I haven’t posted too much about my upcoming wedding plans - because I’ve been so busy with wedding season over here, but I wanted to share my wedding invites which I just sent out! They were designed by up and coming designer Jenny Mills. She was the maid of honor in a wedding I photographed over a year ago, and then her sister hired me to shoot her wedding this past summer. I also photographed some anniversary portraits of Jenny and her husband this year. I loved the stationary and paper products that were at both weddings, so when I asked who the designer was and found out that it was Jenny, I knew I had to hire her! Here is what we ended up with, I love them. I wanted something modern and fun! Jenny is also doing the menu cards, placecards, and a few other items for my wedding. I’ll post all that once it’s finalied!

 If you want Jenny to do some designs for you, you can email her at mills_jenny@hotmail.com.

 

 

I had the pleasure and honor to be able to photograph fellow photographer and friend Jennifer Lindberg’s marriage to Jim Pitts last month. I photographed the getting ready photos, and I couldn’t resist keeping my camera out for the ceremony and parts of the reception. Jen had six amazing photographer friends who volunteered to shoot various parts of her wedding! This was the weekend that the hurricane was headed for Austin, but it turned out to be a gorgeous day. It is always so wonderful to be able to photograph the wedding of someone I know as a friend, because it means to much to me to be able to capture such important moments for them. Their ceremony was so sweet and touching, and the reception was so great no one wanted it to end (including myself)! I had a great time actually being a guest at the wedding reception! It couldn’t have been pulled off without the assistance of fabulous wedding planner and friend Gina with Clink (who is helping out with my own wedding in January!) and all of the vendors involved did a truly amazing job. Jen recently posted on her blog a bit about me that I wanted to share:

 

Jim and I were lucky enough to have 6 amazing photographers officially covering our wedding, and no, not all at once! Well, mostly not all at once! Heather Mabry of Eclectic Images photographed during that exciting and nerve wracking time, getting ready, and beyond. I got to know Heather well when she graciously invited me to second shoot at a wedding in Barbados, where we stayed for one week and vacationed together. I love not only her images but also her gentle presence and way of being in a room.

 

Congratulations Jenn and Jim! We love you guys and we wish you the best!

VENDORS

CEREMONY French Legation Museum

RECEPTION Thistle Cafe

LIGHTING Ilios

 RENTALS Marquee

FLORIST Visual Lyrics

HAIR Deborah at Pink MAKEUP Ezme

OFFICIANT Joe Fontenot

VIDEOGRAPHER Crescent

DJ Penguin Entertainment

CAKE Michelle’s Patisserie

CONSULTANTS Gina with Clink 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my fiance, Mike, being silly.

 

My fiance Mike and myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m getting married in January, and so my girlfriends decided to surprise me with a “bachelorette” trip to Maine! Yes, not the typical place for a bachelorette trip, but we are not typical women! My photographer extraordinaire friends Diana Lott and Stacy Sodolak planned the trip along with my good friend and wedding planner Gina Whittington Wilson, and with the help of our non-wedding industry friend Jenny Isenberg. We had an a-MAINE-zing (Stacy came up with that!) time. The weather was perfect, the hurricane decided to go in the other direction (thank goodness!), and the leaves were just beginning to change. And best of all, there was lots of lobster to be had! I had steamed lobster, lobster caesar salad, lobster risotto, lobster chowder…the list goes on. I heart lobster! Now back to the treadmill!

 

 

 

Jenny (aka Jenny by the book) looking cute!

 

 

A Maine self portrait

 

 

 

I am in love with all of the fall colors in Maine!

 

 

Stacy took this shot first, and I copied her But I said I would have seen it anyways, she just got there first!

 

Jenny, Stacy, Gina, and Diana…

 

Gina’s perfect fall leaf

 

 

 

 

This is the bay in the town where we stayed, Camden. It was perfect!

 

We took a sunset cruise (freezing cold!) on this boat, the Appledore.

 

 

Gina looking pensive. (and cold!)

 

 

Gina trying her first whoopie pie. You can see she loved it!

 

 

 

 

 

Mmmm lobster.

 

 

 

I just wanted to share the save the date cards I recently designed for my baby brother and his fiance Emilie. I was honored to be able to take their photos when he proposed a few months ago, and I also was able to take their engagement photos for them. I’m really happy with how they turned out, and I can’t wait for their wedding (and lucky me, I get to go as a guest!)

 

I just wanted to write a personal post to update everyone on some cool things that are going on in my life!

First, as I’ve posted about before - I got engaged on Valentine’s Day! Since then, wedding planning has been moving along (though very slowly). We just recently changed the location from Mosquito Beach Hotel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico to Blue Parrot in Playa del Carmen. We had lots of communication and customer service issue with Mosquito Beach so we’re so excited to have found an even better place in Blue Parrot. Paula, the coordinator there, has so far been great and very helpful, and we’ve gotten lots more checked off of our very long wedding to do list. We’ll be getting married on Saturday January 17th, 2009 on the beautiful beach, and then we’ll have cocktails and appetizers in the palapa on the beach overlooking the ocean, and then we’ll move everyone to the VIP upstairs lounge, also overlooking the sea, for dinner and dancing. We’re so excited!

It’s really hard to plan a wedding when I’m so involved with other people’s weddings all the time. It’s hard to make the time to get it all done. I can see even more now why a wedding planner is invaluable. I’m so lucky in that I’ve got Gina with Clink Weddings to help plan my wedding, and also to officiate! Gina is also a very good friend so I’ll be honored to have her at the wedding. She has lots of great ideas and being a creative person who see’s a lot of weddings, I also have lots of ideas- so it’ll be interested to see how they come together! Our wedding I hope will be very colorful and modern with lots of fun, unique details.

We’re also very happy to have booked our official photographer and videographer. We’re flying Gia with Red Fly Photography down to be the “official” photographer (though I’ll probably have 4 other pro photographer friends in attendance, lucky us!) Gia was primary second shooter for many years and remains a good friend now that she has started her own business. She has a style very similar to my own, so I’m thrilled to have her to capture all of the moments of our day.

Chris with Mason Jar Productions will be doing our video. I’ve worked with Chris many times over the years on various weddings, and I love his work. I can’t to see what he produces - his videos always make me cry when I watch them (I’m a sap!)

We’ve got lots more to do for the wedding but it is definitely coming along…

On the home front - Mike (my fiance) and I recently decided to purchase and remodel a house together! We actually weren’t thinking of moving quite so soon, but we both fell in love with a house that we came across for sale and decided that it just felt right. My current home out in Agave in East Austin is for sale (listing here, check it out) and we’re renovating the home we just closed on in South Austin. We’re very excited because we’re very into architecture and design and the new home is a great example of later midcentury architecture. It’s very brady bunch! We’ll be doing a lot of renovations in the next few months, so it will definitely be a time of transition with the wedding stuff going on at the same time, but we’re so excited! The new house is much larger than our current house and suits our personal and my business needs so much better. And plus it is just groovy We are sad to leave our cool house here in Agave, especially the pool/spa, but it is time to upgrade for us and we’re excited to do this project together! I plan to have a super cool meeting space in the new house and plus I’ve got a super secret project in the works for next year that involves potential retail space for Eclectic Images. I’ll keep everyone updated on that as I get more details. In the meantime, I’ve posted some pics below of the new house! (these pics were taken when the house was staged with the previous owners furnishings)

 

the kitchen (below) will be a major renovation project!

 

we love, love, love the floating staircase!

 

 

 

 

My baby brother Brian recently got engaged and so I offered to take their engagement photos as an engagement gift. My fiance Mike and I had a lot of fun spending the weekend morning with them driving around looking for cool photo spots and having breakfast at our favorite Austin weekend breakfast spot, Hoovers. Mike was a great assistant holding my huge umbrella for a few shots and goofing off the rest of the time, making Brian and Emily laugh. He even posed for a rare photo. Congrats Brian and Emilie - I’m looking forward to actually getting to go to your wedding as a guest and bridesmaid (what a concept!) and also to shooting your bridals and helping you with your save the date cards!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I drove up to the town of Hamilton so that I could photograph my baby brother, Brian, proposing to his girlfriend Emily. I think I was more nervous than the both of them taking those pics! Brian surprised Emily by showing up to the restaurant where she and her family were to have dinner that night, and he blindfolded her and took her upstairs to a private room where they had dinner and dessert. After dinner, he put the blindfold back on her and walked her around for a while knocking on doors and banging on things so she wouldn’t know where she was. They ended up back at the spot where they ate dinner (sans the table that had been moved) standing in the middle of a circle of rose petals and candles, where he got down on one knee and proposed. And she said yes!!

I was so happy to be able to capture those moments for them. It was pretty dark in there and I didn’t want to intrude with flash, so please excuse the graininess. Congrats Brian and Emily - I can’t wait to celebrate your wedding with you!

Emily and her dad.

The whole family…

 

 

So I gave myself a deadline for my save the date cards - I wanted to make them fun and colorful - just like I hope our Mexico wedding will be! I decided to put Linus and Moo in a “mexico” theme and take a few pics. Here is the resulting save the date card after many, many revisions. Of course I had to give Mike the final pick so he didn’t feel left out Also, here are a few outtakes that didn’t make the card. Moo is a total ham for pictures (he makes it easy) and Linus is ridiculous. I’ve been taking pics of him since he was a baby so you’d think he’d be used to it by now - but I think he just likes to make me work for it. The resulting pic of them licking their licks was a total fluke - I was holding up cheese to get them to look up for the photo!

This is the stamp for the envelope!  

I recently got engaged (on Valentine’s Day!) and I promised I would post some pics of my ring! Here it is - I love it! It is a 1.6 carat aquamarine stone set in a very modern white gold setting.  I photographed it on the paper of notes that Mike wrote out before the proposal. I will cherish that paper always! And for  those who have asked - we’ve set a date and location! We’ll be getting married on Saturday January 17th 2009 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico at Mosquito Beach Hotel. I stayed there last year while I was in town and I fell in love with it - it is a small boutique hotel right on the beach and it is very modern and stylish. I love it!

 

 

I’m engaged! My boyfriend (or fiance, how strange to say that!) had a late flight in from a business trip on Thursday night (Valentine’s Day). We decided to make a late night (9pm) reservation for one of our favorite Eastside haunts, Primizie (who also does amazing wedding catering by the way). It turned out that all of my friends were also planning to go to Primizie that night, so we decided to make it a group thing. Little did I know, it was all sneakily planned like that so that I wouldn’t suspect anything!

 

We had our awesome five course meal and then Mike pulled out a piece of paper and began addressing the group and me. He thanked everyone for being there and said some very sweet things about what we mean to each other and the rest is all a bit of a blur. I can’t remember much of what else was said, but thank goodness for the photos. My good friend and amazing photographer Diana Lott pulled out her camera and took photos of the whole thing! Here are a few of my favs…I am so glad my friends were there to witness the proposal and I’m so excited to marry Mike who is the man of my dreams and more.

 

The ring is amazing - it is a blue aquamarine stone set in a very modern square white gold setting - it’s simple and modern and I love it! I’ll take pics to post soon.

 

Don’t even ask me about the planning part of it - I’m already stressed about just choosing a date and a location! Thank goodness I’ll have my good friend and wedding coordinator Gina of Clink to help me out!