First off, this Sunday we will be part of the Bridal Expo in DeKalb at NIU.  The show is from 12-4pm, so come see us.  We are tired from sleepless nights and hard work, so we will probably look sickly and ratty–but, hey… let’s meet!  We planned on throwing up our large prints from the Borders display and calling it a day, but no, I had to decide (at the last minute) that I wanted to go through all of our recent weddings and pick favorites, spend 250937 hours editing them, not sleep, spend $2500 on prints + materials, and pretty much lose my mind.  That’s the way I roll.  I am so tired right now, I can’t even put it into words.  There will probably be about 30 misspelled words and a few sentences here and there that make no sense what-so-ever.  Bear with me, folks.

On a happier note, all of that crazy last minute editing has allowed me to create this post for you.  This is what we’ve been up to–pretty much the end of our 2009, minus the mini sessions.  I decided to post *tiny (and I emphasize the word tiny) peeks of all of our client’s wedding galleries that we have not yet started posting to.  I hope this will brighten your day and make you feel like the wait is worth it  : )  I started out just selecting to two from each wedding only, but then by 5am, I kind of forgot and just edited random amounts.  That being said, sorry if you only get to see two photos while some others have three or four (I know I will get emails about this ; ) )  All of our fall/winter weddings were wonderful, and we loved being a part of them.  I will go in order starting with the earliest:

John & Abby’s wedding was pretty much breathtaking.   They had so many neat, personal, handmade details, and yet still made it look so high class + upscale.  Their reception and Private Time were held at Mauh-Nah-Tee-See Country Club.  It was our first wedding there, but definitely not our Last!  Danielle + Layton’s wedding was just 2 weeks after.  We really have some amazing shots to share with you from this wedding.  John and Abby were so incredibly easy to work with, and once again, humored us by doing all of our “crazy” ideas without saying a word.  You will see later…let’s just say “American Gothic on a Golf Course” (can you tell we like to use that?!)

Isn’t Abby stunning?  Love the flower in her hair!

And that brings us to Jeremy & Ally’s wedding.  I’ve know Ally since she was a little girl. She was friends with my younger sisters growing up. Because of that, it was extra special for me to be a part of her wedding. Once again, these two totally understood our style and gave us plenty of time for Private Time, perhaps the most anyone has ever given us! We had a lot of fun and got some great shots. They are so cute together–it was easy to capture the love : )

Be prepared to see a lot of wonderful Private Time shots when I post this full wedding blog in the future!

Here are some of our favorites from Layton & Danielle’s wedding.  You may remember these two from their Engagement Session posted awhile back.  As I said in that post, I went to high school with Danielle, so I felt honored when she came to us and immediately said she wanted us for her wedding.  As I got to thinking about it, I’m pretty sure these two gave us a huge amount of time for Private Time, too.  We had so much fun walking around the inside of the Country Club looking for unique spots.  Here is one of my favorites shot through the stairs:

Definitely a unique view and lighting setup.  I pretty much overlooked it at first, but the more I saw it, the more I loved it.  It’s quickly becoming a top pick.

Before we got to the reception, we rode around in a giant “tour bus”–and I do believe that was the first time we’ve ever had a couple use a bus like that for a wedding.  We’ve had limos, and suv limos and bus type limos, but that was an actual bus.  It was pretty neat.  Here is a shot I took of them in the back of the bus. There were quite a few sweet ones from this spot.  It was hard to pick a favorite.

It was getting dark quickly, and Eric and I were pretty much in a panic.  We knew we didn’t want night time flash shots for their wedding party portraits + private time, but it was looking like we weren’t going to have much of a choice.  We had planned to stop at Emerson St. for a quick photo, because that is their last name, and it’s something we’ve never tried.  Good idea, but it took a long time to get there!!  So here is the end result:

Worth the drive and extra time?  I think so : )  I would like to have something like that from my wedding day.  And finally, here is a shot we took inside the country club.  We liked the snowflake ornaments hanging from the ceiling and knew we wanted to use them in some way.

Now we are at Brock & Brittany’s winter wonderland wedding!  We shot Brock’s brother’s wedding earlier this year, so we had already kind of gotten to know Brock and Brittany through that. I’ve gotta say, Brittany wins the medal for being the most willing bride we’ve ever had.  It was her idea to walk in the snow (in her gown and heels) and go climb up and stand on a snow covered picnic table for some quick shots… and it was absolutely freezing out!  When she mentioned the idea, all we had to say was…..  YES!  That about made our day.  Those photos will come with their full wedding post, but here are some other wonderful ones of the happy couple:

So, yeah, the balloon hault didn’t last too long.  We used them at Layton & Danielle’s wedding, as well as Brock & Brittany’s!  Sometimes you just have to deal the pain in the butt issues to get the fun photos you really want.  Once again, these balloons were not blowing in the right direction, and poor Brock was really trying hard to make it work.  He did!  So many of them turned out great!  So this next shot says it all.  This couple was ready + willing, and because of that, they got some extra unique images that they will have forever!

This next photo is part of a new add-on we are now offering.  It’s called the Thank You Set (original, I know… we are too busy being unique with our photos.  I don’t have time to come up with cool add-on names like I always planned to!)  We will bring this awesome Thank You parasol and use it for a few shots during private time.  You will then get a set of 100 photo postcards with your favorite Thank You image.  It’s new for 2010 : )  Contact us if you are a current client and are interested in adding this option on.  We also have one that says “I Do.”

Finally, we will wrap up this post with our last wedding of 2009; Kyle & Lindsey.  We never got a chance to meet with Kyle and Lindsey before they wedding, but were happily surprised at all the unique touches they couple had put on the wedding day and how their wedding was very much our style.  I especially loved the simplicity of Lindsey’s dress and the AMAZING, and I do mean amazing, bridesmaids dresses she had they girls wear.  Those images will come in their full wedding post, but here are a few favorites for now!

This next shot is one of my favorite wedding captures ever.  While we do a lot of the legs and feet shots, most of them are not posed–even if they appear to be.  Occasionally we will pose the couple and ask them to “hike” their dress and pants up a tad.  It makes for a fun shot.  This photo was completely unposed and just look at Kyle’s pants!  We couldn’t have “posed” it better.

So there you have it–our final events of 2009.  I’m still working on the “best of” posts and the vendor/reception hall reviews.  I promise to get those up soon!  Plus, we have another awesome announcement or three about the Boudoir Event this month.  The plan is to post it Saturday if I get the chance, so come back and see!!

I think pretty much all of these images will be a part of our Bridal Show booth, so I guess they will all be old news if you come visit us!  I hope everyone enjoyed their sneak peeks.  We can’t wait to get all of these new weddings up in the galleries.  They are all so wonderful!  Thanks again for letting us be a part of your day, everyone.

We did, however, decide to change it up a bit!  Instead of just having 1 winner, there will be a first place winner, a 2nd place winner (which will receive a mini session of their choice for only $100) and a 3rd place winner (which will receive a mini session of their choice at half off)!!

Here are their submissions in order:

We hope you enjoy reading the 3 winners submissions!  As you can see, just by those 3–it was NOT easy for us!  Congratulations to Jenn, Candice and Justine!  Your submissions were very sweet, and we look forward to working with you.  We will be in touch!

We didn’t think it was fair to ask all of you to share what you are thankful for with us without  sharing what we are thankful for.  Eric wrote his paragraph in the living room while I wrote mine in the office–which is pretty much how everything business related goes!  I definitely enjoyed reading his… I thought about picking him as the winner ; ) haha.

We are trying to catch up on the blog posts : )  If you haven’t seen any images from your session or wedding, don’t worry–they will be up soon.  We are trying our best to get at least a few images up from everything we photographed throughout the summer.  To all of our couples who have “posting date to come” on their Online Gallery, your posting date will be up shortly.  Keep checking back.

Lauren, your photos will be up within the next few days!