Paul & Neely’s Wedding Sneak Peak

I have to begin with the stories of everything that led up to this wedding…

I have been avoiding shooting weddings for several reasons: 1. I don’t have the equipment yet to adequately shoot a wedding. 2. I don’t have a second shoot. 3. I’m not a huge fan of weddings and I don’t really want to make my living on shooting them! But one day this summer I received a phone call from Lauren who shared this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day with me…Neely and Paul had hired a lady to shoot their engagements, bridals and wedding.  To make a long story short, the girl showed up an hour late with her “assistant” in highly inappropriate attire, only shot 35 pictures in 2 hours, and then asked Neely and Paul to go to lunch, they ordered the most expensive thing on the menu and then left before the check ever came.  Needless to say, Neely was mortified. They asked if I would be willing to shoot her wedding.  Despite the aforementioned 3 reasons, who could say no?!

I’ve had migraines for the past 10 years or so.  The Thursday before the wedding came; I packed and prepared and decided to go to bed early. The second I stepped out of the shower a full blown migraine set in, and I ended up in the ER Thursday night.  My severe ones completely wipe me out, even if the migraine subsides, for the next day or two.  I prayed and asked friends and family to pray for energy and a migraine-free weekend. God is so faithful; I woke up Saturday morning full of energy and ready to go.

All in all it was a great experience for me and a beautiful wedding.  I adore Neely’s whole family, and it was an honor to be asked to do this for them.  I pray that God will bless your marriage and your lives together. Alright…enough talking…here’s some pictures from the beautiful day:

Whenever I get married, I want this picture of my mom’s hands (at the wedding I’m not gonna have! )

Sexy Momma!!!

Brandon was happy about his shoes so we had to show them off!

I love this one! Its so classic vintage!

I just love that look on his face! Precious!

And off to the reception

Above, bottom two: Paul and his mom, Carol, were dancing and Brandon wanted to dance too…

Paul sang Neely a song, which I can’t remember at the moment…

Thank you again for the honor of photographing your special day! I hope you find some you love!

Meet Cathy

Cathy is a psychologist in town but unforunately, they are having to move back to Lubbock.  She loves working with young adults (20 somethings, college kids, newly married couples) and she is just one of the sweetest ladies I’ve met in a while.  We’ve been talking about doing some headshots for her website since before Summit (September) and we were finally able to do them this past Wednesday.  She was mainly needing just a couple of her in her office for her website but we stepped outside quickly to grab some before we lost the sun. Here are a few…

 

Thank you Cathy for asking me to do these for you. I hope you find some that will work!

Bras & Undies Galore!

After the family shoot below, the family asked that I stick around and take pictures of Neely’s lingerie shower.  It was a ton of fun and I learned some things about some people I never wanted to know! It was pink and black themed and the decorations were soo cute!! I’m only going to share a few pictures with you because, frankly, its none of your business what lingerie she was given!

Below: Upper right hand picture is the bride with her beautiful aunt.

Below: They had these super cute cookies made with little bras and undies on them…and they were AMAZINGLY good…I may have had half a dozen or so….  O:)

Below: The top picture is Neely looking at her “ring”.  It flashes and its been passed around among all the family for each wedding/shower. The middle picture is Neely’s family’s reactions to one of those stories!

Thanks for asking me to hang around for pictures! I can’t wait for your wedding next weekend…it is going to be BEAUTIFUL!

 

Meet the McCarthys and Newmans

The McCarthys and Newmans are very good friends of mine.  Natalie and I were roommates in college and I’ve met the rest of her family since.  Every year they take cousin pictures and this year they asked me to do them. I feel like I’ve photographed their family alot.  I’ve posted ome of Natalie’s wedding pictures, I’m shooting Neely’s wedding in two weeks and they also asked me to take pictures at Neely’s lingerie shower (to be posted soon).

I love their family; they are a ton of fun and high energy.  I was so happy the day turned out to be beautiful, sunny and warm – my last two shoots had not.  Unfortunately, I was struggling with a migraine during this shoot, so my creativity was suffering too.  But I hope y’all have found some you love – if not, I’ll reshoot on a day when I feel better!

We started at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth.

Then we were off to the Stockyards.

Below: All their idea and so much fun!

Angle Me Right

This last Tuesday I was blessed to be able to go to the Angle Me Right workshop hosted by EE Photography and Two Pair Photography. It was a ton of fun and I learned so much. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Thanks to everyone who made this workshop possible, especially to those who made it possible for me to go. I love you and cherish our friendship more and more each day! Thank you for your constant support and encouragement.

Meet Leslie

My friend Kyle’s cousin, Leslie, asked me to do her senior pictures.  We had originally scheduled these for the weekend before Summit but we got rained out.  We rescheduled and took them last weekend in the Buffalo Gap Historic Village.  It has taken me two weeks to get them edited.  One of my best friend’s sister is an amazing photographer in California and she sent me some of her short cuts (THANK YOU KRISTEN!).  Leslie’s pictures are the first time I got to use them and it was fun but took longer!

So Leslie…I’m sorry it has taken me SO long, but I hope the wait will be worth it and you find some you love.  I had a great time; thank you for the privileged of taking your Senior pics!

Below: Definitely one of my favs!

Below:

Me: Just stand in the middle and give me attitude…

Leslie: Oh! Thats easy…I can do that! 

Yes girl, you can! ha

Below: Their family owns a print shop so Leslie’s mom asked that we get one here.

Are you kidding me with those eyes?!  Leslie, you are gorgeous!

Leslie’s dog Doodle made an appearance…against Doodle’s wishes! It was so cold outside, she was shivering so badly but we were able to get a few.

Afterwards, we went out to the Abilene State Park to take a couple of Leslie paying Softball (she plays at Wylie High).  I had this “brilliant” idea…and brilliance turned into HOURS of editing (which is also why it took two weeks).  It started raining on our way out there, so we stayed long enough to get these and called it a day.

I’ll leave you with one more…

Thanks again Leslie!

Meet Brett & Rachel

I met Brett several years ago back in high school.  His youth group’s mission trip was to come help my youth group put on VBS.  We met again in Greek at ACU.  Then, when I started working at ACU, Rachel was the Dean’s office student worker and come to find out, they were engaged and were married a few months later.  Crazy small world!  Rachel and Brett wanted some new pictures together since they didn’t have any since their wedding.  We had it scheduled originally in Abilene but after graduation, they found jobs in Lubbock so I happily drove there for this shoot.  It was my first shoot out of town where I didn’t know the area or what spots to go to.  They did some scouting for me and we found a couple great locations.  It was a ton of fun but SO cold and Brett was in short sleeves too!

They said they loved black and white pictures (my fav too) so I was happy to oblige!

(I LOVED this door!)

Its not a complete photo session without a picture of their hands!

And to leave you with my favorite… (Have I mentioned I LOVED that door!?) 

Thank ya’ll so much for this opportunity! I hope you find some you love!

Meet my best friends!

In August, one of my best friends, Alyson, was going to be in home from PA school in Philly and she invited me out to meet her at their lake house on Lake Livingston. I was so excited to go, especially to take a break before Summit.  Little did she know that me and our other best friend, Haley, were scheming to surprise her by bringing Haley’s beautiful smiling face with me! I love scheming!  So with a last minute call to Alyson’s parents we made sure it was okay, many prayers Haley jumping through hoops to get off work, we drove out there and nearly gave Alyson a heartache when Haley jumped…err, fell out of the car!  It was SOOO worth it! Taking pictures while in a boat, going 3o miles an hour of someone bouncing around in wake definitely made for some interesting pictures but I wanted to share these with you anyway!

I truly have the best friends a girl could ever dream of!  We met while at college, were put together for a class project and we’ve never been the same.  We’ve been through so much together, especially the 6 months or so prior to this surprise and it was truly a blessing created by God that we were able to be together that weekend.  Thank you Dave and Jeanne for inviting us out that weekend and for your prayers and support through out the years!  And girls, I love you!

Below: Alyson’s dad, Dave.  Sorry Jeanne, I didn’t get any pics of you…

Below: We saw this guy flying around. He finally buzzed by us so I could get a good picture – LOVE my telephoto lens!

Below: Alyson and Haley decided to switch tubs while going 30 miles an hour in a boat!  It was hysterical!

Below: After a day and a half of tubing and water skiing we were exhausted!!  The first pic is of me trying to get back on the tub…I was hot and wanted to get in and cool off but didn’t think about the fact that I might be too tired to pull myself back up… 

Thanks for letting me share these with you!

Meet Dan and Elsbeth

I’M BACK! All things considered, Summit was a success and God was glorified and what other goal did we have but that? Its been an insanely crazy month but I’m so happy to finally have time to get back to photography!

As promised, (I know Cindy, I promised two months ago! ) here are pictures from my beautiful cousin, Elsbeth’s, wedding on August 9, at the Chapelle des Fleurs in Flower Mound, TX. Again, I was not the photographer but when has that ever stopped me?! I know, my photographer friends, I’ll find out shortly how much photographers hate people like me getting in their way when I have my first wedding next month!

The wedding was beautiful and I loved getting to spend time with my crazy unpredictable family.  Ellie, thank you for sharing your day with all of us (I hope Dan realizes what he’s gotten himself into!)!   And I hope you find a couple pictures you love.

See I do try to stay out of the way of the photographer sometimes….

Below: Me, my Papa and Granny and my beautiful sister, Jamie

Above: I learned that both of my cousins Ben (on the left) and Jake (on the right) are both incredible pianist.  Jake is in a band, which I knew, but I did not know the extent of his talent.  Our conversation kind of went like this:

(Jake playing a beautiful piece, sounded like a song out of a movie…)

Me: Jake, I never knew you could play so well! Have you ever written anything?

Jake: Ya…I wrote this…

Me: WHAT?!? Are you kidding me!??! How did I never know this?!?!

Jake continued to play while my jaw hung open…needless to say…he’s phenomenal!! And so is Ben.  So I had fun taking pictures…

Jake’s hands are on the left, Ben’s are on the right.  Which edit do you like better?  I think Ben’s.  LOVE the reflection of Ben’s!

Below:  Name that movie!!!

I love my family! And my new favorite picture!

Thanks for letting me share my crazy family with you!

Summit

Hey friends,

I was hoping and praying I would be able to get two more posts up but its just not going to happen until October probably.  For those who don’t know, I work at Abilene Christian University and plan an event called Summit.  Its big and crazy and happens in 17 days. With all the planning, August and the rest of this month are a bit insane which leaves me with no spare time to edit and post new pictures!  I have my cousin’s wedding pictures (I wasn’t the photographer but has that ever stopped me?!) and an incredibly fun weekend with my best friends on Lake Livingston I hope to share with you.  I do have a Senior Portraits session next weekend that for better or worst will get posted before Summit (Sept. 20-23).  Thank you so much for your patience as I realize it has been almost a month and probably 2 before anything else gets posted.

Summit really is a great event that has changed drastically in the last two years.  The event was previously called Lectureship and it was, honestly, not that great.  But as ACU comes into the 21st Century, the event is evolving to fit today’s Christians.  If you can make it to Abilene for those days, I promise it will be well worth your time. Check out the brochure and see what I’m talking about!

All this to say…stick with me…I promise I have not fallen off the face of the planet and will have new stuff soon!!  But for now…I’m back to planning and organizing 100s of people! (Prayers are much much appreciated!)