Earlier this spring, I met up with Tanner & Olivia to take their engagement photos at the Ponderosa walking park on the north side of Houston.
A lot of times, I pick an engagement portrait location virtually (meaning I don’t always visit it until the day of). This location was one of those virtual picks. It looked good from google maps, and my google image search. I realized, as I drove up to the park that it was in Shirley Acres back yard. It’s crazy to me how I find new locations right next to places I’ve been before.
I love how lush and green everything looked in these engagement photos. Tanner & Olivia looked amazing and had fun goofing off and dancing to the cicadas for their engagement portraits.
Check out Tanner & Olivia’s engagement photos here:
The step-by-step guide (and worksheet) to your first few steps in your wedding planning process.
By now, you’ve hopefully completed the first eight steps from my previous post. If you haven’t, go check it out first. Here’s the link — So you’re engaged, what’s next (part 1). The next steps should be done between 12-10 months before your wedding.
For the next few steps you will be working on hiring wedding vendors. It’s important to be conscious of two things, #1 is the importance of the particular type of vendor at your wedding and #2 is the amount of time the vendor will need to be there.
The rule of thumb is the more time the vendor needs to be at your wedding, the more likely you will need to hire that person earlier than others. If the person can’t work multiple weddings on the same day (ie wedding planners, photographers, entertainment…) they are a higher booking priority.
#9 Research! Now’s the time (if you haven’t already) to start your spreadsheet full of potential wedding planners or coordinators, wedding photographers & videographers. You can use one tab for each vendor to keep them in one place.
Ask important questions like: Are you available, what’s your average cost, what do you provide, how long have you been in the wedding business?
It’s important to note, while the average cost is important, it shouldn’t be a deciding factor. Yes, you should try to stay within budget, but if your heart is telling you to pick someone outside your budget, maybe there’s a reason for that. See if there is anything they can do to work with you before you count them out.
#10 Whittle down your list to the top 2-4 from each category. Schedule meetings with them. Make sure you either talk on the phone, meet in person or over a zoom-like chat.
This is important because it’s much easier to get a feel for a company/person to see if they’ll be compatible with you and your wants and needs in person or over the phone. You don’t want to just hire someone because they are cheap or because they were the vendor for your cousin’s wedding. What works for others may not work for you.
#11 Hire your wedding planner/coordinator. You can provide your whittled down list of photographers and videographers and see if they have any insight on them. There are so many wedding vendors in the Houston area, thought, that there’s a high chance that the planner hasn’t worked with them (yet). Don’t count vendors out just because they haven’t worked with your planner.
#12 Hire your wedding photographer and videograper. Not everyone hires a videographer, but if you are wanting one, now’s the time to hire.
#13 Since you have a location, date and most likely time for your weddings. It’s time to work on your save-the-dates and your invitations. There are loads of options for both. You can make magnets, interesting trinkets with the dates inscribed. There are large online companies that do invitations and small individuals. You can get invitations designed and printed from an online shop or go into a store and pick some out. You can even make them yourselves. Below are some ideas of where to start your invitation hunt.
Vistaprint.com
Etsy
Google “wedding invitations”
Check Instagram #WeddingInvitationDesign
#14 Now that you’ve got some of the bigger vendors out of the way, it’s time to think about food. What kind of food do you want to have at your wedding? What kind of food do you want at your rehearsal? Make sure to talk with your parents & in-laws to be if they will be helping you throw either your wedding or rehearsal. Once you’ve come up. Research your catering options and whittle the list down to a couple. If you want, this is a part you can delegate to someone else.
#15 Pat yourself on the back! You deserve a big break or a special date night. Go out & have some fun. Don’t think about wedding planning at all.
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Prepared for a rainy engagement shoot, I wondered the paths at the Houston Arboretum with 2 umbrella’s on hand. Like magic, as soon as I met up with Ryan & Allyson the rain stopped. With the weather looking up, we headed into the park. We wondered some of my favorite locations inside the park as well as some new locations I’d never ventured to before.
As we wondered around the park we talked about their wedding plans and their ideas on their honeymoon. It was fun to see them so excited about the wedding, but the honeymoon even more. I told them about the resort Andy and I went to for our Honeymoon and how much we loved it, and talked about the benefits of a travel agent.
I truly enjoyed spending the afternoon with Ryan and Allyson. Congratulations, and happy wedding planning!!
Brad & Jenny’s Wedding at the little white chapel in Katy, Texas and reception at Brennan’s of Houston.
On a windy, but quite beautiful, day Brad and Jenny married in front of an intimate gathering of friends and family. The historic, wooden church sits behind the Church on the Rocks in Katy, TX. An interesting fact is that this wasn’t the original location of this church. It was moved here after buildings started encroaching around it.
Brad and Jenny chose to have a first look inside the church before their guests arrived. I know first-looks aren’t for everyone, but I absolutely love shooting them. Even though Brad saw Jenny in her dress before the ceremony, he still had the sweetest glimmer in his eye as she walked down the aisle toward him.
During the ceremony, Brad, Jenny & Jenny’s daughter pored colored glass into a jar as a symbol of the family’s union. Some time later, they will have the glass turned into a piece of blown glass art. I hope I get to see a picture of it. I’m so excited for this!
After the wedding, the intimate wedding party departed to Brennan’s downtown for a romantic reception in the wine room. After an amazing, and one of the most elegant dinner’s I’ve ever had, the couple wowed their guests by helping to make Banana’s foster. The pyro in me was most excited for this moment.
As a wedding photographer, I’ve seen trends come and go. One of the latest trends making its rounds in the wedding circuit is the private last dance.
It’s exactly what you would think it is. At the end of your wedding reception, as guests are instructed to head outside to set up for your grand exit, you and your spouse are in the venue having one last dance. It’s just you two, the DJ or band and your photographer left.
Obviously it’s not completely private. Because the only other people left are wedding vendors it feels private.
There are many things I love about the private last dance. Getting to see the last bits of quiet intimacy between the happy couple before they join the bustling real world. I love that these precious moments spent between the couple also give the wedding party time to set up. It feels like a well oiled machine. Everything is timed so nicely for the couple. After their dance they walk right out to their getaway car to end their magical night.
What are your thoughts? Would you have a private last dance at your wedding?
Will & Arden’s wedding at the Bowery House in Katy, TX.
The entire week leading up to Will and Arden’s wedding was filled with dark rain clouds and pounding rain. The day of their wedding, Mother Nature showed her romantic side and brought forth the shining sun. I will continue to sing my praises to Mother Nature for allowing me to photograph a stunning wedding with the sun shining.
The Bowery House was such a perfect venue for the happy couple to share their vows (and like the romantic journal, their vows were so sweet). Will and Arden are bubbly, romantic and such a unique couple. The venue was soft and romantic on the green where the ceremony was held. I was particularly drawn to the way the tree at the alter made an arch. It was like the magic of the Fey blessing the venue. It’s 3 story urban brick building reminds me of an open air train station on the bottom, an elegant reception hall on the second floor and a whimsical roof lounge on the top.
Will gave Arden a journal on their wedding day. The journal was filled with entries the week leading up to their engagement. Will wrote in the journal every day leading up to the day he proposed to Arden. I was CRUSHED when I read this. This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever had the privilege of photographing. Between me and Andy, I’m definitely not the romantic one… but this, this made my heart squeeze.
After the ceremony, the happy couple danced well into the night surrounded by so many loving friends and family. Though they did cut a cake, they chose to offer Shipley’s donuts to their guests in leu of cake. To say I was obsessed, is an understatement. Shipley Donuts > KrispyKreme (fight me).
At the end of the night, the wedding guests sent the couple off with a long sparkler exit. The party didn’t stop there, though. The get-away car took the couple to a second location for the after-party of the century.
Congratulations to Will & Arden on their happy marriage!!
As a wedding photographer, I’ve seen a lot and had to react to several minor disasters. Throughout the years, my “go-bag” for weddings has gotten bigger and bigger. It seems with every wedding I am adding something to it. I have done surgery on a boutonniere before to put the rose back on the stem. I have had to wrap a bouquet in some ribbon that I brought and trim parts of the bouquet that hung over because a bridesmaid had a severe allergic reaction to holding the bouquet. You name it, I’ve probably done my best to fix it.
If I didn’t have the fix in my bag, you better believe it went into my bag for the next wedding. My cousin tried a lip-stain before her brother’s wedding (she’d never used one before) and she didn’t like it so she tried to rub it off… If you’ve used lip-stains before you can imagine how that went… but you don’t have to because I have a photo of it. That was the day I added makeup remover to my go-bag.
So what’s in my bag you ask?
A small sewing kit
Scissors
bobby pins (in multiple hair tone colors)
rubber bands (big black ones as well as the small clear ones)
A fingernail clipper
A small first aid kit
Lint roller
Tampons
Tissues
Mini toothbrush thingies (no water needed)
Flossers
Tumms
Tylenol
Spray-on deodorant
Hair spray
Makeup removing wipes
Wrinkle-release
Q-tips
Tide stain remover
Snacks
Ribbon
Adhesive dots
Do you need everything that’s in my bag for your wedding?
Probably not. Hopefully you won’t need to use anything from my bag. However, I believe when you’re least prepared, Murphy (Murphy’s Law) hits the hardest. Your emergency wedding kit may have things like a raiser or baby powder instead of ribbon and adhesive dots.
How do you get one of these fancy kits?
You can either make it yourself (grocery stores have that travel section, which is perfect for an occasion such as this), or you can order a kit online. A lot of people are using their experience to put together a wedding emergency kit you can buy off of Etsy.
It was a gorgeous day when we set out to hike the Hermann Park trails to take engagement portraits. So gorgeous (compared the the previous days) in fact that it felt like half of Houston had the same idea. The park was swarming with people, but the further into the park we got, the fewer people we came across.
We hiked from the zoo parking lot all the way to Rice University where the azalea’s were in full bloom.
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