Chase and Lauren : Wedding

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of joining Tara Marie to capture the wedding of Chase and Lauren in Llano, Texas. A brief moment of anxiety came over me as I entered the church and was promptly introduced to the bride. Although we’d never met, Lauren is just one of those girls who makes you feel completely at ease - like a close girlfriend I'd known my whole life.

But the thing that I loved even more about Lauren was the extra sparkle in her eyes when she was around Chase. There's nothing better than being completely in love with your best friend and looking completely adorable as a couple.

I felt very honored to be a part of their special day and had a blast getting to know their wonderful family and friends. Because I was just the second shooter, this post is gonna be BIG...sorry! :) 

Chase had a great group of friends that kept me well entertained as I followed them around downtown Llano!

This little guy was just too cute. He definitely wasn't camera shy!

Before heading back to the church, the guys stopped for a drink at Joe's, a local pub that had a lot of character and great atmosphere.

These guys really did a great job and definitely knew how to work the camera!

I love this photo. During the toast, Leslie, Lauren's little sister, gave the most heartfelt toast and mentioned how some of her fondest memories growing up were watching Lauren put on her makeup.

A few details.

Chase and Lauren, I wish you the best.

First Annual Christmas Eve's Eve Dinner

At the last minute, my sister decided to get our group of friends together for a Christmas Eve's Eve dinner. We met at Salt Grass Steakhouse and enjoyed the evening with good food, good drinks, good friends and lots of laughter.

Here's are a few photos from the evening.

Until next year...

Blank Walls

Blank walls are boring. Very boring. We've lived in our house for a little over a year now and if I had to stare at our blank living room wall one more day, I was going to scream. I tend to be one that has a lot of great ideas, but I need someone else to tell me it's great before I do something about it. Needing a little inspiration and a shove in the right direction, I turned to my good friend - Pottery Barn.

Now our walls have a few new photo frames that surround the main focal point - a beautiful set of angel wings that I recently found while shopping in Salado.

Being the big nerd that I am, I had my dad draw up my frames and mattes in autocad so there would be no misunderstanding of my vision when I walked up to the counter in Hobby Lobby's frame department. The guy was a bit shocked with the four printouts that I laid down in front of him, and on the instruction sheet just noted: 'refer to attachments'. Hey! If I'm going to pay that much for mattes, they better be perfect! 

Now, I just need to decide what I'm putting in these frames...

Oh...Christmas tree. Oh....Christmas tree.

Last night Kevin, Mal and I hopped in the car and headed south - way south - to Zilker Park. I've lived in Austin three years and I've never made a trip to check out the Trail of Lights. With Christmas just nine days away, one would assume the trail was up and in full swing - with lots of people 'ewwing and ahhing' as they checked out all of the beautiful lights. Nope. I was wrong. Very wrong.

Thinking that traffic was going to be a nightmare, I had Kevin park across Lady Bird Lake in a dark parking lot sprinkled with just a few cars - probably families that had similar genius thoughts as myself. After crossing the pedestrian bridge under the safety of a few ill-placed lights, we walked across a very large, very vacant dirt lot. I was completely baffled as to why not one single car was anywhere to be seen.

Once we arrived, we looked for the trail's starting point...a nice lady sensing we hadn't a clue informed us that the trail portion would start the following night...oh well, we tried! Isn't this a neat photo of the tree? We slowed down the shutter speed - just a tad.

Malory and Kevin are credited with taking the next photos! We were checking out the inside of the tree.

Hello, Cupcake!

As I cruised through Borders last week, a cute cookbook caught my eye and I just couldn't resist stopping to thumb through it. From cupcakes made to look like corn on the cob to cute puppies and even an alligator - Hello, Cupcake! had it all!

I'm such a sucker for all things cute, and when visions of easy-to-make artistic masterpieces went dancing through my head, I quickly snagged a copy and headed for the register. Truthfully, when I saw that the most sophisticated piece of equipment I needed was a ziplock bag I thought, "pfft...move over Martha Stewart, I can do this!"

Knowing this project would be way more fun with a friend, I enlisted Malory to help me out. Last year we baked two dozen sugar cookies and decorated them with an array of colored sugar, flavored icing and tons of colorful candy. Each cookie had to be no less than 1,000 calories each - but they were yummy and totally worth it!

This Christmas, I wanted to try something different.  Look at all the fun colors and cute ideas we came up with.
        Ok. So maybe Martha Stewart has a few more talents than myself, but this project was totally fun and produced quite the mess in my kitchen. Our cupcakes may have looked nothing like those in the cookbook, but they were creative and truly one of a kind!