I’m pretty sure that when I told Heather and Anthony that I wanted to shoot at a shopping mall, they thought I was completely out of my mind. But luckily, they trusted me enough to take a risk on an unusual location, and I think it paid off big time! These photos are beautiful and fun, just like Heather and Anthony. I love shooting in places I’ve never shot before, I think it puts my creative juices on overtime and pushes me to be innovation. And it pays off, because these images are absolutely one-of-a-kind! Here are a few (okay, a LOT!) of my favorites:

Heather and Anthony, I loved finally meeting you both! Thanks so much for navigating the prom-goers and the gawking White House Black Market salespeople with me, I had a blast! You both are so beautiful and way too good at this whole supermodel thing. I can’t wait for your wedding!

Tips for Brides (T4B) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit brides everywhere. For more T4Bs, click here!

Today’s Tip for Brides is short and sweet.. I discovered this amazing vendor on my favorite blog, Southern Weddings Magazine, and I’m in love with their products. Check out Easter Yu’s Muscari line: (photos stolen from her website)

I adore these birch ring holders! They would fit in so well at a rustic, peach-and-cream wedding

Awesome shell ring holder for a beach wedding:

If you don’t want to make guests wait until the end of the night to give you a grand exit, fill these cones with flower petals and put them on the end of each row during the ceremony, and have the guest throw the petals in the air was you walk down the aisle. It’s a great photo op, especially for outdoor ceremonies!

I could not possibly be any more obsessed with these amazing boutonnières

Fantastic hairpieces to give to your bridesmaids or to replace your veil with at the reception

And for those of you who love to blow people away with amazing accessories, she has some seriously showstopping jewelry

To see more of Easter’s beautiful collection, check out her shop on Etsy.com!

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

Today’s Tip for Photographers is something that I talk about quite a bit already, but it’s super important so it’s always worthy of another mention. For me, albums are the cornerstone of my business. In my eyes, I sell two products - my time, and my albums. Those are the two biggest expenses on my pricelist, because they are the heart of what I do. Some people take photos to take photos, I take photos to create albums.

The company I use for my albums is absolutely wonderful and fantastic in every way. The company is called Forbeyon and they are a dream to work with. A few months ago I took a tour of their showroom and got a newfound respect for what they do. All of their albums are handmade, right here in Dallas Texas, with top of the line quality materials, and a rigorous quality inspection process. Since day one of working with Forbeyon, it has been obvious to me that the most important aspect of their business is creating a high-quality product, and I really respect that. I have looked into a lot of other album companies, but I always come back to Forbeyon. I could gush about them all day!! To learn more about the albums I offer, check out this page.

Although Forbeyon does have a design team that will create great album designs for you, I am a control freak so I choose to design my albums myself. I do this using the Page Gallery software by Yervant. Although I have had some issues with this software (their tech support is less than stellar), I really can’t live without it. It takes me about an hour to design a full 60-page wedding book, which is unheard of. It used to take me a week just to design a small book, now I can whip out 2-3 a day! It’s a template-based program, but has several options to customize pages, and it outputs PSD files so you can tweak them by hand, as well.

It blows my mind when I hear that some people are not even offering albums at all, let alone not offering them in their packages. If you’re not selling albums, not only are you providing your clients with an incomplete service, but you’re losing a lot of potential revenue. However, to sell a product, you have to have samples to show, so make sure you have several great, top of the line sample albums to take with you to client consultations. I have about 8-10 books altogether - one for each year I have been in the business, several duplicates of client’s books, a photobooth album, a details album, and a guestbook album. And don’t complain about how you can’t afford sample albums - a couple hundred invested in sample books will mean THOUSANDS of dollars in a return on your investment, if you price them correctly. Totally worth it!!

I just wanted to alert all of my married clients that, if you want your album guaranteed to arrive before Christmas, you MUST have your album order (with design approval) in to me by November 5. My album company Forbeyon, who makes the greatest most beautiful most high quality albums in the entire world, makes all of their albums by hand and that requires several weeks, not to mention that the holiday rush slows everything down a bit.

Keep in mind that the album design/revision process can take several weeks, so if you have not finalized your album design, that needs to be done by November 5 as well. If you absolutely have to have your order in by Christmas but you can’t get the album done in time, you may order rush production, but be aware that that will include a $400-600 surcharge.

Small albums like engagement books and photobooth albums still have a two week turnaround until further notice.

Get those orders in stat!!

Tips for Brides (T4B) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit brides everywhere. For more T4Bs, click here!

This week’s Tip for Brides is about how to make your wedding more earth-friendly. There are lots of fantastic articles out there on this subject already, but here are a few of my favorite suggestions:

-If you want to have a “grand exit” as you leave your ceremony or reception, instead of using something that will add to the world’s trash, pick something biodegradable, such as Ecofetti, or even the old standby, birdseed!

-Instead of having guests bring you fancy pots and dishes, have them purchase their own Carbon Offset to make up for the pollution and waste they caused by traveling to your wedding.

-Purchase a hemp silk wedding gown or have your own custom-made from environmentally sustainable/biodegradable fabrics.

-Plan an ecologically responsible honeymoon and use low-polluting methods of transportation, stay in ecolodges, share transportation with other travelers, and learn about areas of the world in need of ecological help.

-Use locally-made or organic favors and flowers.

-Have your photos printed on recycled photo paper or choose an album company that uses recycled materials.

I know that being ecologically friendly is very hip and “in” right now, but hopefully being earth conscious will transcend being a fad and actually become a lifestyle for everyone. Your wedding can be just as beautiful and perfect while still being good (or at least less bad) for our planet!

Tips for Photographers (T4P) is a weekly feature where I talk about a cool tip that I think will benefit my fellow photographers. For more T4Ps, click here!

One thing I get asked pretty often is what kinds of actions I use. In general, I try to stay away from using actions too much (although I did go through a phase where I went crazy-go-nuts for actions because they were all so new and cool). These days, I think it’s important for images to look consistent and generally timeless. However, there are a few sets that I love and use on a regular basis.

The first is Kevin Kubota’s action sets. I have Artistic Tools 1 & 2 and Production Tools 1. Although there are hundreds of actions all together, I really only use a few: Magic Sharp, Vibrant Glow, Vignette, and Daily Multi Vitamin. Here is an image with all four of those actions applied (with tweaking).

Another set I love is Totally Rad Actions Volume 1. Several of these - Pro Retouch, Oh Snap!, Cool as a Cucumber, Warm it up Kris, etc - are great for every day use, and a few more - Antique Tone, Rusty Cage, SX-70 - are good for special projects, but the one I absolutely adore is Old Skool. I have come up with a lot of variations on Old Skool that work well for me.. Here are two examples.

The last set that I use is from a friend of mine, Kevin Jairaj, and his set KJ’s Outdoor Action Set. His Punchy B&W is the BEST! It’s high contrast, which often requires some tweaking, but I absolutely swear by it and don’t use any other B&W conversion.

Any time you use an action, compare the new version with the original, and make sure that the change you’ve made is an improvement on the original, and not just a change for the sake of change. Also, don’t hesitate to tweak the actions. One thing I love about Kubota’s Actions and the Totally Rad Actions is that the changes are made on a new layer (sometimes several layers) so you are free to adjust the effects to fit your personal style. Almost every time I use an action, I adjust it in some way, either by changing the opacity, changing the layer Style, using the history brush to paint in parts of the original image, etc.

There are a lot of new trends in the photography world right now - colorshifting, textures, super-contrast/super-saturation, etc. - and it’s great to give those techniques a shot and incorporate them when appropriate. However, when you build a business around a particular trend you always run the risk of your images dating themselves or going out of style. If you want your images to stand the test of time, define your “style” in the simplest possible terms, and focus on creating beautiful, meaningful images straight out of the camera, rather than relying on Photoshop.

I was so behind on the day I finished editing this shoot that I tucked it away, saving the blog post for a time when I wasn’t quite so overwhelmed with new sessions to post. Well, that day never came, and these awesome photos stayed hidden in my “to blog” folder for the loooongest time. Finally today I stumbled upon them again, and now I am excited to finally show them off to the world! Every now and then I find clients who I just instantly “click” with, and Jennifer and her fiancé Anthony, aka TJ, who I like to call Teej, are one of those couples. The second I met with them, I knew we were going to have an awesome time together, and it instantly felt like we were old friends. Of course it also helped that they treated me to a delicious breakfast at Hotel Zaza, too! Here are a few of my favorites: