A couple of months ago I headed up to Colorado for my cousin’s wedding (see pictures here) and I wanted to share some more pictures from the wedding.  In these you can really see how crazy/fun my family is. The picture above is my cousin Mikey (the groom) waiting for the ceremony to start.

My mom with my two uncles.

Mikey and my brother Jason are in the left picture and Mikey and one of his long time friends on the right.  They love to ham it up for the camera

My cousin Jered with his son, John. I love this picture!!!!!

Mikey and his new bride Stephanie really went for it.  Haha I love that they didn’t hold back and really smashed the cake in each other’s faces!!!

My Uncle Bill (the Father of the Groom) putting on his grandson’s tie. Love it!!!

This picture is of my Uncle Preston and Uncle Rob, yeah there are no words for this one.

My mom (on the right) and my Aunt Jane (on the left) and my Aunt Pam (in the middle and also the Mother of the Groom)

My darling husband dancing, gotta love him

My brother Jason, yeah he really hams it up at weddings.

Mikey dancing with our Grandmother, no worries she was having fun

When you get my brother Jason and my cousin Mikey together hilarity ensues!!!!

My parents dancing, awwww

I’m just going to have to start this blog post with a disclaimer: I’m a little biased with this wedding because it’s my cousin Mikey’s wedding, so there are a ton of pictures.  I am so beyond happy for my cousin Mikey and his wife Stephanie, as I just LOVE Stephanie!!!! Stephanie, I’m so glad you are officially part of the family.

Mikey and Stephanie had the most amazing destination wedding in Colorado (I think the majority of my family has now decided they want to move there).  They chose the Evergreen Lakehouse as their wedding venue  in where else, but Evergreen, Colorado, right outside of Denver.  It was picture perfect, I mean like postcard picture perfect. It was right on the lake and surrounded by mountains that were lush and green.  I think I was in awe of the beauty the whole time, it truly was gorgeous!!!!!

Grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy looking at these gorgeous wedding pictures.

I love this picture of Hazel – one of the flower girls.  She is so adorable!!! I also get to dote on her because she is my second cousin

My cousin, aka the groom, getting ready.  He was nothing but smiles the whole time and couldn’t wait to marry Stephanie.

This has to be one of my favorite images of Stephanie.

She was so cute, once her mom put the veil on, the emotion of it all just overwhelmed her.

This was the view from the  Evergreen Lakehouse.  I don’t think there are any words that can describe it.

Mikey waiting for Stephanie for their first look.

Stephanie turned the corner and saw Mikey and started crying.  Luckily the bridesmaids brought tissues along.

Seeing the look in my cousin’s eyes and his huge smile when he saw Stephanie was priceless.

I loved these bouquets, so pretty!!!!

The groomsmen hanging out before the ceremony.

My husband helped me out during the ceremony and took this picture of Mikey’s expression as Stephanie was walking down the aisle. I don’t think I have ever seen him this happy (and he is a really happy guy).

I think he started getting a little bit choked up.

I swear this is really how it looked, its not a backdrop I promise

This is a really amazing shot taken by my husband.  I wanted to make sure we caught some of those happy tears from Stephanie and Ray did an amazing job taking this photo.

Huge kudos to my Aunt Pam and Uncle Bill – Mikey’s parents – for all the decor.  They DIY’d all of it and did an amazing job.  The centerpieces were designed by Pam and the wood piece it sits on was handmade.  Pam designed it, and Bill made it (Bill has been a woodshop teacher for 20+ years and can do some amazing things)

Oiy where do I begin. I think the speeches had everyone in tears especially Mikey’s brother Eric’s speech.  I certainly don’t want to go uber sad here but Eric talked about our grandfather (better known as Grampy) during his speech.  See Stephanie met the whole family while we were going through one of the most difficult of times.  Grampy was in the hospital and we all knew he wouldn’t make it much longer.  He was brought home and put under hospice care and we were all told he had about 7-10 days, well we was stubborn and lasted 2 months.  But in that time he got to know Stephanie and he said to my Aunt Pam that he felt Mikey had met his life partner.  I think they had been dated for around 6 months at this time but Grampy could see the love they had for each other.  Well Eric brought that up in his speech and had us all bawling. Literally I don’t know how I managed to snap any photos at all.

Haha I love that they went for it!!!

Ok this is where everything got crazy and I think my brother had a huge hand in this.

Haha my mom is staring at my brother like he is crazy.  (My brother is the one laughing with the beer in his hand)

This crazy fella below is my husband who decided to do the “Carlton”.  He is such a goofball, love you honey

Where do I start with these two.  My brother (on the right) and Mikey are like two peas in a pod.  Whenever they get together, craziness ensues.

My dad was held up and robbed by one of the flower girls and ring bearer.  No worries it was just a nerf gun and he lost only a couple of dollars.

This is my absolute favorite shot from the whole wedding!!!!!

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I think I can speak for my family when I say, Mikey, Stephanie we are truly happy for the both of you and wish you a lifetime of joy and happiness!!!!!! Enjoy Puerto Rico

Today for brides, I wanted to talk about choosing a wedding photographer and some basic tips for you when you are searching.  First and Foremost, think about you, your personality and the style you want for your wedding and be honest with yourself.  A good way to gage your style is to look around your room/house/apartment.  How have you decorated?  Are you modern, French-inspired, shabby chic, traditional, romantic, country, etc?  This will give you a good basis to start.  I say this because if are traditional at heart and you hire a modern/edgy photographer, then there is a good chance that you will not be happy with your wedding pictures.  And don’t for one second think traditional is bad, its not.  There is a reason why it’s named traditional or tradition, it’s tried and true and has stood the test of time.  So basically what I am saying here is be true to yourself when referring to the style you prefer.  There are a whole slew of photographers out there for every style.

Then take those word(s) that fit you and Google (style) Dallas wedding photographer or weddings at (your venue) Take a look around the photographer’s website and I mean really look.  Visit their galleries for engagements, bridals and most importantly weddings pictures.  Go visit their blog and see how current and up to date they are. Do you like their style, does it fit you?  If the pictures you see were of your wedding how would you feel?  Would you be over the top excited about them?  If so, then bookmark and/or make note of that photographer.  I suggest going and visiting several photographers websites, and make note of your top 2-4 photographers.

Contact those photographers who you absolutely love and set-up a time to meet.  I think it is of uber importance to meet your photographer beforehand.  You need to see if you two click and are on the same page when it comes to your wedding.  Also, the photographer wants to make sure that you are a right fit for the style they produce.

For us, we work with clients that love having fun each other and being silly and are very much in love with each other.  Also, are clients are really happy, fun people that are super excited about their wedding.  Our clients’ eyes light up when they talk about each other and how they met, and how he proposed.  So if I met with a couple and they give me one word answers to how they met or how he proposed, I know they are not a right fit for me.  That’s ok and there will be a photographer that out there that is a better fit for them.

So once you have met with a couple of photographers, chose the one who has a style you LOVE and you really clicked with.  Trust me, this will make the whole process much easier and you will love love love your wedding photographs.  Let me also say, if you met with a photographer, you already love their work i.e. you keep staring at their website, and you really click with them, don’t hesitate to book them at your initial meeting.  Good photographers book up really quickly.

Ok now for the budget part, because yes we all have a certain budget in mind and I do understand this comes into play when choosing your wedding photographer. One thing to consider is that your wedding photographs are the one thing you have to look back at.  Ten years from now, you won’t have the cake, or the flowers, etc. to look back at but you will have your wedding photographs.  I weekly get emails from brides that skimped on their wedding photography budget and now want at least a day after session or for me to try and edit or “fix” them.  This is one day that has no redo’s so you want to make sure you get the best pictures of your special day. The average starting price for a really an awesome wedding photographer is $2,500-$5,000.

If you have any other questions in regards to choosing a wedding photographer don’t hesitate to email us at kandsphoto at gmail dot com. We want to help make your wedding day planning as easy as possible. Thank you and I really hope you have found this to be helpful

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For this blog post I wanted to show something a little different.  Back in 2003 I had the chance to travel to Italy with some of my fellow classmates at TWU and study Art History with Dr. Calabrese.  I can tell you nothing beat seeing the art in person, it is truly awe inspiring.  This was during the crazy heat wave in Italy and somehow we all made it through, probably because we live in Texas and we are used to crazy hot summers.  Of course being a photography student, I had to take lots of pictures while we were there.  I packed up my Pentax K1000 with its 1 fixed lens, 20 rolls of Ilford 100 BW film and 20 rolls of Fuji film.  Yep that’s right I show film the entire trip so I didn’t get to see the pictures I took until I got back home.  I developed the black and white film my self and the local community college and dropped off the color film for development.   I then printed the images in the darkroom (both color and black and white).  It’s crazy to think that was 8 years ago and now almost everything is digital.  Ok back to the point though of pictures of Italy.  I hope you enjoy these pictures and this is Italy through my eyes, enjoy

I hope you enjoyed these pictures.  And I just have to say, Italy is amazing and everywhere you go its so picturesque.  It would be the perfect place for a destination wedding (don’t forget to call us so we can be your wedding photographers over in Italy) and then you can have your honeymoon in Italy, wouldn’t that be perfect   I can tell you from experience that having your honeymoon in Italy is amazing, unforgettable and a truly a trip of a lifetime!!!!

Going through all my images from my weddings in 2010 and I realized that I never shared Ifeanyi and Uju’s Day After Session with you.  Why, I don’t know as I love love love this session.  I love the Gothic inspired architecture.  If memory serves me correctly, these were taken at Trinity College in Hartford,  Connecticut.  I drove around the area looking for the perfect spot from their session when I found myself at the university.  BINGO is the first thing that popped in my head; this is exactly what I am looking for.  It was a Sunday afternoon when we took pictures so the campus was pretty empty except for a sports team practicing. They saw Ifeanyi and Uju in their wedding attire and stopped the practice to yell out a Congratulations to them.  Mind you, we are up on a hill and pretty far away from them so they yelled pretty loud. I thought it was the coolest thing.  These two are the sweetest and Uju was actually the bridesmaid in a past wedding of ours, we were the wedding photographers for their dear friends Ig and Anuli.  These four all went to school together in Nigeria and came over to the States to study.

So enjoy the pictures of this fabulous couple.

Ifeanyi and Uju’s wedding pictures were featured on WedLoft, check them out here.