We met up with Lori & Jon at Monument Valley Park, a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city with huge cottonwood trees, flower gardens, and a lake teeming with wildlife. Colorado springs features some amazing city parks, but Garden of the Gods is the best known and most unique. These two parks are an awesome combo for a photo shoot. As you can see the green of Monument Valley Park + the red of Garden of the Gods = super colorful engagement photos.

Lori & Jon are planning unique details and entertainment for their intimate wedding next month. We’ll be there and will dutifully report back here as we document their summer wedding. Oh, back to the engagement! Here are some of our favorites from Lori & Jon’s shoot.

Christy & Michael’s wedding date has been circled on our calendar since their awesome engagement session back in January. We were not only looking forward to working with them on their big day, but we were also excited about shooting at Inn at Palmer Divide, one of our favorite venues. Christy & Michael set aside plenty of time for portraits and we happily obliged.

The big day included an emotional first look, a beautiful ceremony, fun portraits with the wedding party, and a great party with a bunch of guests who packed the dance floor all night. Michael & Christy wanted to make a quick getaway at the end of the night, and certain guests’ best effort to shrink-wrap the car only slowed them down for a minute or two. The rain held off and gave way to a perfect day.

Congratulations once again, Christy & Michael!

We enjoyed working with the following partners:

Ceremony & Reception – Inn at Palmer Divide
DJ – Mobile Jutebox

Carmela here…I love when couples include creative details on their wedding day! As a photographer these details are so fun to capture. There are a few things to keep in mind when planning these details: choose a theme, ask for help/delegate, communicate with your photographer, and be flexible!

First, choose a theme. This can be as simple as a color or as complex as you like, but choosing a theme will help unite all your beautiful details. It is most important to choose a theme that reflects you as a couple and your personalities. If you are having a hard time coming up with a theme ask your wedding planner or the contact at your reception venue. Planners and venue contacts have seen many weddings and can tell you there favorite details which may spark your own creative juices.

Second, ask for help or delegate. This is probably obvious, but hard to do. Once you decide on your special wedding day details, enlist your friends and family members to help make your dreams a reality.  You may even have some friends that would like to provide their services as their wedding gift to you. Delegate someone (could be a friend or wedding planner) that will set up and take down your details so you don’t have to worry about that on your big day.

Next, make sure you communicate with your photographer so these details you have spent so much time planning and preparing will be captured in your photographs for your album and for years to come. I love to take detail shots and make sure to always include them, but not all photographers are like minded.

Finally and most importantly, be flexible! Realize that things could and might not end up exactly as you planned. Rain happens and dampens beautiful decorations, wind blows over lovely lanterns, and heat can melt the most beautiful buttercream…but don’t let this ruin your big day. The focus is on you and your spouse and those beautiful decorations might make for an awesome first birthday party later on.

We have included some of our favorite detail shots below for your enjoyment, and if they give you some ideas all the better!

Wedding albums have a place very close to my heart, and it is my mission to make sure that our customers have a fantastic album full of their wedding memories. When John and I got married we had some great photos, but the album we purchased outside of our photographer did not even last a year with light use! In direct contrast, recently four generations of John’s family were gathered together looking through his grandmother’s 65 year old wedding album and it still looked fantastic! She and her husband made the investment at the time to get a high quality album from their photographer, and consequently her grandchildren and great grandchildren were enjoying looking at how beautiful grandma looked 65 years prior.

Of all the items in your wedding budget, your photos are one of the only things that will last years beyond your wedding. I love seeing all the creative chair decorations and fun wedding day details that brides spend months working on and picking out, but make sure you include room in your budget to purchase an album. All of our collections include your photos on disc, however, what happens when technology changes and photos are no longer stored on disks or thumb drives? Remember the first floppy disks? And how many people do you know invite you over to sit around their computer and view their wedding photos when you visit their home?

Three out of four of our wedding collections include a high quality album. I custom design these albums in partnership with our brides and grooms so that their album is a direct reflection of their unique personality as a couple. Each couple is different and so are their albums. Our album supplier makes all the albums here in the U.S.A., and they work hand-in-hand with us to assure that you are completely satisfied with your album. If I can convince you of one thing it is to make sure you invest in a high quality album…you won’t be disappointed even 65 years later!
 

We had a great time in Las Vegas last week attending WPPI 2013, the largest industry trade show. We were like kids in a candy store as we got to see and hold the latest products for wedding and portrait photography. The best part is that we now have the tough task of picking our favorites from the show and making them available to you. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for an updated catalog!

Our annual trip was also an opportunity to get together with some of our friends from around the country. A group of us met up one afternoon for an impromptu photo shoot around the Las Vegas Strip. It was great to hang out with super-talented photographers, share ideas, have a blast, and even spend some time in front of the camera (which is hard for photographers). We might even post a shot or two of us…

We stayed at the The Signature at MGM Grand booked through Southwest Vacations. This was our second year doing so and once again we got a great hotel and air package. We love Southwest Airlines and the Signature is a great hotel. Having a car this time afforded us the opportunity to get away from the Strip for several meals. We visited Hoover Dam and walked across the awesome new bypass bridge.

Below are a few of the photos we took.