  That car rattled, but we made it to the competition and Trey performed so well he went on to the next round.  Must have been the adrenaline. :)

  

Katherine & Matt: Formal Wedding Photos at Zilker Botanical Gardens

  Now some of these photos might seem familiar from the wedding highlight slideshow I posted recently.  Katherine and Matthew (or "Kat" and "Matt") are both friends that I have known for a loooong long time.  Coincidentally, they have also been dating a loooong long time.  How long you say?  How does since middle school strike you?

It's been a wild ride as they've dated on and off, and throughout the whole remained the best of friends.   Though if I had a nickel for every time someone said "I am so excited y'all are  finally getting married"... well I would have a lot of nickels.

Thomas and I flew down Thursday before the wedding, which was a grand two-day affair on Friday and Saturday.  We managed to catch a flight early enough in the day that we were able to do this bride and groom pre-shoot at the Zilker Botanical Gardens.  We got some individual bridals as well as some photos of the two of them.  After the shoot we headed on over to Katherine's home for some pre-wedding day barbeque and some music, where I sorted and edited like a madwoman on my laptop so that we could order some enlargements for the reception on Saturday. (On a side-note, anybody going to Austin that wants great bbq MUST go to Rudy's.  It's not optional.  But I digress...)

Matt and Katherine both looked fabulous, and had that glow that only those on the brink of the best day of their life really can show.

Having moved out of Texas before I really started shooting professionally, I had never taken photographs at the Botanical Gardens quite the same way before.  I used to come here all the time, but I never realized the wealth of photo locations this place has.  It's chock full of beautiful spots like this one below...

I've known Katherine forever, and she's one of the sweetest, most outrageous, talented, and "out there" people you will ever meet.

  

Katherine is a playwright, and has directed many a play (she and I even ran a theater camp once-upon-a-time, but that's another story).  So of course, we had to show off her very official director's chair.

There will be more to come of these two as I finish up the photos from the wedding day in San Antonio and the reception in Austin.  We'll probably have to break it up over several days, because a LOT happened, and there was so many cool things that I wanted to share with y'all.

Zilker Botanical Gardens

  I had a few minutes before the bride and groom arrived for the formals / bridals/ groomals session at the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin Texas a couple weeks ago, so I made sure to stop and smell the flowers!

Now I am not really one for landscape photography.  As a general rule when I see a gorgeous sunset, or a majestic mountain peak, or a colorful bed of flowers, I say to myself "OH that's beautiful.  Now I just need a person there so I can take a photo."  When I take a photo, it's usually not complete unless there is someone in the picture as well.

That being said, the Zilker Botanical Gardens was a special place for me when I was growing up in Austin, and I went there all the time to think.  It's one of the iconic places in Austin, and if you happen to be visiting, you should not miss it.  More photos to come from Texas, as I make progress on Katherine and Matt's wedding, and as I finish up an engagement session I ended up doing for an old friend and his beautiful fiancee.

Sneak Peek: Austin Texas LDS Wedding Photography

  As I mentioned the other day, we were back in my hometown in Austin TX shooting a wedding over the weekend.  Here is a sneak peek of some of the photos from the formals shoot that we did on Thursday at the Zilker Botanical Gardens before the wedding, and some photos from the wedding day itself on Friday at the LDS Temple in San Antonio.  They had their reception on Saturday at the Vineyards at Chappell Lodge, so I had some time to quickly go through and get a few of my favorites from the two shoots for this slideshow.  We ran it for the wedding, and one of the coolest things about it (aside from the awesome photos, of course)?  The song is actually the bride singing!!!

It's a song she wrote for her (now)husband a year ago about their relationship.  You can actually buy the song on itunes- her name is Katherine Gee and the song's title is Sunshine and Rain. She is fabulously talented!  In fact, her entire family is unbelievable as well... the whole wedding process was like a big broadway musical, with spontaneous poems, musical performances, and some really awesome dancing.

I'll definitely be posting more pictures from the wedding later on in future posts, but I just had to share a couple now so y'all can see what I was up to.  I had so much fun, and was so honored to be a part of it.

Young'ins in San Francisco: Family Photography

  Thomas and I went over to San Francisco three weeks ago for our third wedding anniversary and for some much-needed vacation time.  It was a great experience, and we did actually end up doing just this one shoot while we were out there.  The Youngs recently moved out to the area, and they are some of the coolest people ever.  Danny took a job with Google, and actually showed us around the campus a bit- talk about your nerd paradise!  Full-sized T-rex bones, slides going from one floor to another, nap pods and free food everywhere.... it was a very neat place.

So one of the days we went into the City and met up to some family portraits.  We went to Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, the Exploratorium, and finished out near the Oakland Bay Bridge (the Golden Gate bridge was completely fogged out.  I mean, just-one-big-grey-smudge-nothing-to-be-seen-at-all kind of fogged out.  San Francisco is crazy like that sometimes).

  

I've known the Youngs for a long time, and I think we've captured their essence here below.  It's just fun.  :D

  

  

Thanks for being such great hosts guys, and for showing us around your new hometown!  Check out the first half of their photos, and the rest as they become available, here.

Celebrating in San Francisco

Three years ago, I married my sweetheart and we are lucky to be in San Francisco this week while celebrating our anniversary.

Merry Christmas!

I'm off to Spokane with Thomas to visit my family for the holiday.  I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas, and that the holidays are a time for you full of love, laughter, and delicious FOOD!
As a special Christmas gift this year, we managed to find our box of ornaments that we thought had been lost in our last move.  I was especially excited about it as it contained all the ornaments I had received each year since I was a baby.  In my family, each year we each got an ornament that represented a little bit of that year, and I was given the collection when I got married a few years ago.  Some are beautiful, some are funny, and some are just sentimental.
Here's a peek of our tree, and a few of the ornaments on it....

The first one was a wedding gift to us from my mother-in-law, who has hand-made these satin bells for her tree.  Each bell represents over 40 hours of work! The second was my very first ornament ever!

I was originally a music education major in college, I played soccer for 8 years growing up and refereed for 3 years after that, and I was an adorable kindergartner.

Now the first photo might confuse you, until you realize what the little red bird is- it's a kiwi!  For those of you who might not know, I am a first-generation American.  My mother is from England, and my father is from New Zealand, and so I am half-kiwi.  The second photo pretty much sums up my sophomore year of college- I was diagnosed with mono (later it turned out that it was a misdiagnosis, but that's a story for another time), and went from sleeping an average of 3-4 hours a night to about 13-14.

The final photo is my first Christmas gift from my husband Thomas.  We decided to continue the tradition I grew up with and give each other an ornament each year.  This year I got this awesome pewter camera.  Given that I have been working about 60 hour weeks all year, eating, sleeping, and breathing photography, this ornament sums up my year to a T.  Here's looking forward to another year of wonderful times behind my lens!

Erin and Cole- Newport Beach

First time to Newport Beach for a wedding.  It was gorgeous, and so was the couple!  We got to Newport after driving for two days down the west coast from Portland, OR.  I shot a wedding there the week before, and we took the scenic route.  We took the 101 for part of it to see the redwoods.  And yes, they are as tall as your middle school textbook claimed.  The trip was awesome!  We rented a car for the drive (we had weddings Thursday and Friday in Utah, and so we flew out Saturday morning for the Portland wedding- CRAZINESS!), and the car we ended up getting sort-of-by-accident was this "premium car".  Thomas made the rental car reservations, and the coupon code we found online gave us a "free upgrade."  Ok, we were going to be driving 1100 miles, so he figured "premium" meant a nice comfy Cadillac or something.  We ended up getting a Mercury Grand Marquis, and it was powder blue.  Really...  Total land yacht, and we felt like we should be about 80 years old driving that thing. It was comfy to drive though.  Especially with that big bench front seat- I curled up and napped most of the way down... Good way to recover from three days of weddings.

**Note: I had heard of other photographers doing several weddings right in a row, even multiple on the same day.  Figured I could do 3 in a row as I thought I was superwoman... but alas, I discovered otherwise.  The weddings were AMAZING, but the recovery was not.  Don't try this at home, kids.

Erin is a newscaster by profession, and she is such a friendly, outgoing, and bubbly person.  She was so happy, just look at that perfect smile!  She was beaming.

Evidently when they built the Newport Beach temple, they had to work with the city to make sure it kind of blended in with the rest of the landscape.  So they ended up using this gorgeous stone that had almost a sandstone look to it.  The architecture was also very Southern California- almost spanish mission-esque.  I loved how unique it was!

After the luncheon, we were able to go over to the marina in Laguna Niguel and wheedle our way down onto the docks... Now, I have a confession to make.  I'm a little bit obsessed with sailboats.  We had a 2 man boat growing up and I actually cried when my dad sold it.  Now as a photographer, I cannot imagine a better location than on a dock.  I loved all the boats and the texture of the masts in the background.  Two really nice guys let us use their boat for the photoshoot when they noticed we were taking pictures (People always give me stuff when I have a bride and groom following me.  Something about weddings make even the tough guys sentimental).  And as you can see, Erin and Cole's wedding day was "Just Dandy."

Talk about an amazing backyard!

Erin and Cole, thank you so much for letting me be part of your day!  Everything was spectacular, and ya'll are amazing!