Welcome to Album Monday! Sorry this post is so late in the day, Zen is starting daycare tomorrow so he can interact and socialize with other kids his age more, and while he’s having fun with it, i think his mom and dad are having a tough time!
Anyway, so that’s the story of the late posting today, but never fear, Album Monday is here!!!
Pepper Nix Photography has been again been voted the Best Photographer in Utah in the 2009 Best of State Awards! “The Best of State Awards were created to recognize outstanding individuals, organizations and businesses in Utah. By recognizing excellence in our community and sharing examples of success and triumph in so many worthy endeavors, we hope we will all be inspired to reach a little higher, to try a little harder, and to work a little longer for our dreams and goals.”
Lindsey and Jim both work for the Utah Symphony Orchestra and were guests at a wedding I shot of their friends, and told me when they booked me that they were so impressed with the friends pictures that they had to have me for their wedding day! Already, I love them.
Jim is a total car freak. It’s not that he loves his car too much [you know what I mean about some guys loving their car too much?] and with Jim is is not about loving the car. With him, it’s that he recognizes what his car is capable of and enjoys it to its fullest capacity [and then pushes it beyond those limits!]. He gets together with a bunch of BMW enthusiasts and they race their cars. Literally. They take them to a track and push them as far as they can go.
And there’s something very romantic about that for me. Here’s a guy who is willing to give everything he’s got to something he’s dedicated to, whether that be racing his vehicle, recording a new album, or worshiping his fiance.
Sorry for the two part blog post, but this is one of my favorite Books I’ve ever had the opportunity to design, and there’s just too much to show! So this is a 200 side 8×8 Book, and while I can’t show the entire 200 sides, I did pick out my favorite 30 spreads to show here!
One of my favorite aspect about designing a Book is that I get to have so many images as full page spreads. It’s a photographer’s dream to see our images this big, and so many of them!
Remember, these are full spreads so they are actually 16 inches long by 8 inches high in the final Book. Enjoy!
L, Pepper
Album Monday is back Baby! Not that it ever went away, I just wanted that say it. Anyway, yeah! Hooray for Album Monday! Today I have an awesome Wedding Book I have been so excited to show you ever since I designed it, and it came in and now here it is! This is Cortney & John’s Wedding Book. They decided on an 8×8 Book holding just over 300 images on 200 sides. The cover is called Metallic and is a silver highly-reflective surface with a tweed stamping. I included tons of pictures of this cover because depending on how the light is shining on it, it goes from being a very light gray to a very dark gray. Cortney and John also wanted it to be completely custom just for them, so in addition to the custom design of the layout, we also had a dye made to have their names embossed in the center of the front cover. The style of Book is called Paris, from the French Line, and was printed on the Glossy Paper. I still prefer the Premium paper personally because of it’s thickness, but Cortney and John had such bright colors at their wedding and wanted to make sure that the saturation came through exactly as it was in real life. If you are wondering why there are 2 Books, Cortney also got one as a present for her mother!
Hello World, Meet Kacey & Jake! I hope this doesn’t sound trite, but I love Kacey & Jake. Jake is one of those awesome humble guys who is totally good-looking but just doesn’t know it. Every time he looks at Kacey, I can see what’s going through his mind, and he’s thinking “Man, what on earth did i do to deserve her?”
Emily and Mitch are the cutest, most adorable, crazy, and energetic couple I’ve ever had!!! I cannot even tell you how in love with the two of them I am.
We went to Park City for their engagement pictures, just had fun hanging out [and watching Emily's crazy awesome dance moves!].
About halfway through, we stopped off for some refreshments [see Emily double-fisting - of course she says she's holding it for someone else, but we all know the truth!]
After we had been refreshed and watered, we headed up into the mountains in search of groves of aspen trees before the sun set, and we found them!
Thanks guys, I cannot adequately express how much fun you both are!!! Wedding day is going to be amazing!!!!
I love Album Monday! Today’s Album may not seem as glamorous and beautiful as the other albums we usually feature on here, but it’s an important part of our Process here and something that all of my Full-Day Package Brides get complementary with their wedding coverage, so you’ll know what to expect!
This is the Proof Album. It is about 8 inches high by 10 inches wide, and depending on how many images there are from your wedding, about an inch thick. It contains a complete record of all of the edited images from your Wedding Day. Your wedding images are printed 6-up on a page with their ID number underneath for easy identification and comparison between similar images.
Well, here it is, this is the Wedding Day for Francesca and Dan! We woke up early on Saturday morning and everyone took taxis to the meeting point, so we could all climb on a charter bus to drive to the wedding ceremony location, which was about 90 minutes outside of Buenos Aires.
The ceremony was held at Estancia La Figura, which is an amazing estate rich with the political history of Argentina. It was large enough to fit all of the guests, and so secluded and magestic that we all felt like we were staying on an estate of Europe a few hundred years ago! Except for the HD flat screens with digital cable and wireless internet access [giving me constant access via my iPhone], it could have been very easy to forget what year it was…
Please forgive me for showing what I know are far too many images for a blog post, but it is my 300th wedding and I am so excited about it!
The rehearsal dinner for Francesca & Dan’s wedding was held at Club 647, which from the outside looks like a really scary neighborhood, and I had no idea what we were getting into!
Turns out that Club 647 is the hottest nightclub in San Telmo [one of the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires] and the bride and groom rented it out for what the Argentinians consider to be a very early dinner! [we ate at 9!]
Lots of alcohol, lots of beautiful New Yorkers dressed for an amazing evening, and absolutely incredible food. It was wonderful to see so many of their dearest and closest friends and family members had flown so far to come and celebrate with them in Buenos Aires, so in additional to being a beautiful evening, it was also an emotional one. Check it out:
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I LOVE destination weddings. Love it. New places are so much fun and so exciting!!! My favorite part of any destination wedding though, is this day. the day that I get the bride and groom all to myself. the day to do the fabulous bridal session in a fun and exotic location! Because lets be honest. There’s no way I can get tons of shots like these on the wedding day, especially with a destination wedding, where the ocean might be an hour or two away, or the light is perfect at sunset. I love the golden hour, but more often than not, brides and grooms are sitting down to eat with their guests during that golden hour. So bridal sittings are a very good thing. but, with a destination wedding, it’s a must have!
So Francesca and Dan hung out with me all day, until they had to go and change for the rehearsal dinner that night [stay tuned for tomorrow's post about the amazing rehearsal dinner!] We started off at the Four Seasons Hotel in Buenos Aires. This hotel is famous because when Evita was in production, Madonna lived on the fourth floor in the penthouse suite. One of the guests just happened to be staying on that floor, not in Madonna’s suite, but we thought it’d be fun to get some shots there to start off with. And then, we discovered something wonderful, and we did something very naughty…..
I loved that the couple took the time to arrange all of these fun activities before the wedding day. They knew it would be difficult to get all of their weddings guests down for the entire week, but each day brought new fun and new excitement, and each day the group of people got bigger and bigger!
Day 3 was the big official kick off with a Welcome Party for all of their guests. They held it in the apartment they rented for the week, and it was an incredible space!
After the cocktail hour with drinks and passed h’orderves, all of the guests boarded a charter bus to a surprise destination. When the bus stopped we found ourselves at La Ideal! It’s an old dance hall from 1912, it’s been painfully restored, and its uber-famous. If you’d going to go to Buenos Aires, you have to go hang out one night at La Ideal. I’ve never seen anything like it in the States, but late at night, [before dinner!] people come here and just have fun hanging out, watching the dance shows, and dancing the Tango!
The Tango is the other national obsession [besides football of course] and Franny & Dan arranged for all of their guests to be given lessons in how to dance the Tango at La Ideal! It was a great evening, and an incredibly thoughtful evening of memories that Francesca & Dan gave to their guests!
So here we are in Day 2 of our fantastic wedding in Argentina! We start out at the spa, where all of the women went for an early afternoon of massages, pedicures, and facials. I’ve been to some amazing day spas in the states, but i was blown away by how cool this was! They said it was OK for me to take pictures of the spa as long as I didn’t get any customers in the shots. And, bonus for me, they spoke English! Which is great because my high school Spanish isn’t what it used to be, sorry Senor Jolley!
Did you know that Argentina consumes the highest amount of meat per person of anywhere in the world? It’s true. While the women were enjoying themselves at the spa and getting pampered and all relaxed, the men were out having cigars, wine, and you guessed it, meat!
Later that evening Francesca and Dan held a wine tasting for their family and friends before dinner. Now, dinner is an interesting affair in Argentina. The restaurants stay open until 3am because people don’t go out to eat until around midnight. So even though it was very late by our standards, the restaurant was completely deserted when we showed up, although by the time we all left around midnight, it was completely packed with an hour on the waiting list!
Yes, it’s true. I shot my 300th wedding, and I shot it in Buenos Aires Argentina. WOO HOO!!! What a fantastic way to celebrate such a milestone! Oh, and it was fantastic! The bride and groom are Francesca and Dan from New York City. They flew me down further south than I’ve ever been in my life, and I was there for an entire week, documenting anything and everything that was said and done! So this post [and the next 5] are all about this amazing wedding journey and all of the fun things that happened that week! This is Day 1. After a long plane ride and a short nap in my apartment in the city, we took off for an adventure! Franny & Dan wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride! the initial plan was to take me in the balloon, but then it turned out that the balloon can only hold three people, and since neither of them knew how to fly it, they decided to take along the Aeronaut and leave me on the ground. That’s OK, cause I got to chase them around the countryside on crazy dirt roads trying not to run over any cows to get these killer shot of them in the air and their bumpy landing! We were there a bit early and the bag wasn’t inflated yet, so we decided to enjoy ourselves and take some portraits in the empty hanger and nearby field while we waited. Dan and Franny are an amazing couple together, check out these shots!
Album Monday is back again! Today I’ve got a new Album for you, this is the Guest Sign-in Book. So instead of a boring book filled with signatures and nothing else, these books show off the pictures from your engagement and bridal sessions and leave plenty of white space so that your guests can leave their thought, best wishes and congratulations with you. The Sign-in Books are 8 inches tall, and we vary the width according to how many guests you think you’ll have coming. Emily and Taylor knew that they had sent out 450 invitations, and we always plan on one person per invitation sent, so we went with an 8×12 book for them. They chose a cover of black leather, but as you can see below, these albums come in just about every color under the sun! If you are looking for a more traditional wedding album, the Guest Sign-in Book allows you to go wild and pick any color you choose! We offer them in different page numbers as well, 20, 30 or 40 pages, again, depending on how many guests you will be inviting and how many images you would like to have in your Book.
Oh my gosh, you have no idea how excited I’ve been to publish these images! But that’s a strict rule I adhere to, absolutely no bridal pictures until after the wedding, but ha ha, I picked these images ahead of time and can now hit the publish button from my iPhone, how slick is that!
The ceremony was awesome, but today we’re just going to admire gorgeous Karen in her dress that I got to see and no one else!!!! [Thank you by the way - I feel very special!]
Karen got her dress at White Couture in Park City, so if you’re looking for something fabulous, definitely check them out!
A big thanks to Lillie Garrido for making all of the special arrangements for the locations, and a shout out to Paula Dahlberg for doing a great job on the makeup!
Well this week is turning out to be engagement session-palooza! Four posts all in a row, are you guys getting your fix yet?!
OK, this is so crazy how time flies! Karen was one of the first brides to book me for this years wedding season, it’s been over a year since we first started planning, and now the wedding day is coming up this weekend, I’m so excited, but I can’t believe it’s really here!
So this is Karen and Roger, we trudged out in the snow of Park City way back when on a cold sunny day and here are the awesome results!
Thanks so much guys, I’m totally excited for Saturday!
I am so excited for this week! This week is Tanya and Joe’s wedding, just take a look at their engagement pictures and you will see why I am so stinking excited, you can just feel the love baby!
They are a totally rocking couple, and I just jazzed that i get to spend it with them! Here are a few of my favorites from our session together, we spent a few hours together in the warehouse district of downtown Salt Lake City and so it was really tough to narrow it down to just a few…
Tanya and Joe brought a few different outfits with them which I totally appreciated, it makes for a better session and I think also takes some of the stress off of having to decide which ONE outfit is going to sum up your entire personality! I personally don’t know if that’s even possible to pick just one…
A big thanks to Anna K for the beautiful makeup, very natural [love the airbrushing!] and it photographed great!
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Tonight I got to shoot Johnny and Alexis’s bridal session, so I thought it was fitting that I post their engagements when I got home! I had so much fun with these two, I give this session a 9.8. [It would've been higher, but you know, those Russian judges never score as high!]
Johnny looks like a badass, [and I wouldn't recommend messing with him] but he is a sweet-hearted teddy bear! I love his relationship with Alex, I love the way the talk to each other and look at each other, I adore the love they share. This is what it’s all about for me, finding that passion a couple shares and being able to capture it in camera.
My very favorite picture of the entire session, and also one of my top ten shots for 2009 is the very last one where you can see Johnny tattoo on his right arm very clearly. He had that done in memory of his mother was passed away, and to me, seeing him look at Alexis like that, makes me think of the new little woman in his life who will become the mother of his children, and he will never stop loving her, never stop protecting her, never stop cherishing her. I love you guys!!!
This is a busy week for weddings [I've got 3!] and I almost forgot to blog the engagements before the wedding!
Here is Danielle & Kael, they win the prize for being the youngest couple I get to work with so far this year, and it was so much fun to see that young love! Remember young love?
The guy you dated in high school who was just the coolest and made you go weak in the knees every time you saw him? It’s fresh, pure, and exciting, and that’s the love that Danielle and Kael share!
I can’t wait to see what the wedding day will bring!
Sorry I didn’t post at all this past week, I spent the time coming up with a new format to the blog, bigger teaser pictures and better use of space for verticals. It seems like such a small thing to spend that time on, but I think overall it’s going to be a much better resource for my clients and an easier read for everyone! I worked so hard that I almost missed Album Monday, but I am gonna just barely make it – woo hoo!!!
Today’s Album is for Bridget & Erik, one of my favorite weddings from 2008! They are pregnant now and that light a fire under them to pick out their images and get this put to bed before their lives get too baby crazy! Bridget and Erik decided on a 120 side 11×14 Album with Black Leather, holding 240 images from the wedding day! It is just stunning, absolutely stunning!!! They also opted for duplicate 8×10 Parent Albums for their families to enjoy as well. All 3 Albums were bound in genuine Black Leather and printed on Premium Photographic Paper. I love it when brides order their Albums in the summertime because typically the companies that produce these amazing books are busier in the fall and winter, so my Brides get their Albums back a little bit sooner, always a plus!
