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!

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 😉 )

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!

Weekend Recap | Ames Wedding Photographer

Why hello there internet, and happy Monday! I hope you all had as great of weekend as I did! Seriously, I loved this weekend. There were so many great things that happened! So in order to keep my thoughts straight I will make a list of highlights 🙂

Friday Notables:

• Tyler and I had a date night that included dinner at a restaurant we’ve never been to in Ames. We ended our night by shopping. Recently, one of my favorite photographers, Abby, posted about her super adorable schoolboy blazer from J.Crew. It’s seriously so cute! We set out to find one for myself, and we were successful! It needs to be taken in just a smidge. Maybe once I get it altered I will post some photos of how cute it is!

Saturday Notables:

• I spent most of the day working, but after work Tyler and I set out to grab a few quick portraits of me. I have never appreciated fall as much as I have this year. It’s so beautiful!

• After portraits I had my first in home client consultation EVER! I know this doesn’t seem that big, but trust me it was HUGE! I’ve always been self conscious about our tiny little apartment, but I went for it. I even included hot chocolate and the Ingrid Michaelson Pandora station. Everything about it rocked. SO much better than sitting in Starbucks and having to speak over the espresso machines and baristas calling out peoples’ names.
• To end the night, Jamie and I had a sister date, and then came home and watched several episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. It’s now on my list for shows to watch after Pretty Little Liars.

Sunday Notables:

• I again spent most of the day working, but after work I got to have my first mentoring session where I was the mentor! I loved it! There’s a reason why I chose a major that involves teaching. I am so stoked to incorporate this into my business. This session was completely tailored to what Vanessa wanted to learn about. We worked mostly on using her camera manually, as well as posing. She did so well, and we had amazing models! I will be doing a blog post specifically geared towards mentoring at a later date, but I just wanted to give you a small glimpse into what it consisted of. 🙂

• To end our Sunday, Tyler and I went on a double date with our good friends Michael and Liz. We enjoyed Olive Garden’s soup, salad, and bread-sticks while we planned our Summer 2014 Road Trip! (Well Liz and I mostly planned while the boys complained about how far away it was 😉 )

I hope you all had great weekends as well! Keep your eyes peeled for some gorgeous shoots coming your way this week!

Meet Jamie | Ames Wedding Photographer

Why, hello there! I hope you all had a great Monday!  I told you a couple weeks that I thought my sister in law deserved her own blog post, so here we go!

 

I have known Jamie almost as long as I’ve known Tyler. She has always been so friendly to me, and recently she has become one of my closest friends. I’ve been trying to think of the time we started having real conversations, rather than casual conversations, and I can’t think of the exact time. I’m leaning towards the time period of wedding planning, but I’m not sure. She could probably tell you, I’m terrible at these sorts of things. Jamie recently transferred to Iowa State, and it has seriously been amazing. We’ve gotten so close in such a short amount of time, and I have SO much fun with her!  I have enjoyed watching her grow into an amazingly Godly woman.

I was so excited when she agreed to start second shooting with me! It has been so much fun teaching her, and SO rewarding to see how much her skills have improved since the first time she started shooting. I love having her shoot with me!  It gives such a variety in such a short amount of time. For example, while I was shooting this:

Jamie was shooting this:

 

And while I was shooting this: 

Jamie was shooting this:

 

 

And it’s so nice to have her around to capture images of me with my camera, as well as images of Tyler and I.

 

Seriously! Jamie, thank you so much for agreeing to becoming my second shooter. You have made every session/wedding a blast. I love you, and I am so glad you decided to come to ISU! I am so excited to see where God leads you in your future, and to watch you grow in your relationship with Him and as a person.

And to end today’s post, here are 3 sneak peeks of blog post coming within the next week and a half. All of these sneak peeks shot by Jamie, of course! 🙂

 

 

Weekend Recap | Ames Wedding Photography

Another week has gone by and it’s Monday again. I’ve tried loving Mondays but it’s so hard when you have an 8 am class and work 2 shifts.  But this weekend was amazing, so hopefully today will just fly by.

Since Thursday I have captured images of some amazing couples. You’re probably thinking, “Wait Thursday isn’t the weekend” and while you’re technically right, Thursdays the start of my weekend because I don’t have class on Fridays! 🙂  Saturday was spent photographing a lovely wedding in Denison Iowa and Sunday I got to capture an adorable engagement session. I spent several hours with Jamie , my sister-in-law, and I haven’t laughed as hard as we did for a long time. I sound like a broken record, but I am SO thankful for her!

Since we were busy with shooting this weekend, I didn’t get a chance to Instagram much, so here are sneak peeks of the engagement sessions and wedding that will be coming to the blog soon!

Bec & Luke’s session was on Thursday, and I have already shared this sneak peek on Facebook, but I love it so much I wanted to share again! (Their blog post will be up this week, so be on the look out!)

 

 

Next was Rob & Johanna’s day. Everything was absolutely perfect. I seriously don’t think we could have had a more gorgeous fall day!

 

And last was Chris & Alix’s engagement shoot. It was SO windy and cloudy, but the sun came out at the perfect time to end our session!

 

Have a wonderful Monday friends!

Weekend Recap | A New Blog Series| Ames Wedding Photographer

I feel like l have tried to start several blog series. (Family Fridays, Wedding Planning 101) and life gets in the way, and I never continue them. (Actually, I think I did pretty well with Wedding Planning 101, since the original plan was just to do the series in August. However, I would like to continue writing a few posts for it here and there.) So, I’m planning on changing that. A goal of mine is to continue blogging consistently, and more frequently. Right now, I only blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the posts are usually sessions. I would like to blog things that are a little more personal, so I’m introducing a new series for Mondays, that I’m calling Weekend Recap for now. I will give you a peek into my weekend. (which will probably be some stories and Instagrams and hopefully some sneak peeks of the sessions I had too! Oh, and I did not come up with this idea on my own. ( I only wish I was that clever) A couple photographers I follow ( Abby & Rebekah) do this every Monday and I think it’s so neat! So, if you have a clever name for this series, please let me know!   I hope you all enjoy : )

Our Friday evening was spent playing Guitar Hero. I forgot how much I loved that game! ( I hope even mentioning the game makes you want to dig out your old game and play it 😉 ) Then on Saturday, we went to a Pumpkin Patch/ Apple Orchard with our small group. I seriously don’t know why I’ve always said Summer is my favorite season, and never have said Fall was my favorite season, because it really is.

After the pumpkin patch, I came back to Ames and had dinner with Jamie and the in-laws, and then came back to finish editing John & Emily’s wedding. I recently moved my office to the living room so I am able to watch TV while I edit which is so great!

I started watching Pretty Little Liars while editing and was hooked after the first episode. I’m starting to wondering if that was really the best idea 😉 And yesterday Tyler and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary of dating by cuddling up to watch the Walking Dead! (Here’s one of the first photos we took together when we started dating 5 years ago) 

And to end the first post in this series, here’s a peek at what’s to come tomorrow! Eek! I am SO excited!