Well, not an actual picture. Yesterday was our 6 year anniversary. We went to church, lunch, took Noah to the movies (Kung Fu Panda…very cute), then came home and put Noah down for a nap. I then worked on my to-do list and finished up Jeremiah and Meredith’s pictures to blog for all of your viewing pleasure. That’s right, you heard me, I was working on our anniversary. We should have gone out to dinner or something.
I’m tired of always having to work and missing out on things. Please don’t get me wrong. I love all of this, but I’ve just let it all get out of control. So I am closing down shop for a week, packing up my office, and taking off where no one can find me and I can finally get back on top of everything. That’s right, I’m taking a working vacation. I will be leaving on Thursday and coming back next Thursday. No one is going with me and no one will be where I’m going. I’m getting rid of all of my daily distractions. I’ve come up with the list of things to get done before I leave and then a schedule and goals of things that will be finished by the time I get back. I get told regularly that I need a vacation, and I agree. However, this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere for a real vacation knowing that I have so much waiting on me at home. So if you all try to get in touch with me next week and I’m really slow to respond, that’s why.
Filed under: Weddings
So you may remember Jeremiah and Meredith from their previous posts over the past couple of months. Click HERE to see their e-session and HERE to see Meredith’s b-session.
We had a really good time with them on their wedding day. They were a little on the teary side which you all know I LOVE! They made the decision to see each other before the ceremony for pictures which gave us a ton of time to play around and have fun. Are you seeing a pattern here with me wanting time to play around with my couples?! Anyway, enjoy!
A note for all of your future members of wedding parties that I’ll be shooting, this is a good example of “just get together for a group picture”. I find that many of us, me included, have a hard time breaking what has been ingrained in us when we’re told to get together for a picture. The minute we put on that tux or dress and grab our bouquets, we all want to stand up straight in a line on our designated sides. While there are pictures where it’s called for, BUT NOT ALL THE TIME! So the next time I say, just get together in a group, do something like this.
Yes, I can take a “traditional” wedding shot.
They had a friend come and play the bagpipe outside of the church while all of the guests arrived. When he started, Jeremiah got a little emotional. I just love this shot because I can picture what Meredith’s face is while she’s trying to comfort him.
This is a sweet moment between Meredith and her Dad as she gave her away.
I love churchs that are designed and allow me to be able to get in a good spot to get close-up shots during the ceremony.
See kids?! Even grown-ups go crazy over bubbles!
Sad Jeremiah
Happy Jeremiah!
Happier Jeremiah!!
sleepy punkin
They had their reception at The Foundry, I liked how the sun was peaking out from behind the awning.
Filed under: Weddings
The weekend after I shot Matt and Kelly’s wedding, I took off for Gulf Shores, AL to spend the wedding weekend with Jacob and Miranda. The set-up they had was so cool and unique. They rented a house on the beach that was up on stilts. The ceremony was on the beach behind the house and then the reception was under the house! I had an idea of what to expect….but I was WAY off! This house was amazing and way bigger than I had imagined. There were starfish everywhere and tons of hot pink and orange which really popped off of the sand and water. Everyone had so much fun and danced for hours. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day.
This house had amazing bedrooms and I loved this head board.
Miranda has such a fun personality, I had to get her jumping on the bed. Now, I did get this idea from my friend Kelly Moore-Clark who did this with one of her brides earlier this year. Check out her site to see the original brilliance.
Jacob and Miranda saw each other before so we could have fun taking pictures. When I saw the house, we bumped the timeline up an hour so we had more time to play!
We couldn’t stay out on the beach very long because it was WAY bright.
Doesn’t Miranda have rockin eyes?!
This is the coolest set of bunk beds I’ve ever seen. These are 4 beds and the wall between them has 2 port-holes. GENIUS!
Jacob was a typical groom who didn’t LOVE having his picture taken, but he did really great and warmed up to it fast.
These port-holes were in the stairwell that ran up the middle of the house.
The bridal party was decked out in pink and orange as well.
That pin was her grandmother’s.
This is the main living area of the house.
Their first dance
They love all things UT. This is Jacob’s cake.
A party isn’t a party till someone breaks out the leg guitar…on someone else…
or till the groom does his Michael Jackson routine!
Like I said before, they love all things UT and had all these orange and white shakers. The last song of the night was Rocky Top.
I was heading out to the car to call it a night and saw how awesome the house looked with the full moon behind it.
Happy monthaversary guys….a couple of days late.
If you think back a little bit in “meggie time”, my sister got married at the beginning of May. We just got the link to her pictures. If you would like to check out Frank Gibson’s handywork, CLICK HERE. His daughter Griffin came along and shot with him as well. I’ve put together a folder of my favorites cleverly titled “meggie’s favorites”. There isn’t an event key, so all you should have to do is sign the guest book if you’ve never seen anything on Pictage, or log in if you have already created a Pictage account for another event. Here’s the selected cover shot of their gallery. Thanks Frank and Griffin! You guys were wonderful to work with and the pictures are great!
I’m hoping to take a “working vacation” sometime in the next couple of weeks so I can escape all of my daily distractions and knock a ton of work out. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be able to get all of the pictures I took at Ellie and Adam’s wedding done. Sadly, since they were not pay clients and someone else had them covered on their wedding day, they got pushed to the bottom of the list. I have a good 3 week break till my next wedding, so here’s to hoping I can do some catching up.
Filed under: Weddings
I just finished the last of my favorites from Matt and Kelly’s wedding in Hilton Head.
Happy 1st monthaversary guys!!
I love this look that Kelly gave Matt right before her dad gave her away
Wasn’t this a beautiful location?!
Laughs during the ceremony are always a great thing!
Matt had some of his best friends serve communion to all of the guests
There’s nothing wrong with a good fist pump
These were all of the guests that came to Hilton Head to celebrate with Gilmore and Taylors
This is the all new Taylor family
This was their first dance
Yummy Yummy Nancy! Kelly’s mom got her own cake because she’s a woman after my own heart who loves chicken fingers and sweets!
This is Charles Pope, one of the founding members of The Tams. They were so amazing! They are located in Atlanta but will travel anywhere. They put on a a great show that everyone enjoys and can dance to. I highly recommend them.
Funny story. I picked up Matt and Kelly at 0′dark thirty to go to the airport. We were on the same flight to Atlanta! While we were there, I had to grab a couple of pictures because this would probably be the only time this would happen. While we were there, they spotted the one and only “Miss Jay” from my favorite show, America’s Next Top Model. FOR REAL! The true Miss Jay! I asked for a picture, but she was not having a good day and wouldn’t oblige. Oh well, maybe some other time. At least it makes for a good story and I have 2 eye witnesses!
I have been very overwhelmed with all that God and life has thrown at us recently. I wanted to thank all of you for your prayers and support. I’ve been flooded with emails, phone calls, and texts from people from different areas offering support, names, and numbers. I’m thrilled to know that people I don’t even know are reading my blog and care so much for a family they’ve never met. I’m also so thankful for all of you, my friends, that are there to offer us support. We are blessed to have you as our community.
We are seeing improvements in Noah’s speech and behavior. He will begin his speech therapy tomorrow, which we are thrilled about. He’s also responded really well to Carmen, our in home therapist from TEIS. She has been a miracle worker with him. She had him cleaning up his toys when he was done playing with them! While we continue our search to get Noah a psych evaluation, we are beginning to look for a new school for him. He is currently in a wonderful mother’s day out program, but they are not prepared to deal with a child like Noah. He is taking too much of the teacher’s attention with his crazy behavior and it’s not fair to the other children. So we are looking for a school that is prepared to take a child with special needs and will be able to give him the attention and patience needed to get him caught up developmentally.
Filed under: Weddings
I still haven’t finished all of the pictures yet, but I wanted to post more of what I have done. I’m about to run off to a fabulous rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, so I want to try to give you a little bit more.
Everyone needs a picture with a clown on their wedding day!
Very nice boys!
It’s totally normal to be hanging out on the beach in suits…sweating.
a little hot boys?
Does anyone know where I might be able to rent a bride and some bridesmaids?
I love it when storms wash up stuff to make the beach more than just a beach…it really gives the beach more character.
Kelly has the best laugh!
There is still more to come…so stay tuned!!
Filed under: Weddings
A couple of months ago, I struck up a conversation with a mother at the place I take Noah to gymnastics. Her son looks a lot like Noah and since we saw each other just about every week, I thought I would introduce myself. Once I said my name, she knew who I was and told me about her brother-in-law who was about to be married in May. I’ve had 2 days in May that I just couldn’t seem to book, and they were getting married on one of those days! So I was able to meet with Matt and Kelly, and we just hit it off immediately. The best part was, they wanted to take me to Hilton Head! I am very much a believer that I don’t book dates for a reason. Either someone is going to call me in a panic or book me on short notice, or I’m supposed to have that day off. I was supposed to be Kelly and Matt’s! Their wedding is the reason I love doing destination weddings. They were surrounded by people who loved them so much. When they started toasts at the rehearsal dinner, they went on for about an hour! They are so loved and everyone wanted to make sure that they knew that. The guy that they had playing said that he thought Matt should run for president since everyone likes him so much!
I have a few pictures done and I know that the entire Taylor/Gilmore family is dying to see something, so this is my first post. I’m hoping that I’ll have more to post tomorrow.
The rehearsal dinner was at the Sea Pines Country Club
This is the view from the dinner….B E A UTIFUL!
This is the ring-bearer and his twin sister the flower girl. Aren’t they SO cute?!
I thought this was a sweet moment between Matt and his mom.
This is just a little teaser of what’s to come. Those Taylor kids really know how to take a good family picture!
I shot Michael and Elizabeth’s e-session back at the beginning of May. They were about to scatter because of summer break and we pretty much only had 1 day to fit them in before Elizabeth went home to Memphis. They are really in to hiking, camping, and just being outside. So we went to Michael’s parents property in Tellico and just walked around outside. The weather was amazing and they were into doing anything. I said “would you guys mind, maybe, laying down over here?”, they just said “where do you want us?”! They were just themselves and it was wonderful.
When we pulled in I this fence was the first thing that caught my eye. Of course the clouds were a major bonus!
I think this is my favorite from the whole day.
After playing around in the field and a quick wardrobe change, we headed down to the river.
We found some wild strawberries along the way, YUM!
I found out that they climbed a tree on their first date. Michael confessed that he didn’t really know how to date a girl and that’s what popped into his head! Elizabeth then said that she was a little afraid when they would climb a tree, but she didn’t want to say anything.
I kept everything pretty organic for them, but I couldn’t pass up something a little funkier to get the clouds that were rolling in.
A little ride on the ATV is always a must!
Greetings from the craziest place on earth, my house. Many of you have been asking how work, life, and Noah are. And many of you are waiting on pictures or to hear from me on something. I want to take this opportunity to give you an update on our little family. I have not given a Noah update in some time, so I will start with him and backtrack a little bit.
We found out in February that Noah had severe hearing loss. We had taken him to the doctor because as of his 2nd birthday, he had not started talking or saying anything significant other than babbling. He pretty much failed a hearing test. They found that his ear drum wasn’t responding to whatever they use to test it, which indicates that there is something blocking it. Of course, the first thing we did was put in tubes in March. The doctor had prepared us that he may still need hearing aids after the tubes, but we would cross that bridge when we came to it. We took Noah back for another hearing test 2 weeks after the tubes and found that he PASSED! So there was so much fluid built up in that boys ears, he couldn’t hear anything for an unknown amount of time, we’re thinking roughly a year. So good news, Noah can hear. Now we have to tackle speech and unlearning the coping skills he developed when he couldn’t hear. We started the process with TEIS (Tennessee Early Intervention Services) to get Noah federal aid to help pay for therapy. We started back in March and we’re just now getting to the point where we can begin in home and speech therapy. Everyone has been wonderful and they’ve seen the urgency in getting our boy the aid he very obviously needs, it’s just a long process. We are stuck with a psychologist though. Noah is raising some red flags for autism. We don’t know what may be a significant sign, a result from the hearing loss, or just a 2 year old’s behavior. The one doctor in town that takes our insurance and is a TEIS provider (and is the best from what we understand) is booked till December. As of December 28th, Noah will no longer be eligible for aid from TEIS. We’ve been so fortunate to have answers through each door we’ve gone through, and now this is the one place that we’re stuck. This is the most important one to catch too. If he has Autism, each day that goes by and he doesn’t have the support and therapy that he needs, is a day lost. If anyone knows of a child psychologist who isn’t “autism diagnosis happy” who will see Noah, please let me know.
All of this to say to everyone who is waiting to hear from me or for your pictures, I’ve been a little pre-occupied. This is the busiest time of year for me. I do have some people helping me out, but there is a lot of training that goes into teaching people how they can help me. All of this with the craziest, smartest, most cunning kid (and don’t forget the cutest) that ever walked the face of the planet making me jump up every 2 minutes to keep him from getting into the fridge….again. Please trust me when I say that all of your pictures are fine and fabulous, I’m working on them. It’s a long process to get them from my brain to your eyes and I don’t want to give you anything but the best. Please hang tight with me.
So there you go, that’s my world right now. If you would like to see the most recent pictures taken of the Velasco clan, check out this post from my neighbor Jessi. Noah is the little one at the bottom of the slide in the brown trunks….and then the one being taken DOWN! Of course you can pick me out…with the homemade “slip and slide cap”. Do you know how long it takes for my hair to dry?! And pink bleeds bad!
