A SoCal girl and a Midwest boy…they meet, fall in love and celebrate with a wedding that combines all of their loves. Lindsay & Jeff’s fall-themed wedding at Strawberry Farms Golf Club was perfectly planned with details put together by family and friends. All the leaves you see in the photos?…Those were all flown in from Indiana by Jeff’s mom. Awesome, right?? It was also Jeff’s 30th birthday shortly after the wedding, so Lindsay had a little surprise up her sleeve for the reception. And it was definitely my kind of reception…plenty of country music! 🙂

Thank you to my 2nd shooter for the day, Katie Gardner Sykes!

Enjoy!

A girl after my own heart…two pairs of shoes for the big day. Love those cowboy boots!

All of the fall colors were so beautiful…especially in the bouquets!

Venue/Catering/Coordination – Strawberry Farms Golf Club; Cake – Simply Sweet Cakery; DJ – Elevated Pulse, Photo Booth – Full Spectrum Entertainment; Flowers – CM Armstrong Floral Design; 2nd photographer – Katie Gardner Photography

One of the biggest compliments I receive as a photographer is for a couple to book their wedding without meeting face to face. They’ve seen my work, heard about me from friends and that’s all they needed to know. Jasmine & Michael are one of these couples and I’m so thankful that we get to work together. These two are so sweet. It took them a little time to get comfortable in front of my camera, but boy did they warm up quick! So easy to photograph. Their June wedding will be amazing! Can’t wait!

The holidays are always my favorite time of year. It means the chance for rest, relaxation and family. This year was much of the same anticipation, but also a time of excitement (and a little stress) since my re-brand and new site launched JUST before going to Oregon! Though it was a crazy, whirlwind week, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I’m SO happy with my new site AND got to spend some amazing quality time with my family over the holidays. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen most of these, but I wanted to give a quick recap of my time spent in the Northwest. I only used my “big” camera once when I got to Portland for Andy & Alycia’s engagement session (can’t wait to show more of those soon!), but the rest of the trip, I used my phone. It’s just the easiest way to capture quick moments of my niece & nephew and makes them easier to post so you all can see how cute they are! 🙂

Here’s a glimpse of fun times with my niece & nephew, quality time with sis and Chad, Blazers game with my parents, catching up with friends, my favorite Northwest foods (Tillamook ice cream & marionberry cobbler…YUM), watching the kids open their favorite presents, holiday movies, cookie decorating, snow and sledding…

CONTEST UPDATE!!!

Thank you again to ALL that participated!!! The comments below are so great and I LOVED reading all of your stories. It’s so great to get to know you all a little more and I will surely have another contest like this in the future. THANK YOU!!!

Congratulations to Amanda Flisher and Kristin Brandt!!! Thanks to the help of my random number generator, Amanda (commenter #39) won the $25 Sprinkles Cupcakes Gift Card and Kristin (commenter #17) won a FREE mini session!!

And to show that I was completely fair in the random selection…here is a pic of the spreadsheet used and the random number generator. Sorry I didn’t snap a pic of the first #, which was 39. 🙂

Welcome! To those of you who are NEW to my blog…thanks for checking it out! Over the next several weeks I’ll be posting images from the last few months of 2012 as well as recent 2013 sessions. A few personal posts will be mixed in as well as I love for my clients to get to know me better and vice versa. So let’s get 2013 started off right with a little giveaway and conversation about one of my favorites things…TRAVEL!

Over the past few years, I’ve been able to travel to some amazing places. Some personal, some business…either way, I’m up for it! From Maui to Minnesota or Seattle to Spain, I’d love to shoot more weddings and fill up those passport pages. 🙂 On tap for 2013 so far? Sacramento, Tahoe, Mexico and Italy! If you have the travel bug like me, you’ve probably thought of your dream vacation or even the ideal location for your own destination wedding. Here’s my challenge to you…well, not really a challenge since it should be pretty easy…tell me your dreamiest, most ideal destination wedding location. Think about it for a minute… A tropical locale with warm weather and cold drinks? A castle in the mountains of Europe? A rooftop ceremony in the city? You tell me! All you need to do is add a COMMENT to THIS blog post. Already married? No problem! Tell me your ideal spot for a vow renewal! THOSE THAT COMMENT ON THIS BLOG POST will be entered into a raffle for a FREE MINI SESSION to take place in February or March AND a $25 Sprinkles Cupcakes Gift Card. The drawing will be random, but don’t spare any details in your comments…tell me where you’d love to go AND why! And someday maybe we can make that dream come true!!

Here’s a recap of the rules:

1. Anyone can enter! Single, engaged, married…anyone!

2. Think of the ONE place you’d love to travel to for your DESTINATION WEDDING OR VOW RENEWAL. Be creative…do you want to get married at one of those hotels made of ice? Love it!

3. Share that destination in a COMMENT BELOW and tell me why you chose that particular location. PLEASE make sure to include your EMAIL address in your comment.

4. ONE entry per person.

5. TWO winners will be randomly chosen next Wednesday, the 16th!

I can’t wait to read all of these!! 🙂