I know that it has been a while since I have blogged but I had to share my experience from last night.  I got the pleasure of spending most of the day with Amy & Thomas.  I did their engagement pictures early spring and I could tell then that this couple was truly special!  They are both very genially gracious and funny people.  One of the special moments that I was able to share was when the best man delivered a gift & a note to Amy before the ceremony.  It was a very emotional moment for everyone in the room.  Not a dry eye in the room, including me!  I do wish Thomas & Amy the best in their future together and I am glad that they picked me to share their day with!

I recently had the chance to work with Matt & Jamie.  These two were a lot of fun and they were up for anything that I threw at them.  I was able to catch a few pictures of them making faces at each other and the laughter that soon followed made for the best shots ever.  Those are the pictures that I love!!  Catching someone in a full open mouth laugh!  Always reminds me that there are good moments in life!  I can't wait until there wedding!  Fun will be had there! 

I also got the privilege of working with my very good friend Mary and her fantastic family!  I was fortunate enough to do Brooke's senior pictures back in 08 and since then I have done family reunion pictures, prom pictures for their youngest Kaitlyn and now family pictures.  Coming up soon, Kaitlyn will be graduation high school so I will be there for her senior pictures and graduation!  Brooke will also be graduating from college!  It will be a busy year at the Klaus house!  How time flies!  Hopefully sometime in the future there will be a wedding in store for Brooke!!   Mary already informed Brooke and I that I will be there taking the pictures!  Can't wait for that day!  I feel apart of the family since I have been photographing them for a few years now!  Many more good years to come too!!

Another engagement session down!  This weekend I got the pleasure of working with Christa & Nathan.  I really do enjoy working with the couples before the actual wedding date.  Gives me a chance to get to know them better and their personalities.  I had a lot of fun with these two, trying to capture their special moments on film and knowing that Nathan was being ornery the whole time and Christa was just the cutest thing!  Such an awesome couple! 

Something else that I have been working a lot on and seems to be pretty popular with the brides this year is guest books.  These are not your normal boring guest books but they contain pictures that the couple chooses from their engagement session.  I really like putting these together and they are something more of a scrap book than a guest book.  I think these are going to be the new thing, well from my perspective they already are since I just finished making my 4th one for this year!!

With the busy wedding season in full swing, comes the busy weekends of Engagement pictures!  I knocked out another two sessions this weekend and just wanted to share a little about each couple.  First off was Coby & Brittany.  These two were so much fun to work with and they couldn't keep their hands off of each other, which I played off of and I got some good shots of them in their moment.

My next couple for the weekend was Rebecca & Kyle.  These two are so cute and such a great couple to work with.  They were will willing and ready for anything!  I love working with couples like this, it is such a smooth photoshoot.  I am excited to work with both of these couples from now until their wedding date and there after also!

I just wanted to talk about all of the new and exciting adventures that will be coming my way for 2011.  I have recently befriended Lisa Spracklin of Snap Fitness, www.snapfitness.com , who has provided me with a great opportunity, that I would like to share with any upcoming brides.  It is a women's only boot camp class that is 5 days a week for 45 mins a day and it last for 4weeks. Now while this class starts May 2nd, I am hoping that this will be a long term class that will be provided every 4weeks.  One of the best parts, it is only $50.00 to join!  You heard me correctly, most boot camp classes for 4 weeks are in the $200.00 range and they are only 3 days a week!!  The people that join also get a goody bag, free t-shirt, pre&post measurements and a before and after picture by Photos by Francisco!  This was too good of an opportunity to pass up!!  You can sign up for this class by contacting Lisa at  lisaspracklin@platinumpinkfitness.com or call her at ‎785-342-1874.

Rick Raynes wedding entertainment is one of my preferred vendors and he is also a DJ at 99.9KG radio station www.99kgcountry.com .  They are in the middle of redoing their website and they are wanting to update all of the DJ's mug shots for a whole new look.  The best part is we will be doing a trade, pictures for radio advertisement.  I recently did my first radio commercial  in preparation for the Salina Central Mall Bridal show back in February.  I was super nervous, but as a true professional, Rick helped me and was very patient for the process!  I am excited for the possibilities to get to do it again!  So keep your ears open, because you never know what you might here.



With pen in hand, I headed to Wichita for the WedPro2011 conference.   This is a chance for all of the wedding professionals to get together and get the latest information on how to make your wedding day experience fantastic!!  It is also a time for us to geek out, in a sense, let our hair down and have a little fun.  As a photographer, I am sad to say that I didn't actually take any pictures at this event...I was too busy writing down tons of notes!....note to self....take laptop next year!

It is also a great time to network, get to hang out and gossip with the people that I do know and get to meet and great some of the people that I don't know. 

One of the speaker that was there was Susan Southerland, who is one of the foremost experts in the wedding industry.  If you are interested to find out what type of bride you are, I have a treat for you!!  They have a quiz for that!!  They seem to have a quiz for everything now days!!  It really does help you in the process of planning and making all of those decisions that brides make.

  



Visionary Bride

Savvy Bride

Bewildered Bride

Functional Bride

 



 Another one of the speakers, and my personal favorite, was Peter Merry.  He has been helping couples create fun and entertaining wedding receptions since 1992.  He had my attention from the beginning.  One of my favorite topics that he spoke about was call the Starbucks Effect.  Did you know that there are 88,000 ways to make specialty drinks!!  For those of you that are not coffee drinkers, there has to be something there that you like, with those odds...come on now!!  He is also the author of The Best Wedding Reception....EVER!!  This is a definite must read for anyone about to get married.  His time is running short of making it on Oprah and having his book and her must read list! 

Hopefully I have entertained you a little, my creative writing skills are a bit dusty.  Blogging is a new chapter in my life and business and a little something that I also learned from my adventures at the conference.