The deadline for all wedding, parent, and boudoir albums orders is November 13.  All design approvals must be submitted and all balances must be paid in full on or before November 13 in order to complete the order and ensure holiday arrival.  If you still have revisions to submit, they must be submitted by October 30 in order to meet the November 13 deadline.

The deadline to place an order for an engagement, bridal, or guestbook album is November 20 (designs must be finalized by December 5).

The deadline to place an order for all boudoir presentation boxes and folios is October 30.

The deadline for all print and canvas orders is December 11.

Some products may be available after the above deadlines, but there will be significant rush fees, many of which double the price of the product, so make sure that you get your orders in on time!

********Our offices will be closed December 17 until January 3.  No orders will be fulfilled during that time.********

There is still limited availability for those wishing to do a boudoir session as a Christmas gift.  Although we can shoot your session as late as early December, you must pre-order your products before the October 30 deadline, so if that is something you’re considering, contact us ASAP!

If you’re looking for the perfect gift for your parents, grandparents, or significant other, we do have a number of options available, so send over an email and we can discuss what products would best fit your budget.

If you have any questions or need help with your order, please let us know!

After four years of dating Jason, six years in the wedding photography industry, and twenty-seven years of dreaming about my wedding, the time has finally come. This weekend, it’s my turn to walk down the aisle, look into the eyes of the man I love, and say, “I do.” Words simply can’t describe this feeling… Every time I try to explain the backflips my heart is doing, the words that come out seem lackluster and small. I am so happy, so in love, and so READY!! We’ve been planning this wedding for eighteen months, and up until about two weeks ago, it really felt like it would never get here. And now here I am, packing my wedding dress into my car and setting out for the best adventure I will ever have!!

As you’ve probably already figured out, I will be out of the office for several weeks for the wedding festivities and the honeymoon. I will be back in the office July 18, and until then there will be no responses to emails or phone calls. I know this is the heavy booking season and there are many many brides who are anxious to get pricing and availability information, and believe me, I remember exactly how you all are feeling! Please be patient and I will get back to you as quickly as I can when I return.

I had grand plans of setting up a whole bunch of amazing posts with the hundreds of beautiful engagements, bridals, boudoirs, day afters, and of course weddings that are waiting in my queue, but as so many of my brides warned me, the week leading up to the wedding was chaotic and all-consuming, and it unfortunately didn’t happen. In the meantime, here is a small sampling of some of the beautiful photos waiting to be shown off:

Also, be sure to check out my good friend and fellow Dallas wedding photographer Sarah Kate’s blog in the next few days to see MY bridal session! I’m so excited!

See you guys as a Mrs. in two weeks!

If you’ve met with me in the last few months you’ve likely seen these albums already, but here is a glimpse of the gorgeous new sample albums Forbeyon created for me:

I love Forbeyon’s beautiful full spreads that span the entire page with an almost invisible gutter, which allows me a ton of freedom in my album designs.  I also love that Forbeyon albums lay completely flat, even on the first and last pages!

The blue album that you see below is the new Parent Album that I offer, which starts at $1250.  It’s very similar to my normal wedding albums, with slightly thinner pages that make it easier to travel with and carry around.  Below you can see the difference in thickness between the 8×10 30-page Parent Album (in blue) and the 8×10 30-page Wedding Album (in red).

A new product that I’m thrilled to be offering is Forbeyon’s new Album Presentation Boxes.  This is a gorgeous way to both display and preserve your album.  The boxes can be made in a variety of designs to duplicate or complement your wedding album cover, and they include a ribbon pull that allows you to easily remove your album from the box without damaging either the box or the album.  Additional matching folios can also be made to house your wedding day digital negatives, as well.  Album Presentation Boxes start at $250.

Last but not least, I’ve made a huge revamp to my Proof Box offering.  Full 4×6 proof sets are great gifts for parents or alternatives to traditional wedding albums.  The Proof Box includes a beautifully custom-designed box featuring your names and wedding images, as well as a 4×6 print of every image from your wedding day proof set (limit 1000 images), and starts at $1250.  Both the box and the 4×6 prints are provided by White House Custom Color, my professional printing lab of choice.

Unfortunately I will no longer be offering the Photobooth as an additional purchase.  I can no longer reliably staff it, and I just don’t feel right selling a service I can’t guarantee consistent, experienced manpower for.  Hopefully this service will resume in the future, but in the meantime, I highly recommend PushBooth, BoothBOOTH, and Photo Con Queso for all your photoboothing needs.

If you have any questions about the products I offer or my product pricing, feel free to send me an e-mail and let me know.

Also, if you’re a photographer and you’re headed to WPPI next week in Las Vegas, be sure to stop by the Forbeyon booth to see their unbeatable line of albums and presentation boxes and the WHCC booth to see the beautiful prints and other products they offer!

Thanks to all my fabulous clients, and here’s to another great year in 2011!

Follow the link below to see more!

Marcy’s now-husband Kyle was a member of Texas A&M’s Corps of Cadets. When a cadet becomes a senior, he earns the right to wear senior boots, which are a very highly treasured item to every member of the Corps. I love that she chose to incorporate these into her session!

And because every post is better with photos…  Sneak Peek!!

That’s right, the wedding photographer finally has a wedding of her own to plan, and she COULD NOT be more excited about it!  I can’t say it was a complete surprise, however.  This proposal has been a long time coming!

For quite awhile now (over six months, according to my e-mail history) Jason and I have been discussing “The Ring.”  Being a wedding professional, I see a lot of weddings and a LOT of rings, so as you can imagine, I’ve always had some very specific opinions about The Ring that I would be wearing for the rest of my life.  Knowing me and knowing this, Jason didn’t even attempt to hide the ring-buying process from me, so we both jumped into it headfirst.  We spent months looking at different ring designs, researching the four Cs, trying to find the perfect center stone, and checking out jeweler after jeweler.  At times the process was much more emotional and frustrating than it should have been – until we met Eric Olschwanger.   I’ll talk more about Eric later, but if you’re in the market for any kind of custom jewelry, Eric will save you time, money, and stress, and will give you an impeccably made piece for a fabulous price.

The Tiffany Legacy Ornate ring, which is the ring my lovely was based off of. Photo property of Tiffany & Co.

So fast forward to earlier this month.  I had been subtly slipping Jason some hints that it might be incredibly romantic to propose in Europe, and he had not so subtly told me that pigs would fly before he would take our ring overseas and risk losing it or having it stolen or confiscated by security or some other completely irrational fear.  It had gotten to the point where he actually seemed to be genuinely angry at me when I would bring it up, so I quietly began to lose hope for an epic proposal under a sparkling Eiffel Tower.

As we descended into Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport, I asked my beloved what he looked forward to most during the trip, maybe subconsciously hoping he would reveal his plan right then and there.  Instead, he coyly deflected and quickly changed the subject.  I was, naturally, oblivious.  Later, as we unpacked in our hotel room, Jason proudly showed me an e-mail he had just received from our jeweler Eric stating that some “last minute changes” to the ring had just been finished and would be ready to pick up as soon as we returned from Europe.  “Aren’t you excited?!” he asked.  I tried (futilely) to hide my disappointment, gave up the last shred of hope I had been clinging onto, and just tried to enjoy myself in the most romantic city on Earth.

Attempting to look Parisian and NOT look disappointed.

On our second day in Paris, we spent the majority of the afternoon and evening with my clients Abby and Zach, the new Mr. and Mrs. Boatwright.  They had just gotten married the previous Sunday, and Jason and I flew with them to Europe for their honeymoon to do a destination Day After session.  We wandered around the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Champ du Mars, and finally finished up our photo spree at an illuminated Eiffel Tower.

You can’t see it (I hope) but these two are completely miserably cold right now.

It was approximately 20-something degrees and snowing, and Abby had been roughing it in a thin strapless wedding dress all day, so the poor girl was on the edge of frostbite.  Finally I realized I could torture her no longer, so I announced that the shoot was finished and that we could pack it in and head back to the hotel.  As I began to pack up my gear, Abby asked me if I’d like a photo of myself and Jason – you know, since the lights were already set up and everything was all lit up and beautiful.  Not wanting to watch my client turn into a popsicle before my eyes, I initially refused, but she insisted (I later learned she was totally in on it, and although I’m sure she wanted nothing more than to find the nearest blazing fireplace, she kept her promise to Jason – I owe you one, Abby!!).  I grabbed Jason and yanked him in front of the camera, wanting to get the photo done quickly, but for some reason he kept wanting to talk to me.  At first I ignored him, but he kept talking, mumbling something about how I had asked him at some point what he was looking forward to most, and how this was it.  I gave him the obligatory “Awwww,” a quick kiss, and resumed my pose so we could get the photo finished and get my clients to a heater pronto.  Then he grabbed my hand and said “I’m not finished….”

I’m not exactly sure what happened after that moment, because it was all one big amazingly happy blur, but I think the photo proof speaks for itself:

Needless to say, I got my Parisian wish, I got my perfect ring, and most importantly, I got my white knight.  Jason and I have been together for almost three years now, and they’ve been three of the happiest years of my life.  We began our relationship playing saxophone in a parking garage stairwell, and it’s been an awesome ride ever since.  He gets me like no one else, he knows my every emotion and pet peeve and fear and weird quirk, and he embraces all of it.  I love him more than I ever thought I could love someone, and I am incredibly lucky and blessed and grateful to have found him (and kept him!).

I know that you guys are just dying to ask me who MY wedding photographer will be (I get that question roughly 736785 times a day) and let me just nip that in the bud right now and say I have NO CLUE!!  I certainly have a list of people whose work I love and admire, but choosing my wedding photographer is a huge decision that will be influenced by several factors, so I’m not in any rush to make a decision.  We have set a very tentative wedding date – 4.11.11 (yep, it’s a Monday!) – but we’re far from finalizing anything.  We’re excited about taking our time and enjoying being engaged, and yes, planning the most epic, amazing, fun, creative wedding we can possibly imagine!

Sorry ladies, he’s aaaaaaaaall mine.

WORKSHOP REGISTRATION DEADLINE
If you’d like to register for the Mind Your Business workshop, make sure you do so by midnight this Wednesday, January 6.  At that point registration will close and no further signups will be accepted.  You can learn more about the workshop here and sign up for the workshop here.  Thanks so much to colleagues Kelly Simants and Jason Huang of Table4 Photography for mentioning the Mind Your Business workshop on their websites and for their kind words and their friendship.  Kelly is also hosting a business-focused workshop called The Simple Plan, geared mostly towards wedding planners but applicable to all wedding industry vendors.

CANS FOR COMMENTS
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in Cans for Comments.  Between this website and Racy Steeves, you guys placed 207 comments in the month of December, which means a local food bank is going to be getting a HUGE donation!  I loved getting to hear from so many of my readers for the first time, so even though Cans for Comments is complete, feel free to keep the comments coming!

OUT OF THE OFFICE
Stacy Reeves Photography will be closed for business January 9-21.  We will all be out of the country for a destination honeymoon session and extended vacation, and we will have limited access to phone and e-mail.  Please be patient as e-mails, phone calls, and print orders will be delayed during this time.

FEATURED ON…
Recently I’ve had the honor of being featured on some major blogs and websites, and I’d love to reciprocate by mentioning a few of them here.  My Photographers Pricing Guide was featured on MCP Actions, a fantastic blog that offers advice and free resources for professional photographers.  It should be a staple on every photog’s RSS reader!  I was also surprised and humbled to find via Google Alert that I was mentioned on Photographers Who Blog among the likes of such industry legends as Pete Souza (the White House official photographer), David Hobby (aka that Strobist guy), and Zack Arias, whose famous OneLight workshop I attended recently.  I am definitely not worthy, but I appreciate the honor nonetheless!  Finally, this blog has been nominated as one of the Best Dallas Wedding Blogs by Dallas Wedding Planner, a great resource of brides planning a Dallas-area wedding.  I would really really reeeeally love your vote, and all it takes is a moment!  Just follow this link, scroll down to the poll, select “Stacy Reeves” and click Submit!  If I win I’ll add an additional 50 cans to the Cans for Comments donation, so your time spent voting will be for a good cause :)

I never say this enough, but thanks to all of you who read this blog on a regular basis, who leave comments, who send me e-mails, who share the stuff you learn here on other blogs and forums, and who just generally support me.  Sometimes as a blogger it can be easy to think that you’re talking to no one, so knowing that there are people out there who are actually listening is a really awesome and encouraging thing.  Thanks also to my clients, who make me love my job and who keep a smile on my face every day!  I’ve got over 40 – FORTY!! – weddings and portrait sessions waiting in the blog queue, so there is lots of great material in store for 2010!