Hey guys!

This has been such a busy, amazing year.  I am so very thankful for all of the amazing people that have come into my life through my business!  There will be a couple of changes in 2011 that I’m getting ready to announce, but until then…here’s a recap of 2010! (not including the wedding I’m shooting in 2 hours!)

I am so thankful for such an amazing year, I have an amazing group of friends, clients and family and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.  Everyone be safe and be thankful for the chance to start a new chapter and have a new day!

xoxo

Sorry for the temporary absence from the blog and website!  I’ve been oh so busy.

This month will be full of new sessions and weddings though, I promise!  Stay tuned.

There are also major changes coming to the blog, so watch out for those as well!

If you want to be kept up to date, check out my facebook page here.

One thing many of you don’t know about me is that I LOVE to read.  My bookshelves at home are absolutely full and my e-book collection is relatively large at this point. I read enthusiastically and it provides great joy to me.  I have always loved to just “get away” with a good book, my imagination is extremely over-active though, so I tend to get attached to characters very quickly!

Apparently, The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books that they’ve printed.  According to this list I read more than the average person, I suppose!

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE, add a strikeout to the books you’ve read but didn’t like.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Hey guys!

As of tomorrow, I will be on Vacation!  So I wont be scheduling any consultations or answering emails.  You are welcomed to email me and/or call and leave a message.  I will get back to you as soon as my vacation is over.

To recap: Vacation is from May 14 through May 21. Email me and I will contact you back as soon as possible!

After vacation is over, I will be announcing a sort of contest freebie.  I’ve been so swamped with weddings and I miss all of you and your little ones!  Anyway, I’m especially interested in scheduling a few newborns and maternity sessions!  So, if you’re interested, let me know.  And be watching out for the freebie contest.  It will be lots of fun!!

I’m not good at choosing themes for these, so I’m just going to tell you what randomly comes to mind, okay?!

1. My wedding season has officially started, 4 weddings this month, 5 engagements, 3 bridal sessions! Yay!

2.  I’m listening to T.I. “Dead and Gone” – I LOVE his music!  It’s not really my style necessarily.  But as a musician, I stand true to the fact that you have to be opened to EVERYTHING to be an artist. And hey, T.I. kicks major butt!

3.  My husband, Dan and I are going on our first vacation together from May 14-19.  So no sessions that week, sorry guys!

4. I’m lovin’ this weather.

5. And you’ve GOT to see my yard.  It’s so pretty!  Spring is amazing, it’s full of so much life.  I love life!

Also, look at these little guys…they’re my little brothers and they’re twins!  Double the trouble, I say, and double the sweetness!

1.  if you aren’t yet a fan of my facebook page you should do so here.  why, you ask? because i said so there are going to be some really exciting cha cha cha changes and specials coming up over the next few weeks and you want to be the first to know about it.  trust me.

2.  this week i planted a garden in my front yard.  it’s PRETTY.  and the cherry blossom tree is blooming beautifully as well.  i LOVE spring!

3.  tomorrow is my housewarming party!  finally!  after 7 months of owning a house we are having a housewarming party.

4.  i am absolutely addicted to fruit2day, 100% juice with real fruit bits in it!  it’s so yummy, and a healthy snack. -siiiiiigh- on that note, i HATE working out.

5.  tomorrow (before the party!) i have an engagement session, part 2 with veronica and jonathan!  it’s going to be fabulous, and they’re going to rock it again!  can’t wait!

and because a post is not complete without a photo:  yesterday was my grandmother’s (who DOES NOT look like a grandmother, mind you) birthday!  so wish her a happy birthday, and have a magnificent weekend!

xo

Since wedding season is upon us and I’m booked solid until July, I wanted to do a wedding edition of “Five on Friday”. (which I missed last week, so I’ll be doing a two part five on friday this week to make up for it!)

This list is going to talk about my favorite type of details.

1.  The favors.  The way the tables at the reception are decorated.  A lot of brides pay TONS of attention to it, a lot don’t. Personally, I prefer when you do!  Details are such a huge thing for wedding photographers, and more than likely, they’ll be some of your favorite shots.  You’ll want to remember all of the planning you did to make it perfect for you and your honey.  The photo above is from the etsy.com shop Nature Favors, and is a pack of 200 bird seed hearts.  Etsy is an amazing resource for brides.

2.  Another favorite detail is the veil.  I absolutely LOVE birdcage veils!  They’re so classic and make such a great detail.  The one above is also from an etsy.com shop: Brenda’s bridal veils.  This shop has a ton of birdcage veils, there are several other shops with different types of veils on etsy as well! LOVE.

3.  The boutineer’s.  The photo above isn’t actually a boutineer, but it’s a really cool detail for the bridesmaids/groomsmen from The Angry Robot shop on etsy.com.

There are really cool handmade boutineers on etsy.com, like this one:

and this one:

A few of my favorite planning resources are also:

The Knot

WeddingWire

100 Layer Cake

Shannon Kelley (one of my personal favorite photographers!  She’s in Knoxville [again, TN represent!] and she does unique and fun weddings and portraits. <3 her!) does five for friday (10 for tuesday, etc.) and she had a how-to guide on her website, so I’m following it!  I think this is a great idea, and I always have so many issues keeping my blog updated, unfortunately.

Today’s theme is favorites! I’m a big lover of all things HAPPY; laughing, music, dancing…these are things you can catch me randomly doing for the heck of it in my kitchen in the morning.

1. SUNSHINE.  Spring has almost certainly sprung, yesterday the high was 55, today is similar and tomorrow the high is 63!  The tree and bushes that adorn our front yard are blooming and the grass is turning green! Speaking of beautiful weather for tomorrow, I have an engagement session, so be watching out for that update as well!

2. Starbucks iced chai. Oh my god. My favorite!  In honor of spring, I’ve been purchasing iced coffee’s and tea’s from starbucks.  And the iced chai latte is always my personal favorite.

3. My iPod.  It is almost always attached to me, or playing music.  As a matter of fact, it’s attached to the iHome right now and it’s playing “Unfinished Memories” by Eowyn.  I don’t know how many people in the internet world knows, but I am a musician.  I live and breathe music, actually that’s a cliche and an understatement.  It’s worse than that though, I am addicted to musicals and broadway.  I’ve got just about every soundtrack imaginable (including disney!) on my iPod currently.  So if you can’t handle life being a musical, don’t hang out with me!

4. The Wicked pop-up book.  I bought this yesterday.  It is EPIC.  Enough said. Favorite.

5. The book “14,000 Things to be Happy about” – is so random.  It makes me happy!  Everyone should own this book, and have it as a reminder of why you should cherish every single day.  Life is happy.  Life is what you make of it. I love life!  You should too.

Hey everyone

It’s time for a catch-up post.  Dan and I are settled into our new home in Memphis.

This is a little peek of our living room right now:

We just adopted a new puppy, Ella!

I’ve been meaning to post about my 2010 pricing.  As most of you know, I’ve recently relocated to Memphis..and although I still have sessions in Jackson, I can’t continue advertising in both areas with my pricing at the current price.

My session fee for portrait sessions will be $200, my minimum print order will be going up to $200.

I will not be posting my wedding packages until December, however, I can tell you that my lowest package will be $1600 (my current lowest package is $850).

Hey guys!

I’ve forgotten about this the last couple of weeks.  So sorry!

To make up for it, here is one of my favorite songs from one of my all time favorite movies!

Who is your favorite artist and why? Send me your favorite video by them and I’ll choose my favorite of the ones sent! If I choose your video, I’ll send you an 11×14 wall print of your choice! (If you want an art print, I can send you a gallery to choose that as well!)

Peace, love and rock n’ roll

-Amber