Madelyn is 14 months old and she was an absolute doll! Seriously… look at her face! Mom and Dad were absolutely and totally welcoming and I haven’t had that much fun with a little one in quite a while. Heather (Mom) invited me over to their house on a Sunday afternoon – a rainy, cold, stormy Sunday at that. She had done an incredible job in decorating little Maddie’s room as every single detail was absolutely perfect. I only wish that I had that much energy to do my own girls’ nursery’s! To say I was impressed is a total understatement!

Taking tones of pink, green, white and lavender that were present in the room, Steve did a series of photographs that I think work perfectly together. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, our blog and our entire brand has gone through a re-design recently and we are incorporating our new look across the board. We’ve been working and tweaking our styling over the last year, but for the first time, I feel like all the elements have come together really cohesively! We’ve been adding a lot of textures, overlays and color to our images with our wedding and boudoir work for quite a while, but now we’re incorporating our children/family work as well. I really we’re taking everything to a whole new level!

Thank you Clark family for inviting me into your home. Madelyn is a true blessing; it was an honor to work with all of you!

They are also HUGE Seattle Seahawks fans and when I told them that we might be able to do their engagement session at Qwest Field, they were ready to go. I’m lucky that one of my great friends from college works for the Seahawks and was generous enough to gather special clearance for me to do their engagement session at the stadium on game day. It was a blast!

Fast forward to February… When someone books me for a February wedding, my mind automatically thinks “rain”. And so my planning goes forward with the knowledge that it’s February in Seattle. Well…. luck was on my side on February 20th as the day was as magnificent as it possibly could be with an unseasonably warm temperature of 60 degrees. It afforded us a lot of opportunities to travel around Tacoma!

Their wedding was huge, at almost 300 guests, and we had to hustle to get everything done on time. I had a million balls up in the air, juggling multiple locations (the venue, the hotel, parking, to our pre-selected photo spot at the Museum of Glass), meeting times, a large bridal party, lots of family, a tight timeline and 6 flights of stairs to the room where the ceremony was held (and 6 flights doesn’t seem like a lot until you are hauling about 100 pounds of gear and have to run up and down about 5 different times!). The wedding was beautiful though; the ceremony so very heartfelt and pure. Annie and Peter had a close family friend perform the vows and everything was just perfect.

Then it was onto the party! The room was packed with people, the band was playing, and everyone had a blast. Annie and Peter’s colors were lime green and blue – Seahawks colors – which was perfect for when the bride’s brother and cousin announced their surprise gift. Blitz, the Seawhawks mascot, made an appearance! He was hilarious and added so much to the party. Blitz & Co. did an amazing job with the florals – the flowers were some of the freshest I’ve ever seen (and not a single petal was damaged!). The tables were set with different sized bouquets, some short and some tall, complete with beautiful lime green runners. Everything was lit by candlelight and there was this warm glow over the entire room.

The party lasted well into the night before Annie and Peter took off onto their Mexican cruise!

Here are the details…
Couple: Annie & Peter
Date: February 20, 2009
Wedding Ceremony, Reception and Catering: Tacoma Landmark Theater
Hotel: Hotel Murano
Florist: Blitz & Co.
Cake: Celebrity Cake Studio
Band: Free Rain

And here is Annie & Peter’s wedding album!

To add to the fun, I contacted my good friend Corine Tran, who is a wedding photographer in New Orleans, and asked her if she’d hook me up with some awesome Mardi Gras props. She filled a box (and when I say filled, I mean 22 pounds of stuff!) and shipped it off to me this week. When it arrived, it was purple, gold and green everywhere!! But boy did these props add to the fun. Everyone had a really fun time playing with the pictures! It just added so much fun to the reception!

My assistant, Rebecca, and my new second shooter Josie both took turns manning the camera and coaxing guests into their crazy natures! I’m so happy with how this turned out, I’m now going to offer this service inclusive of all my 2010 packages! If you are a bride who already has a contract with me, you get it. If you are a bride thinking about hiring me, you also get this service… free. Whoo hoo! Who doesn’t like free, right?

So I found… it’s not hard to get people to be wild and crazy!

The bride’s family, as a surprise to the couple, hired Blitz the Seahawks mascot, to come entertain at the wedding!

Every once in a while, someone in the community donates a house or a building for what is called a Practice Burn. This allows the firefighters to do controlled training in a real life scenario kind of way. Essentially at the end of the day, though, the building is burned to the ground. If you’ve ever seen a true ripping fire, the power and the intensity is something to be feared, but is also so hypnotizing. You can be standing a block away, yet feel this intense heat and pressure all around you, but something about the fire just beckons your eyes and mind. It’s just amazing to witness. And watching these guys run in and out of a burning building is just a really wild experience.

My husband was kind enough to put in for photography access to this particular burn yesterday, which was approved by the Chief, and I went out to photograph some of the details of the burn. I had a lot of fun, I just wish I could have stayed until it was all in ashes (but it take hours and sometimes days for it to completely burn down all the way, so that wasn’t necessarily an option), but real life, work and kids called me away in the mid-afternoon. My mom even came out with the girls thinking that Maggie would enjoy watching the fire and watching daddy at work. Nothing could have been further from the truth as Maggie was terrified. Poor little thing… so my mom took her back to the car and they were entertained by throwing rocks in a mud puddle.

This was the first time that Maggie had ever seen Jason in his bunker gear. She’s seen him in uniform tons, but never full decked out with airpacks and everything. Even I have only seen it a few times in our marriage. So it was totally fun to see him working and doing what he does best! But at one point, Jason asked Maggie to hold his helmet.

So here are some details of the day… I’ll let the images speak for themselves and save you the narration.

But it’s worth the struggle for the times she is happy! Smiles only come around once in while, but when they do, they light up her entire face.