There were wildflowers everywhere!

Every once in awhile we’d catch a bit of blue sky.

They are so sweet together.

Lindsay wanted to get some shots over by the yellow barn, which was a perfect backdrop for them.

Her gorgeous engagement ring!

Walking in the purple field.

Fisheye view.

As we were heading to another part of the park we stopped at the covered bridge and I love how they are looking at each other here.

Love Lindsay’s shoes :)

Lindsay you are truly beautiful!

Gorgeous.

I don’t know what she said to make him laugh, but look at that smile :)

And because it’s stunning a couple more pics of her ring.

Laughing again.

One last outfit change and off to the lake.

Kissing on the dock.

Lindsay + Chris

We had fun hanging out with you guys & are excited for your wedding :) And thanks for introducing us to the Lake!

City House B&B on a beautiful May day.

Amy’s red rose bouquet by The Queen Bee.

Amy putting on the final touches. Her hair and makeup were done by Global Hair Design.

Bridal portraits. She picked a Rachel Roy dress, and I love how she looks like she walked straight out of Mad Men!

There was a shoe dilemma….which is the best kind of dilemma to have! But I’m glad she chose the Kate Spades, not only were they more comfortable, but they went perfectly with her dress.

Amy spent a lot of time finding the perfect accessories.

His Bride.

Her Groom.

Just before he saw his bride.

Saying their vows.

After family pictures & mingling with their guests a bit we were on our way. I love this shot Matt grabbed at the B&B before we left.

Amy & Chris are off to Europe for their honeymoon….can you guess where one of their stops is?

Don’t you just love her dress and those cut out sleeves?!

Just a quick shot of the Capitol as we walked by.

Rocking the serious look!

The city has so much color & texture to offer a great background.

Amy saw this wall and we had to stop for these next couple of pictures.

One of my personal favorites.

I mean really, this is the perfect look for Amy!

His.

Hers.

The last stop was at the Walnut Street Bridge.

Matt grabbed this shot as we were walking and I’ve got to say sometimes I’m jealous of his skills.

The dinner and after party were just for a small grouping of family & friends, so we grabbed a couple of pictures of those details before we left them to the celebration. Amy was very excited about their cake (by Ciao Bakery) which included her cat Magic.

And one last shot of the very dapper couple and their pre dinner drinks.

Amy & Chris, thank you so much for choosing us to be a part of your day! We wish you a fabulous honeymoon and are excited to show you the rest when you get back :)

Monday dawned rainy and a much cooler day than it had been, so as Matt & I visited The Arch and wandered around the city we were really hoping for those clouds to clear away. So, as we’re on our way to meet Caitlyn & Paul it starts POURING!! We got to their place and made some quick plans to change the location from Forest Park to downtown in the hopes we could use the buildings as cover and get some great outdoor photos even with the rain.

We arrived downtown St Louis and the rain just went away. There were even moments of sun :) Time flew as we walked around downtown, and before we knew it we were eating delicious pub food and talking about their wedding, which happens in less than a month!

City Hall was the perfect backdrop for our starting point.

I loved their outfit choices, and especially Caitlyn’s accessories.

A little walk towards The Arch.

They have this really cool water display in City Park.

Kind of funny that we sought out the water during the session….even though we were hoping for none before!

Caitlyn + Paul.

His girl.

Matt wanted to stop at one more place before their outfit change….which just happened to be the entry to the police station.

Totally worth it!

Caitlyn’s favorite color is green, so Paul got her a stunning emerald engagement ring!

After the outfit change they were putting their clothes in the car and we took advantage of the great light in the parking garage.

Seriously love it!

Such a beautiful smile.

We then went down to The Arch for a few more shots.

Thanks to the rain we got some great reflections!

Paul.

Caitlyn.

Adorable.

Caitlyn & Paul, we loved getting to know you and capturing who you are in the city that you began your life together. See you in June!

Our awesome room, complete with ocean view!

Greeted with wine & a fruit plate plus we found chocolate covered strawberries & assorted desserts throughout the week when we would get back to the room to get ready for dinner.

The view from our room & the amazing infinity pool (that we spent most of our time at).

Sunrise.

We had a day of adventure going to visit the Mayan ruins in Coba. Now, my sister being a travel agent & me being quite well traveled you would think we’d have read what we were actually going to be doing on the tour…..but nope we went thinking were would be seeing Mayan ruins, and were pleasantly surprised with kayaking, swimming in a cenote, rappelling, and zip lining…..all before getting to Coba! Anyways, here are some of the ruins.

This is the last pyramid that you can still climb and it’s the tallest at 42 meters (138 ft).

And climb we did!! View from the top.

I almost didn’t make it….JK, heights don’t bother me at all and it was fun going up and going back down (I wasn’t one of the people taking it one stair at a time on my butt on the way down, but props to them for going up in the first place!)

Sunset – lagoon view.

The winds were a bit crazy while we were there, which made for rough waters and this red flag that warned us to stay out of the water until our last day there (that’s ok, the pool was so awesome it didn’t matter).

And this was the view from the stairs….yes we were on the 8th floor….and yes I made my sister walk up and down them every time we needed to get to the room (it was an ALL INCLUSIVE, you have to get a workout in when you can!).

Whenever I get the opportunity I jump at the chance to spend a few hours or a couple days exploring & taking it all in. Matt….well you wouldn’t say he shares my opinion in this regard. So, when my Aunt emailed me and asked if I’d like to join her and her granddaughter in the city for a couple of days I jumped at the chance.

I got on the train on Wednesday morning, excited to see some family and see what the city had in store this time. About an hour into the trip I had a sinking feeling that I had forgotten something. Now, usually I forget something like pajama’s or toothpaste, but unfortunately this time the silly photographer forgot a memory card for her camera :s Thankfully there were a few shots left on the memory card that I had left in the camera from Easter Sunday so I could document a bit of the trip.

Batman was here.

I loved the hotel lobby.

A little Times Square – the daylight version.

Memphis was incredible, highly recommended!

Walking to lunch and caught a glimpse of the Chrysler Building.

We walked a lot this trip, this was my one and only subway ride.

Spring time in the city.

It was my first time at the MET & it was fascinating watching artists recreate the masterpieces.

My favorite part of the MET was the modern art section, it’s always so random and fun!

One of the many coffee breaks we took.

There are so many different ways to do go about it and I’ve spent months researching and developing a system that works for us. Here is what we do.

First, keep in mind the the most important thing isn’t how you backup, but sticking to a spacific system and forcing yourself to be consistent.

After we get home from a wedding I download all the cards onto our raided storage devise called drobo. Once that’s done I copy all those files onto an external hard drive as well. With that in mind, I can sleep better knowing that there is at least three copies of that day’s pictures. One on the drobo, one on the external drive and one still on the memory cards.

The external drive copy sits on a shelf and is only used is if something should happen to the drobo. Please note, while drobo is an awesome raid storage devise, it is not sufficient as a stand alone backup device. If the unit goes down you will need another one to read your hard drives. We use ours as a working drive. The final step is to burn the raw files to a blu-ray disc. These discs get stored at an off site location. If something was to happen to our home we would still be able to recover all our files.

Maybe it’s a bit redundant, but isn’t that the point of making backups!? I think the importance of a wedding day is far too valuable to take any chances. I am not sure what I would do against a nuclear attack though… might have to look into online backups. Anyone have a spare 8 terabytes of online storage we can borrow?  ;-)

Oh, and sorry for the incredibly nerdy post everyone. Nat has been requesting that I have more of a presence on the blog so… this is what you get.  :)

Cassie & Ian chose to have a first look and it was lovely. As Ian’s best man said in his speech, ‘I’ve never met two people that wanted to spend so much time together!’. They can tune out the world around them and just see each other, and yet they are the type of couple that you feel like you’ve been friends for years and you’ve only just met.

After their ceremony and a few family photos, it was straight into the reception. To sum it up the reception was filled with food, fun, dancing and laughter. There was something for everyone!

These guys had an unfair advantage being that Ian’s dad is a florist. You’ll see lots of his creations in all the details

Cassie’s blue flats added to the theme of the day

Bernard’s of Brighton did Cassie’s hair

Love that necklace!

Seeing his bride

Love these first look moments

Nat as usual is shooting on top of or through something and grabbing killer shots like this one

A walk in the meadow

What a gorgeous ring!

Cookies and cupcakes were available in plenty at the reception

Absolutely love the combination of the bridal party’s dresses, shoes, flowers vests and colors… well done!

The entourage

Sunlight coming through trees = perfection

Some outside details, including a vintage typewriter for guests to leave their well wishes

They had their very own popcorn machine! And the butterflies in the jars were floating around. It took me a long time to decide if they were real or fake.

More of Ian’s parents handiwork

The first dance

I don’t have a daughter yet, but I imagine one day this moment will be one of the best in my lifetime.

Amazingly enough I managed to avoid the cupcakes, good thing too because the way the looked I may have eaten them all!

If you didn’t fill up on BBQ, popcorn, cookies or cupcakes, the finishing touch was an ice cream bar by Splits and Giggles

The Mojo Gypsies kept the party rolling with their smooth blues. And the harmonica player was off the hook!

When we saw the moon coming up over the horizon we just had to grab a few more shots with the happy couple. I’d say they look quite content.

Congratulations Cassie & Ian!! All the best to you in your life together and soak up that sun this week :)

We first met Liz & Ryan at Stacey & Jimmy’s wedding last year and at the time they weren’t engaged. It wasn’t long before Ryan popped the question and we heard from Liz that they were engaged. We started planning for their spring engagement session right away. Friday was a gorgeous spring day and because they had chosen 3 locations we started downtown Annapolis first. The streets were packed with people, but we wandered around and found some perfect backdrops for these two.

Then it was off to her uncle’s boat in the marina. The sun had dropped just enough to be fabulous and we honestly could have had the entire session in this location and been perfectly happy. Liz & Ryan were wonderful to work with and even managed to be themselves in front of an audience ;) To end the evening we ran down to the beach and they did a very convincing job hiding how cold it actually got!

Starting in the city.

5 minutes in and they are already working the camera.

The busy streets were just background noise for them.

The wedges were a good choice Liz :)

Love, love, love these next two. You guys are just adorable.

His girl.

To the marina.

Gorgeous eyes.

Then I got to climb to the top of the boat and grab a few shots from that vantage point.

These next couple have to be personal favorites of mine…..Liz & Ryan there are a whole series of these we can’t wait for you to see :)

Liz got this fabulous coat that was perfect for a few last pics at the marina.

Her stunning ring.

Liz + Ryan

A little walk on the beach.

A quite moment to end the night.

Liz & Ryan, we had so much fun and are thrilled to be part of your wedding next year!

It happened in the far north of Queensland Australia. I was a volunteer at the time with about 30 others and we stopped at this park for lunch. We had some time to kill so we all decided to go for a small hike. The sign said it was only a 15 min walk so I didn’t take it too seriously.

So I’m going along, slower than everyone else because I’m taking pictures, big surprise. Then I see a sign for a lookout, and I can never pass up a good scenic view. So I head down that trail and next thing I know there is no trail. I turn around and everything looks the same. I head back the way I thought I came from but can’t find the trail for the life of me. By that point I have no idea what direction is what and everything looks the same. I could hear water so I figured I’d head towards that. The picnic area was near a creek so that seemed logical. The creek was down in a small ravine so I’m following the creek now thinking, worst case scenario the ocean is about 50 kilometers away, I’ll either pass a road or get eaten by a crocodile. So off I go jumping across slippery rocks and climbing down waterfalls trying not to get wet or break a leg. After a good hour and a half I see a rock that seemed to be saying sit here and take a break so I did.

I picked up a stick and seriously started to think about my overnight options. At this point I had no idea how long it had been and sunset comes early close to the equator. I tried sketching my path into the moss on a rock to try to figure out where I had come from but couldn’t make any sense of it. This was super frustrating because I’m usually pretty good with directions. I really didn’t want to spend the night out there. In Australia if you pick the wrong direction to walk you end up walking for the rest of your life! So I said another prayer and then had the impression that I should climb the cliff to my right.

It was about 30 feet up, slippery and steep. I’m thinking no way I should climb that but I can’t shake the feeling so I do. Once at the top I see nothing but super thick brush. I was about to head down the cliff but I decide to at least look around a bit first. I took 3 steps forward and was on a trail. 3 minutes later I joined the rest of my group who were finishing up lunch. The best part. No one even knew I was missing.

Here are a couple of our pictures from Australia. We can’t wait to go back and get some great pictures with our professional cameras this time :)

We started just across the street from Musser Park.

Spring time in black & white.

Beautiful smile Laura!

Have I mentioned how much I love spring?!

Color + Love

Aren’t they cute?

Making her laugh :)

Crossing Plum.

Springtime love in the city.

We then had an outfit change and went out to Long’s Park.

How great is Laura’s ring?

Sitting in the park.

His girl.

Laughing again :)

And again, these two have a lot of fun together :)

And just as the light was starting to fade we grabbed these last two.

Congrats Laura & John, we’ll see you in August!