Jared and Kelly's Wedding Day

We had such a great time capturing this fun couples wedding day. They had lots of family and friends to share in their special day. You can tell from the pictures that she was one radiant bride who just couldn’t stop smiling the whole day.


I just love how this short video captures a little overview of their wonderful day.

Below are just a a few of my favorites that we couldn’t include on the slide show

Beyler Family Photo Shoot

Here is a short 4 minute video of our fun family session.

I have so many great photo things I need to blog about but as you can expect this time of year I am getting lots of family orders taken care of but I just had to share this short video from a November Family shoot I did. I brought along a second photographer and added some short video clips of the session into their slide show.

Such a fun little family. Both the kids were so cute. Little Lilia reminded me of the Dog in UP that was always going ‘Squirrel” “Squirrel” except with her it was “Duck” Duck”. She loooved the ducks. She even caught one (and luckily we caught her before she when into the water). At one point if you watch closely when she’s on the bridge she dips her foot into the water and her Dad keeps a tight hold of her hand.

When their kids viewed the slide show and remembered the fun with the lake, lady bugs, ducks and dogs they wanted to go back and take some more pictures. I think this really adds a wonderful way to remember your fun family photo session and will start offering it as an option.

The wedding date I always remember

Julie was one of the nicest brides ever! Anyone that knows her can confirm this. I was so impressed with how she wanted everyone to really enjoy the day. Both she and Brian wanted so much for this to be a wonderful celebration for everyone, not just for them. I could go on and on with examples of how some things didn’t go as they planed but they just rolled with the day and truly had an attitude of gratitude for all the friends and family that had made arrangements to take time out of their lives to share their day.

On of the things they “rolled with” was when we realized that everyone had taken off from the church to the reception and taken their car keys with them. They just jumped in with me and let me chauffer them and it allowed for this cool sunset pictures when we were going back after the reception

Julie and Brian were also the first couple that I had that did personalized albums for their parents. Even though it is less expensive for them to just have duplicate albums of their album, for their parents they wanted to really personalize them. Exchanging out photos for one they knew each parent would want and adding a personalize letter printed on the front of each album. What a special and thoughtful touch for their parents.

I remember that after the reception their whole bridal party was going to play miniature golf and Brian and Julie were going to change and head over to spend a little extra fun time with these friends. As you can see any of these things would have made this couple memorable to me, but the date…ah that sticks with me too. Why?

As I’m dropping the Bride and groom off (remember the missing keys) and leaving I get a call from my eldest daughter, she doesn’t sound good. She informs me that she is at the Hospital they are about to take her in for emergency surgery. Chris (her husband) took her in to the ER that morning very sick and she had a hot appendix that had to come out, stat! WHAT!!!, Why didn’t you call? “Well, I knew you had a wedding and there was really nothing you could do for me.” She was right. “Chris has been here and taken care of everything.” I headed over to hospital to spell Chris so he could eat and run home and shower. He was back before she was even out of surgery and I was on my way home after a long day, never even seeing my daughter but knowing she was in good hands. So November 10^th is a date that I will always remember. It is the date of a wonderful wedding and the date I found out just how wonderful my son-in-law really is.

My Two Favorite Brides

I have shot some amazing, beautiful and wonderful brides but if I had to make a choice these would be my two favorite brides of all time. Now, I am a little prejudice as these two are my own daughters so they do have a slight advantage over all you other amazing brides that have allowed me to be a part of your day.

As I was finishing up Rebecca’s wedding photos and moving all the files to the back up drive, I was reminded that we had done a very quick bridal shoot and I needed to get those on the disc to her too. On the day she had made plans for her hair and makeup to be done we had an unplanned medical situation with a family member and were going to be very short on time. Instead of going to an outside location we just put up the back drops and did a mini session so she could check out her look. She’s as gorgeous as ever and we might even send a few of these to the bridal store where she bought her dress.

I went back and pulled a few from Elizabeth’s bridal photos. When she got married in March 2007 I had neither a blog nor a facebook page and missed the opportunity to share any pictures from her bridal photos. So here a just a few of her.

These girls have many things in common but they are also so very different. They are their own individual selves and have been since the day they got here. May they love and lean on each other long after I am gone.

Back on a protography thought. I recommend to all brides that they do a “dry run” of their wedding day. Make-up, hair, and dress with the underclothes they will be wearing that day whether or not they plan on having any bridal pictures done. It gives them a sense of long it will take them to get ready (so many brides underestimate this). It lets them see how everything looks together and if they really do like their hair that way. I had a bride who wanted to wear false eye lashes. She had been told by many that they really look good in photos (and they usually really do), but she had never wore them before so her eyes felt very heavy and she just didn’t feel right. Her own lashes were so long that they actually overpowered the false ones and it just wasn’t working. She took them off and her whole smile and facial expressions went back to their natural beautiful look. She was so glad she figured that out before the day of her wedding. I had another bride that underestimated the drop in the back of her dress and realized that she needed different underclothes. So my advice is to always do a pre-wedding day “dress rehearsal” just to be sure your wedding day is as you picture it.

Dan and Rebecca's Wedding Video

Here is a video of Dan and Rebecca’s wedding day. It is about 6 ½ minutes. I did a full length one (about 26 minutes) that had a lot more pictures and music but it too long to share on the blog.  Finally getting everything done and shipped off to them. I was reminded how important it is to sync your cameras if you don’t want to spend hours trying to inter sort pictures. I ordered a new pictured cd/dvd cover that I custom designed.

These custom printed cases are a little pricey but I really like them and are going to start offering with my full day packages or as an add on to the smaller packages. I will still carry the leather cases but I think these are just another great way to personalize things.

Anaheim Wedding Album

Anaheim Wedding Album
Click link for slide show

With brides getting back to us with their pictures choices we have been doing our best to get albums designed and ordered so that we can beat the fast approaching Holiday deadlines from the album companies. Here is a look at and Anaheim wedding album that we ordered from Graphi Studios. Is was a larger (9x13) album which allows us to put a few more pictures on the pages. The album turned out wonderful. Can you tell what the brides favorite color is?

We all work for incentive.

These are four of the cutest and most energetic kids you’ll ever meet. (I can say that because they are my nephews and niece. Have you ever heard the expression “herding kittens”? That can off times be accurate when shooting kids at these ages. Out in a new fun place (Botanical Gardens in Riverside) with lots of cool bugs and trails to explore.

The Cristales had put off taking a family photo (see below post about when it the perfect time) and Rod was going to be visiting relatives that he hadn’t seen in over 30 years. They really wanted to have an updated family photo so we were under the gun to get these pictures taken and couldn’t “wait for a better time” so after a long hot day of having to “be good” at school we were now going to be challenged to get these guys to cooperate for a quick family shoot. 

Well as you can see by these cute photos, we did it.

You get this great side shot when the children you are shooting are your 2nd photographer’s kids and she quickly takes the second camera and does what she does best, starts taking some pictures.

Some people use that ugly word “bribes” I prefer incentive. We all do things for “incentives”. Even at our jobs, promotions, advancements heck even our very pay check is incentive. How did we do it? What did their Mom use for incentive? Coldstone Ice Cream. Hey, that would even work for me.

Here is a picture of me and four of my favorite kids!

Is there a perfect time?

When is the last time you had a family picture taken? Before your youngest even had their first tooth? Two children ago? 25 lbs ago? What has been holding you back from booking a family photo session?
Is there ever a perfect time to have photographs taken of your family?
It’s so easy to say-
“We have so much going on”
“I’m too fat”
“Sue is still in braces”
“We’re too busy”
“Maybe next year”

I just want to say STOP IT! We need to take the time to appreciate the value of family photos, if not for ourselves (because we’re too fat or whatever), then for our children. In 20 years, your children are not going to say, “I really love this photo but I wish my mom had waited until she lost some weight or that my sister was out of braces.”

I have had occasions in the past where this has been brought up with a sad reminder to me. Like the call I got just a few weeks after a wedding. We had some time before the reception and per the brides request we had taken some individual shots of the families that were there. One of those family shots was of an Uncle and his family. They called me wanting to know if they could get that picture right away as they wanted to use it at his funeral services. He had been out trimming a tree and taken a fall that was fatal. This was the only family pictures they had all together in many, many years.

I have had some humbling reminders of this again last week as I got a call to please come and take some family portraits before a beautiful and beloved daughter; sister, mother and friend had to have immediate surgery to remove cancer and then started immediate chemotherapy treatments.


We never know what tomorrow will bring. Life is quickly racing by. So my answer to my own question is, there is no “perfect” time to take a family picture, so as Nike would say, “Just do it”.


Thanks, to this family who allowed me to again share some special moments and trusted me to capture the language of love that their family speaks. Thanks for reminding me what is truly important.

Kevin and Bree's Album

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.


This is quick look at an album I designed and ordered last week from a Newport Beach LDS Temple Wedding from a while back. It will be a 10x10 Art Leather Album. It’s smaller, only 10 pages (20 sides) but I think they did a great job of picking pictures to tell the story line of their day. I know it’s hard to see the details in the little slide show pictures but it gives you an idea of what a beautiful bride Bree was and talk about gorgeous colors.

It been a while since I’ve had a wedding in Newport but I just love photographing there as there is almost always an ocean breeze to keep things pleasant and except for early in the mornings you are usually blessed with blue skies.

Dan and Rebecca

What a magic day. You take one gorgeous bride, one handsome groom; add in some wonderful friends and family and some picture perfect weather (Only 89 in mid August in Southern California) and it was a perfect day! I am only going to post a few pictures here for now. As you can imagine I have more than a few pictures to go through so I hope this will to do for now. A full blog posting will come later. For now if you want to see more of their pictures you can go to their online albums at www.printroom.com/pro/crphotos