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Weekend Recap | Christmas Edition

Why hello! I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas week with family and friends! Today’s weekend recap is special for several reasons. First reason is because it’s not just a weekend recap, it’s a whole WEEK recap. Second reason, it’s the LAST post on this blog! Wednesday’s post is on the brand new gorgeous blog, and there’s a giveaway too! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled 🙂 And there’s a gorgeous preview of Saturday’s wedding today. So many good things!

So first, the past week has been wonderful. We’ve celebrated Christmas 3 times with all of our family. My family from North Carolina came to town, Tyler had 3 full days off, there were so many cute puppies around, and I got so many amazing gifts from my family! One gift in particular , Film is not Dead, has inspired me to research film cameras and hopefully start using film for personal work this winter! So exciting 🙂 

I think this is the first photo of all the grand kids including Tyler. 🙂

Oh and here’s the Christmas card the Hinders sent out this year. I am so glad Tyler’s family has a sense of humor 😀

And as promised, a sneak peek at Megan & Matt’s beautiful winter wedding!

Merry Christmas from ELP!

Good Morning and Merry Christmas! I hope that you are all keeping warm, opening gifts, watching Elf over and over, and most importantly enjoying this time with your family!  I will see you all next week with a peek at a winter wedding, and I will be continuing to reflect on this year.

Have a great Christmas, from our family to yours!

Tis the Season of Engagements

It’s finally that time of the year! December and January are two of the most popular months to get engaged. Seriously. In the past 2 days I’ve seen 5 people’s engagements show up on my newsfeed! How exciting?! To celebrate I though thought it would be fitting to take a look at the past year’s ring shots. Ring shots are seriously my favorite. I just want to make canvases of every single one and put them in my office. But that would be an overwhelming amount of canvases in one tiny room!

Take a look at some of my favorite ring shots from 2013 wedding and engagements. 🙂

Oh, and in case you missed Facebook/Instagram post yesterday, to celebrate engagement season I am offering 200.00 off any wedding collection booked between now and December 31!

Jon & Whitney | Omaha Wedding Photography

You met them this summer at their adorable fair engagement session, and here they are again, MARRIED! I was so honored to be able to shoot Jon & Whitney’s wedding. Jon is Tyler’s oldest friend, and being able to document him get married to Whitney was so great. The day was frigid, but the DC Centre in Omaha was set up for Christmas, which made for a beautiful backdrop for most of the portraits. Jon and Whitney, thank you so much for allowing me to capture your special day. Your love truly reflects Christ’s love, and I can’t wait to see how God uses you in CRU!
Enjoy a few of my favorites from the day 🙂

Weekend Recap | Christmas Tree Farms

Since Christmas is only 9 days away, I thought I would replace today’s weekend recap with a fun blog post about a new family tradition! Besides, I feel like the only thing I did this weekend was work and work on projects. That would be a pretty boring blog post. I told you a couple weeks ago I would share the Hinders’ Christmas Tree Farm experience, so here we go!

As a kid I remember my mom and step dad bring home real trees for Christmas. They would go to the store (not sure what store, maybe Walmart?) pick out the best one for our home and bring it back to decorate. I remember the smell of pine that filled the whole house, as well as stepping on those stupid needles that fell off everywhere. At some point, my mom decided to make the switch to an artificial tree.(She probably got tired of stepping on those stupid needles too) And we’ve been using an artificial tree since. In fact, I didn’t know that people still got real trees until I started dating Tyler.
Every year Tyler’s family would go to the Christmas tree farm his uncle owned, and hunt for the perfect tree. Eventually, his uncle sold the farm, but the Hinders still bought real trees.

For our first Christmas together as a married couple we struggled with which route we wanted to take; real or fake. I was set on always having a fake tree. No worrying about stepping on needles, or burning the whole building down because you didn’t water it enough. However, we still went with his family to pick out a tree for his parents. We didn’t debate much this year, in fact, I didn’t even bring our artificial tree back from Sioux City because we will be spending the week there, and to be honest I felt really lazy this year! But again, we still went as a family to pick out a tree for Tyler’s mom and dad.                                                                                                                                       Going to the Christmas Tree farm as a family is one of the most fun things we’ve done together. There’s just something about being together and finding that perfect tree to decorate your home with that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Oh and there’s a good chance the farm has free hot chocolate, so that’s a plus.

I can’t wait to continue this tradition with Tyler’s family, and eventually our own family once we start having kids. And this is something that I just decided when Tyler brought home our small, very much real, Christmas tree from Walmart last night. As I complained about having to clean up pine needles, made a comment about how it’s going to burn our entire apartment building down, and Tyler placed a penguin beach towel around the tree stand as a tree skirt, the smell of pine filled our entire apartment, replacing all my complaints with that warm and fuzzy feeling I get at the Christmas tree farm. I now know this was one tradition I don’t want to let die.

Weekend Recap | Ames Wedding Photography

Hello hello! I know, I know, this post is SUPER late. (I really don’t have an excuse other than being busy with school!) But it’s still here, and it includes a gorgeous sneak peek! Other than Jon & Whitney’s wedding and driving in a snow storm, this weekend was pretty uneventful so I don’t have much to say.

Jon & Whitney’s wedding was the first wedding I have photographed this year where the bride and groom were good friends before we even talked about wedding photography! It was so fun to be a part of their special day. Their blog post will be up next week, but for now here is a sneak peek of their gorgeous Christmas-y wedding. (Yes, I just made Christmas into an adjective. No, I’m not sure if that’s allowed 😉 )

David & Brittany | An Ames Iowa Wedding

He stood in the frigid wind patiently waiting for her arrival. After what I’m sure seemed like ages, she finally came through the campanile and tapped him on the shoulder; his cue to turn around. The moment he saw her his smile radiated joy.  Their whole day played out perfectly, with abundance of time for them to just soak in each other’s love, as well as the love from their family and friends.

David and Brittany, allowing me to document your wedding has blessed me in so many ways. Your love for Christ, each other, and your friends and family made your day so special to capture. Thank you so much for allowing Jamie and me to be apart of your day!
Seriously, his reaction to seeing Brittany was perfect! Swooning over these next couple frames! 

Weekend Recap | Ames Wedding Photography

Whew. I can’t believe how quickly the past week has flown by.A whole week with no work or school meant a whole week of hanging out with family and cuddling with pets! I figured since the whole week was like a weekend, I would recap the whole week!

Notables from the past week include:

• Snuggles with so many puppies ( and even a couple kittens)
• Seeing Catching Fire
• Deciding to re-read the Hunger Games Trilogy because of how amazing Catching Fire was. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it you should! It was so true to the book, and so much better than the first movie!
• Spending Thanksgiving with both sides of my family as well as Tyler’s family
• Spending time with Jamie, Tom & Tania
• Going Black Friday shopping with Tyler, Jamie, Tom & Tania. It actually wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be! And I snagged some great deals.
• Learning a new card game called Wizards. Oh, and winning both times we played was fun too 😉
• Going to a Vikings game (and they won!) But I have to be honest, I may have read most of the game. 
• Oh, and we also got to go Christmas tree hunting, but I’m saving that for another blog post 🙂

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving week! Be on the look out for David & Brittany’s wedding this week. It’s stunning!

Weekend Recap | Ames Wedding Photography

It’s Monday! AND it’s Thanksgiving week, which means I am on break all week. I am spending all week in Sioux City because I haven’t gotten to come home with out working since school started. Needless to say, I’m so excited to spend time with my family this week! I have decided to take a small break from blogging as well, so today’s post will be the only post for the week.

But back to the weekend recap!

This weekend was so cold, but SO great! David & Brittany were married in Ames on Saturday. Their wedding was perfect even though the temperature was in the single digits most of the day. I cannot wait to share their full wedding with you next week, but for now here is a gorgeous sneak peek.

Sunday was spent hanging out with family, pets, and culling/editing. I ended the day by having a meeting (via Google Hangout) with Mark & Megan to talk about wedding photography. Mark & Megan are getting married next July in Spokane, Washington and I am so honored to be shooting it! I can’t explain how excited I am for this amazing opportunity! Shooting a wedding.. in the mountains?! Gah… so excited! What a wonderful way to end an already wonderful weekend.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and enjoy this time with your families!