Yane and Ben E-session (Teasers).

Some people are just meant to be.  It's rare that you hear a story that really feels like God bringing two individuals together, but that's Yane & Ben's story.  I loved all the cute details of their story, but I'll just have to share what happened in a nutshell.

A few years back, Yane and Ben first met in passing at church while Ben was in town visiting his brother.  At that time Yane noticed him thinking that he'd definitely be her type, but how unfortunate that he's not from around Atlanta.  They said their hellos and parted ways.  Fast forward a few years later and Ben and Yane were matched on eHarmony.  It was at that time that Yane decided to close her account and while she's browsed her final matches, she stumbled across Ben's profile.  They spent the next few days talking and discovered that their paths have crossed before.... and the rest is history!

Shooting an engagement session in below freezing weather is not recommended.  We saw flakes of snow... one or two!  Although, one day I would like to photograph a couple having a snow ball fight.  Note to self.

We still had a great time and managed just fine reminding each other to think of tropical weather while we looked forward to the next indoor location.  Ben laughed at us the entire time telling us this is nothing compared to Chicago.  He's probably right, and I don't want to find out for myself.  haha  These are just a few teasers from the session.





We grabbed brunch at feast, where they had their engagement party right after he proposed.  They have really yummy food and beautiful decor.

Ring shots. Bling shots.

If I ask for your rings and sneak off with them during the reception or at any point before or after the ceremony, now you'll know what I'm up to.  I'm just such a sucker for photographing details...  especially rings & other shiny things, dresses, and can't forget shoes!  Here's one of my favorite ring shots to date.  Catholic school salt and pepper shakers at a catholic wedding.



Of course, I couldn't resist doing a "collection" of my own.  I wasn't quite manicured and ready for hand modeling, but they'll have to do.  :)  So here you have it.. in case you were curious to see it.  My bling:









These are just a few from the set I took.  :)  I'll be sure to set up a separate album for bling shots on flickr and facebook.

365: 11-20.

Whoa, it's almost the 30th!  Time sure flies.  Guess we should catch up on the 365 posts where we take a photo a day for 365 days (first set here).  Again, if you are here for wedding/portrait work, please navigate using the links to the right.  Esther: left, Jacob: right.

11: Monday night bowling.



12: a) I love free Swiss Miss!  b) Bristow.



13: a) Guess who's picture showed up in Atlanta Weddings?  Mine.  b) Save ussssss!



14: a) Ben's headshots.  b) Maintenance needed.



15: a) Glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away. b) Hotel for the weekend.



16: a) Will you? b) Oh, nuts!



17: a) Carol's new bling.  b) Which of these things is not like the other?



18: a) New studio sample guestbook.  b) Home sweet home.



19: a) Mmm, charcoal.. tasty.  b) Hulk smash!



20: a) Spring Hall. b) Visitor at pre-marital counseling.

Guestbook Ideas.

I love the fact that you can pretty much personalize every aspect of your wedding.  Guestbooks are probably one of the last details people worry about during the wedding planning process, but there are definitely creative ways to personalize it for your wedding.  I've gone ahead and put together some ideas I've collected.

Here was a wedding I did spring 2009.  Jean and Mike brought it when it came to putting personality into their wedding.  You can see their style and personality was reflected in pretty much every aspect of their wedding (slideshow here).  I thought their guestbook idea was toooo cute, where you could put individual messages into these small envelopes and seal them shut.



Another idea instead of having a standard guestbook is a photobooth where guests can use a chalkboard or a dry erase board to write messages for you.  Here's a recent one I did for Tara and Jamie's wedding but sans the message.  The next photo was from a photobooth Jacob did Spring 2009.  I'm not a huge fan of the background, but you get the idea.  These photos would then go into a custom photo book, so your guests can leave you a crazy photo from your wedding along with a message.



Lastly, this is probably what I will be putting together for my own wedding, but a custom photoart guestbook with engagement photos.  These next few photos are from our studio sample.  They come in a variety of covers, and you customize it with your name and date in silver or gold.  The text also comes in cursive.



The hinged gutter allows for all the pages to lay flat so it's easier to sign.



This is one of my favorite spreads from the guestbook.  We custom design all the spreads and have 1-2 design sessions with our clients to make sure it's perfect.



Here's another favorite!



You can definitely get creative with it.  Scrapbooks are nice too (but do take a lot of time).  I've also seen a large gallery print by the entrance that you can sign on, but I find them to be generally messy looking especially if you don't have a lot of blank space in the photo.

Something else I saw on theknot that could be helpful is to have fun pre-printed questions for your guests so that you won't get the congratulatory message over and over again and it will make each message more personal.

• How did you first meet the bride and groom?
  
• When did you know they were in love?
  
• What's the secret to a great marriage?
  
• Can you share a funny memory about the bride and/or the groom?

Also wanted to say a big thank you to those of you who have joined my fanpage on facebook.  I've hit 1000 fans! :)  If you haven't already joined, you can join here for updates on your fb.

Spring Hall - Doraville, GA

Time to hit that reset button on the blog resolution.

Before I move on with the rest of the post, I also wanted to mention that I'm no longer taking any more July weddings this month.  I am taking it easy in July.

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Spring Hall is located off of Buford Hwy and is mainly a wedding venue where you can also host other events such as birthdays...  particularly 100th day and 1st birthdays are huge celebrations in the Korean community.  I had never seen the place in person, but kept hearing of it from different brides, so I decided I wanted to check it out... not knowing that I coincidentally already knew the owner. 

After speaking to Young Mi, she asked me to come in and take some photos of a birthday event for their website.  Let me tell you, it was probably the most elaborate and well designed birthday I have ever seen.  I was thoroughly impressed.  Here are the photos:

Ben's Headshots.

My second post of the day!  After my third day of P90X, I feel unstoppable!!  haha  Good for me on my attempts to catch up on blogging.  As for the P90X, I should really take a video of myself doing it.  It's ridiculously hard, and I've been struggling.  All I can really do is laugh at myself at the moment... but I will bring it!! :)

Here's just a couple headshots of Ben.  Ben's a neighbor who needed some photos for his website.  How convenient that he lives just down the street.

Jaclyn and Charlie Wedding Teasers - Jakarta, Indonesia

Here are some teasers from Jaclyn and Charlie's wedding.  Jacob booked a wedding in Indonesia, and I had the opportunity to go with him to second shoot.  We flew in and shot the ceremony on a Sunday, flew over to Bali to have some R&R, and then flew back to shoot the reception the following weekend.

What more can I say... it was incredible!  When I do get the opportunity to, I love to second shoot.  The main photographer has to take care of all the main responsibilities, while I roam around and shoot exactly what I want.  Who doesn't love that?  :)

Most of these were his shots, while I did all the post.  I've been including in his work on my posts here and there.  Can you tell the difference between his shots and mine?

Brrrrr!

Brrrrr!  It is cold in here.  Atlanta has below freezing weather and nothing to show for it.  At least if it snows, it'd be winter wonderland.  I cannot wait till the weather warms up, or till I can have a nice weekend getaway somewhere warm.  I'm pretty sure I was meant to live somewhere tropical (and be tanned).

I was looking at some photos I took during winter '08 while I was living in Germany.  Snow does make for some fun photos.  :)  Good times.

But even though I can't get snow pictures, my photos can still be winter-esque.  I failed my autumn foliage photo mission this year.  I went at the tail end of the season when all the leaves were already falling off. :(  Missed it again!  I still managed a few photos, and now that I'm looking at them, they definitely look more appropriate for winter.  I'm really happy with them, I might even do prints!





Didn't miss the fall colors entirely.



I know these are long overdue.  I'm making it priority for this new year to post some more of my personal photo adventures.  And I'm making it a goal to blog post at least twice a week.  So there's two from the list of many, MANY resolutions.  I was looking over my resolutions list, and it's too ridiculously long and detailed to post, so I'll share tidbits of them here and there throughout the year.

Oh!  Also, we're not slacking on the 365.  The photos are still being taken everyday, but just not being blogged.  For the sake of keeping track of photos, making the numbers easy, and not interfering with work-related blogs, I'm planning on doing ten all at once.

Now, off to Maum, to get my favorite bread and sip on my iced coffee while I work behind my computer.  Whoa, Can't believe I have client meetings every day of this week.  Guess I will be living there this week. :)

Cheers to 2010!

First of all, since it is a new year, I wanted to start up another 365 (a photo a day for one year)...  not that any of my previous attempts were successful, but why not start off on a new slate and give it a go.  I've done random photos and portraits, and the furthest I've probably gone was a month or two.

This year, I was thinking about doing something different, perhaps more of a collaboration (maybe that can be 2011?) or a photo pairing where two people take a photo a day not knowing what the other is shooting, and then posting them side by side.

Not only is it good practice, but every photographer needs to have personal projects to spur creativity... and a little teamwork may help motivate me to keep it going longer.  So here's number 1!  Mine will show on the left, while Jacob's will be on the right.  Rest assured, no bunnies were killed to make the soup.  Click the photo to view a larger version.



Looking back at 2009, I can honestly say I feel like I've accomplished more in this one year than my entire life.  I hope I can say the same about 2010.  I revisited my entry on 2009 resolutions, and I'm surprised to see that I've achieved quite a few of them.  I visited two continents I've never been to: Europe and Africa.  Made a new friend from a completely different culture, language, etc.  Read more.  All sorts of books.  Even finished the bible twice.  Pretty good for not being a book person, yeah?  I've slowly learned to cook (easier dishes like green bean casserole, but cooking is still cooking).  And I may have never learned conversational German while I was in Germany, but I guess it's not that useful anymore now that I would have no one to speak German to.

I have grown A LOT...

personally. with photography. with owning a business.
peeled off another layer and gone a little deeper with God.
mended a lot of broken relationships with friends and family.
learned more about grace and forgiveness.
learned more of what/who love is and through that learned to love just a teeny bit more.

but I also know there's so much more growing to do.  (which is why it is taking me forever to put together my resolutions list or rather my S.M.A.R.T. goals which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-sensitive.)  I'll have to post the resolutions later.

The growing sure is a lifelong journey.... but I'm looking forward to it.  Cheers to 2010! :)

Happy Holidays!

Hope y'all are enjoying the holidays.  This one is a longer blog, because I had a lot to reflect upon over Christmas.  Photos are at the bottom. :)

Christmas came and went really fast this year.  I kept telling myself that this year I'm not going to focus on all the wrong things like gift swapping, holiday parties, etc.  But I ended up being guilt tripped to do all this last minute shopping.  The shopping frenzy was a bit overwhelming for me.  I don't remember the traffic being so terrible until this year. 

Although, giving gifts is probably my biggest love language, I'm not much of a fan of it during holidays like Christmas and V-day.  I like giving gifts just because, not because I'm obligated to.  I think the perfect gift comes to fruition when a lot of thought is put into it.  You get really lucky when you come across something that reminds me of a certain person.  If the greatest gift of all is love, I guess gifts can also look very different for different people.

Maybe for next Christmas, I may have to make it a year long process if I'm going to do this right.  That way I'm not strapped for time and giving people stuff that they might or might not want and most definitely do not need.

At first, all I could talk about was how much I really wanted this ferragamo bag, which I knew I couldn't afford (WAY WAY out of my budget).  I'm not even much of a bag person, and it's pretty rare when I find something that I absolutely must have.  This one just happened to be that hot item!  I really had to remind myself that I really really really did not need it. 

I am more than blessed with what I already have, and it's quite probable that I'd find very little fulfillment in it after I actually own it.  I was reminded of this past year during dts, where we were living more simply and relied on God for everything.  He always did provide for what I needed, and sometimes surprised me with little things that He knew I wanted.  The real joy came from knowing that in Him we live and move and have our being.  Why's it so easy to forget all that He's done.

Also wanted to share some Christmas-related photos.  Thought it would be very fitting. :)  Meet Kira.  She was full of energy and spunk.







She wanted to give us some sass.  Just being her model self.





The outfit was too adorable!