My Favorite Things

I started thinking today about how fun it was to pick out everything for our wedding; the dress, the flowers, the cake, the bridesmaids dresses.... I also remember how overwhelming it was. As a way to give brides a little help and maybe a few ideas (and also relive my wedding planning days) I have decided to start posting my "favorite things" from the wedding world each week. Let me know if any of these ideas help or if you found any cool websites, ideas, or products that are blog worthy. Here is today's favorite.

Favorite Bridesmaids dress:


This dress is simple and girly. It comes a bunch of different colors and 3 different lengths! Personally I like the black and navy blue. It is made by Watters(http://www.watters.com/product.php?coll=wtoo&showid=4). On their website you can see what the dress would like in several different colors. The only thing that bothers me about the picture of the dress is that the model is laying down and you can't see how the dress lays.

Have you met the Reigles?

If you have never met the Reigle family you definitely should. They are so awesome! I've known the Reigles for quite a while now. Jared and I were both in the play "Anne of Green Gables" together about 6 or 7 years ago. That was my absolute favorite play I've ever done. I wonder if I can find some pictures of it to post.... Anyway, last week we got to shoot Jared's senior pictures. We shot them about an hour and a half before sunset and the lighting was great. Since the whole family came we took some really fun family shots too. Some of the family pictures were taken with everyone sitting on the end of a dock. Emma(Jared's sister) and Patty(Jared's mom) had their feet in the water and were pretty much positive an alligator was going to eat their feet! The funny (or not so funny) thing is that Sam and I went back there several days later and we say an alligator in that same lake. It was only four feet long, but wherever there's a baby there is surely a momma (and daddy!) close by.

As always we had a great time spending time with the Reigles. They are all so kind and helpful. There have been many times when one of the Reigles has come to our rescue. Thank you Reigles for always treating others the way Christ would have you and for trusting us with your family memories.

From Asbury to the Ft. Myers' Pier

Last weekend we were lucky enough to reconnect with two friends from college. Caresse and Clayton both went to Asbury college with Sam and me. A month ago we just happened to sit at the same table as Caresse's parents and sister at a wedding we were photographing. They told us Caresse and Clayton were about to be engaged and then 2 weeks later we saw both Clayton and Caresse at church. Asbury College is in Kentucky, so to see them all the way down in SW Florida was really unexpected.

We took the pictures at Fort Myers Beach by the pier. We started around 8am so that it wouldn't be too hot, but by the time we were done we were all dripping with sweat. Later that night we stopped in at an engagement party for Caresse and Clayton. Everyone there wrote down a question to ask Clayton. Poor guy. This was his first time meeting most of these people and he was having to answer all sorts of personal and merciless questions in front of them all. He did a great job. After the questions of torture, everyone had cake. There were three kinds: coconut, chocolate fudge, and ummm.... I can't remember the last. Unfortunately I'm allergic to wheat so I can't eat cake, but it looked soooooo good. I had Sam eat extra on my behalf. I ate a bunch of peanuts and about 10 of these little chocolate truffle things. It's always so fun to catch up with people you haven't seen in a while and hear what's going on in there life. Our best wishes and congratulations to Caresse and Clayton! See the slideshow of Caresse and Clayton's shoot.

Downtown with GR

We had a great time last week with GR and his great family shooting some senior pictures. We shot the pictures in downtown Fort Myers. My favorite series of pictures were taken in front of this huge bright red door. We drove by it while scouting out some locations and knew it would be perfect. We also took some pretty cool ones from inside the parking garage. We shot during the middle of the day so it was HOT! Luckily they just built a new Starbucks downtown so we stopped in there several times to cool off.

They say there is a thing called the "Starbucks Phenomenon." Supposedly everytime a new Starbucks moves to a struggling community the economy of that surrounding area starts picking up. Hopefully this "phenomenon" will occur in downtown Fort Myers because right now it is pretty much a ghost town (with a lot of really great places to take pictures). The lady in Starbucks freaked out when she saw we had a camera and yelled "No Pictures!" Hmm... she must have been having a bad hair day.

Anyway, GR was a total natural at getting his pictures taken and he was so easy to work with. His sister Molly helped Sam out as he jumped into a big tree to get some high angle shots. Molly and I also had fun talking about "So You Think You Can Dance" and how upset we were when Allison got voted off.

Click here to see GRs Slideshow