Just one from Brandon and Haley’s wedding last night. More to come soon.

Lisa and I were roommates in college. It seems like it was just yesterday we were hanging out after class and having fun adventures. Can you believe we are both married now and she has three adorable kids? I was super excited when she emailed me about having a family portrait session. Lisa, your family is darling and it was great to hang out with you and Dan again. Hope you like them.

I had a great time at Danielle’s senior portrait session. She brought her puppy, Grady, to the shoot and he was so fun to have around. Danielle is a senior at Jordan High School and is on the dance team. She specifically wanted some action shots of her dancing. Danielle, it was a pleasure meeting you and your mom. I hope you have a great year.

A few weeks ago I had the great opportunity to help photograph Kelly and Jeff’s wedding with my friend and mentor Julie Parker.  ( To see Julie’s view of the event click here.) They were married in the Ogden Temple and had their reception in Kelly’s backyard. It was a gorgeous wedding and I loved all the vintage details. What a beautiful evening! There was a little rain shower during the toasts and afterwords we were blessed with a beautiful rainbow. I hear rain on your wedding day is a sign of good luck — I would bet a rainbow is a sign of even better luck. Congrats to these two!

Kelly and Jeff live in California so it was fun to see palm trees at the temple. I didn’t know you could grow those in Ogden.

This next wedding idea comes from Angel and Derek’s wedding and my own wedding.

We wanted to do something a little different and fun for the food at our wedding so we served Coldstone ice cream in waffle bowls to all our guests. It was definitely a hit at the party, three years later we still have people tell us how much they loved the ice cream. At all the places we looked at you can do it two ways: buy the pans or buckets of ice cream and have your own people serve it or you could pay a little extra and have store’s employees do it. Angel and Derek had some neighbors in the kitchen scooping it and taking it out on trays. We had the Coldstone people do it and it was so fun. They brought it in a refrigerated ice cream cart and scooped it when each guest came up. It was fantastic.

Information on Coldstone’s catering can be found here. Other fun ice cream shops that cater for weddings in the area are: Zeppe’s Italian Water Ice, Leatherby’s and Sub Zero Ice Cream.

Here are some more pics.

This next one is from my wedding so I obviously didn’t take this picture.

First up is the lovely Janey from Find Mimi

Next up is Alicia from the Kitchenista. Alicia is a food photographer and runs a delightful food blog. Check it out.

And last but not least my friend Tara from Winsor Photography.

Thanks girls it was a fun day.

Last month Dan and I got to spend a short little vacation in Grand Teton National Park. My brother-in-law Bryce’s parents live there in the summers running Moulton Ranch Cabins.  They are some of the few people to own private land inside the park. Their property is just yards away from the famous Moulton barn that used to belong to Bryce’s great-grandfather. Their cabins are awesome. So if any of you are looking for a great place to stay check them out.

Anyway we were able to meet up with some of the family there for a long weekend. Thanks Jamie and Bryce! We had some fun adventures during the day and it was so great to relax at the ranch in the evenings. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

There was a nest of Great Horned Owls living across the street. It was so cool to see them. I had never seen an owl before. Everything is so cute there at the ranch. I love how it is decorated.

How is this for a view from your backyard.

I got plenty of pictures of the barn.

We went on a fun hike to Phelps Lake in the Lawrence Rockefeller Preserve, a new area of the national park. They have new beautiful vistor’s center there and the lake was gorgous. Good times.

Thanks Hal and Iola and Jamie and Bryce for having us. We had a great weekend!

A couple weeks ago I had the fun opportunity to spend the day mentoring Mandi from Silverscape Photography. This was my first time mentoring another photographer and it was tons of fun. We spent the day going over shooting and post processing tips. In the afternoon my friends Sharida and Billy were kind enough to come model for us. These two lovebirds have been married for several years but hadn’t had any recent pictures taken. It was kind of a mock engagement shoot. This was the day we those crazy hurricane force winds in Farmington. It was a crazy windstorm and there were signs and trees down all over town. Thanks for braving the wind for us you two. I think these pictures turned out great despite the wind.

I really enjoyed teaching. I might be persuaded to do it again if anyone else is interested. In fact I am the featured speaker at this month’s Ogden Camera Club meeting. I will be speaking to members of the Ogden Camera Club this Thursday at 7 p.m.  at the Ogden Art Stop, 2484 Washington Blvd. The meeting is open to anyone wanting to learn more about photography so if you are interested in coming drop in.

Should have spent less on the dress; more on the memories. Of survey respondents married within 12 months prior to the survey, 22 percent felt they didn’t spend enough money on their photographer. Nineteen percent of the same sample reported spending too much on the bridal gown and food.

There are other interesting finding in the survey too. To read all of the article click here.

It is so important to have a photographer you can trust on the day of your wedding who has a lot of experience and has a compatible style. Don’t make it ONLY about money.

I hear so often from people that decided to go with their “Uncle Bob” for their wedding pictures because he owned a nice camera who later wished that they would have just spent the money on a professional photographer.

I would also have to say that photography is my biggest regret about my wedding. I loved every bit of my wedding but the one thing I would change would be the photography. Here is my “what not to do” story. I got married before I started my business. I had worked in photography for years but at the time I didn’t know a lot about the wedding side of photography or a lot of other wedding photographers. Dan and I hired someone who we thought was a professional photographer. This gentleman had been in business for 30 years and owned a large studio in the city where he lived (not in Utah). He had several associate shooters and his studio did around 200 weddings a year. He personally shot 40 of those weddings. Since he was an acquaintance of my husband he gave us a great deal and he was personally going to shoot our wedding. Sounds great, right? The day of the wedding came and everything went perfect until I got my pictures back. The pictures in general were fine but I was disappointed in the quantity and style of the photos. A lot of the photos I felt had a 1980s look to them and they just weren’t my style.

I realize now my complaints could have been avoided if I had done my homework better. For example my husband took care of all the photography arrangements since he was the one who knew him. I didn’t actually meet our photographer until the day before the wedding. Also the only work of his I had seen was what he had on his website, which wasn’t much. His website looked old and outdated and I should have realized that was a red flag. If I had spent more time and asked to see more samples of his work I would have discovered that he had more of a traditional style when I really wanted more of a photojournalistic one. We also should have done an engagement or bridal session with him beforehand. Then we would have known that our styles didn’t match. In the end I feel my photos are pretty mediocre. They aren’t horrible, but they weren’t the artistic vision I was hoping for. The decision to hire him was based on money and convenience and that was a mistake. He sold us the negatives and I was able to make my own album which turned out nice. However, I do really wish we would have spent more money and used a more artistic photographer.

I really consider us lucky considering the next year we learned that this photographer had gone out of business and skipped town on a lot of couples. One day his website disappeared and there was a story on the local news about him. Kind of like the Get Gephardt segments they do on the news here. Shortly after that he disappeared and customers and even the police were unable to find him for some time. I even had one of his brides contact me wondering how to get in contact with him. I had all the same phone numbers that she had. I don’t know for sure but I think he had some personal problems and his business combusted, that and he must have had some unreliable people working for him.

Some of these missing weddings happened in the same time frame as my own. It scares me to think how close I was to being one of those brides. It could have easily happened to us too. It took a couple of months to get our pictures back and I am so grateful we got them. Eventually he was indicted for theft in connection with these wedding photographs that were paid for but never delivered.

I feel horrible for these brides that he walked out on. I know I would have been devastated if my pictures never ended up being delivered. I can’t image ever doing that to a customer. Whoever you hire please make sure they are honest and competent. At the time I thought I was getting a professional and that any professional would do. After shooting weddings for so long now I realize that there is much more to it than that. Here are some good questions to think about when booking a photographer:

What training do they have in photography?

Make sure you see a completed album or proofs from a complete wedding.

What kind of style do they have and is it similar to your taste?

Am I going to get the main photographer for my wedding or am I going to get an associate?

Do they have a business license?

Do they charge sales tax? (they better!)

Do they have backup equipment?

Are they insured? Not only equipment insurance but liability in case something goes wrong or somebody gets hurt.

How many years have they been shooting?

How many weddings have they shot?

I think this experience with my own wedding has helped shape who I am as a photographer. It was a hard lesson and I should have known better. I am so glad I have taken a more boutique approach with my business. I shoot a maximum of three weddings per month. I feel if I took on too many clients the overall experience and my customer service would suffer. I kind of feel like the Jerry Maguire approach is the way to go, at least for me. Fewer clients = more personalized service. I really feel that I become great friends with my couples and that makes a difference. Please be careful when choosing your photographer. Don’t leave your wedding memories to chance. After the wedding is over your photos are going to be the only thing you have left to remember your day.

Happy hunting everyone and I hope some of you can learn from my mistakes when I was a bride.