Engagement | Jenn & Mike

He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, over and over again. The cute girl behind the counter was busy making his morning coffee. This had become a daily ritual, he walked in with full resolve to take their customer/barista relationship one step further, and he left sheepishly having failed to summon the courage, a hot cup of coffee as his only consolation. But today he was going to do it. She slid the coffee cup across the counter calling out his name and looked up to meet his gaze. Swallowing hard, he uttered a reasonable version of what he had rehearsed a few hundred times. She smiled and nodded, letting out a little giggle. He turned and left, coffee cup and all the possibilities in hand.






Jenn & Mike met in a coffee shop and have found themselves now in careers and heading towards the future. For their one year anniversary, Mike presented Jenn with a lovely card, the inside of which held a question that was her real anniversary gift. An excited "yes!" and much celebration later, they went together to pick out a conflict-free diamond and are now looking forward to their wedding this fall. Mike exhibits an outward devotion to Jenn that is rare to see I think, and it shows up in many of their pictures.









Here's the slideshow for more :

Buffet Tickets

If anyone was interested in those Buffet tickets - here is the link:

Jimmy Buffet Tickets

Miscellaneous Monday

Well, I have seen the sun rise on another Fourth of July from behind a fireworks store. I don't know that it would really feel like the Fourth without that anymore. Hubby's crew did a phenomenal job this year and allowed him to do his job better and get sleep to boot. (Sleeping during the week of the Fourth = HUGE luxury) The store had a great Fourth and they already have their sights set on next year. Ringo spent the day with my family at the big Fourth party my Aunt Deb and Uncle Rod throw. I was able to join them for the last two hours of it and everyone said what a good dog Ringo had been all day. He must have had fun, he was totally exhausted by the time I got there. We watched the fireworks show together (Ringo was totally unfazed) and then left to go to another show put on by hubby for all of his workers. Ringo didn't tolerate that one as well ( we were too close to the fireworks I think) and so we took refuge in the truck and promptly fell asleep. Ahhh.... the Fourth.

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The Tom Petty concert was fantastic. Hubby says the best we have been to. I think one of the ones we have seen in Chicago could be considered just as good. But I will say this, Petty looked really good. I don't know if someone gave him a makeover or if he is just feeling better, but in previous years he has been looking pretty gaunt and scarecrow like, but this year he looked really healthy and younger, like he had plenty of years left in him. I hope so. He didn't play our song (he never does), but it still rocked. Hubby learned that being sleep deprived means you get drunker a lot faster, and our cousin Nick learned about the power of Cosmos. And Claire, I was careful to be extra loud (with beer in hand) for "Oh my my, Oh H*ll yes..." just for you. I wish we could see Petty every year at Summerfest.

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In other Ringo news, we seemed to have taken a giant step backwards in the potty training department since his fix. I don't know if the two are actually related or not, but since we have had him back there has been a big increase in the number of accidents and I won't even speak of the kennel messes...

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Silva and Felipe's Reception is this Friday - I can't wait. Mostly because we are going to be throwing popcorn....

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We have Jimmy Buffet tickets for sale for July 19th. Hubby promises to give me the info later today so you can buy them - stay tuned. If you have never been to Buffet - there is no time like the present to check out this phenomenon.

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In case anyone is still wondering "Where's Waldo?", Harmony and I found him on the way home from Alejandra & Eric's Wedding the other week:


(taken with the iphone)

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Gotta get to work - Have a great Monday!

Engagement | Racheal & Jason

She sorted thru the items in her closet, searching, searching for just the right outfit. Her favorite blue dress hit the floor in a discarded pile, soon followed by the "sexy" jeans, the 'girl's night out' camisole and about ten other options. Why couldn't she find anything that fit the bill? The phone rang. 'Who could be calling now?' she thought to herself. It was him, calling to say he was running late. Impressive, she thought. Turning to her closet she realized this bought her some more time with her options. They had talked online and on the phone and yet she was nervous to finally meet him. Awhile later she answered the door wearing her favorite sweater and the moment she saw him all her nerves melted away.






Racheal and Jason are another internet couple success story - they met on Match.com. I met them before they were clients of mine, before they were even engaged. Racheal is the contact for one of my commercial design clients. When I finally met the guy she gushed about all the time at a charity event, he was exactly as I expected he would be from her descriptions. Racheal was a bit frustrated at this time over when Jason was going to move their relationship into the "permanent" lane, and talking to him that night I knew it was only a matter of time before he popped the question - he was so ready, so already there.








On vacation at Disney World, Jason arranged for a special dinner in Cinderella's castle. When dessert was brought out it was topped with a beautiful glass slipper - and inside was Racheal's key to Happily Ever After - a ring. Before she knew it Jason was down on one knee and the whole castle was watching her fairytale come to life.







Here's the slideshow. Sorry about using the same music over and over again - I really need to find out how to use other music legally.

I'm checking out of the studio officially for the weekend - so I'll see you all back on the blog on Monday!

Engagement | Lindsay & Ben

One day in college her friend asked her to provide a little moral support while she approached a table in the cafeteria with two guys, one of whom the friend was interested in. Lindsay complied and that is how she met Ben, the other guy, the one her friend wasn't interested in. Good thing too, because as it turns out, Lindsay was.



Their story of coming together is romantic and a little spooky. Ben asked Lindsay out for the first time on Halloween night, a prospect made all the more interesting by the fact that Wisconsin Lutheran College is one of the top 25 most haunted places in Wisconsin. It used to be a Catholic correctional facility for girls and it has been said that you can spot a nun wandering in the boiler room on Halloween at midnight. Being the silly freshmen that they were, Lindsay and Ben thought they would check this out for themselves, searching the campus for wayward catholic girls and ghostly nuns. After sufficiently scaring themselves, they wandered away from their friends and out into the autumn night. They didn't find any haunted spirits that night, but they did find love.




Five years later they are done with school and talking about the future. Lindsay's mom offered up a family diamond and the two hit the jewelry store to have it reset. No proposal had been made and since Lindsay knew about the ring, Ben was going to have to act quickly and slyly. Lucky for him the ring was done a day earlier than expected. So after a long day of work in the dead of winter, Ben insisted they go for a walk in the park. A walk not unlike the one they took on their first date, except that the crunching leaves was now snow, and Lindsay was cold, not having been dressed for the outing. Ben faked needing to tie his shoe mid-way thru the walk and when Lindsay looked down she saw that instead of a shoelace, he was holding the ring.





Ben and Lindsay are BIG Brewer fans and so they decided to have their engagement session at Miller Park. This is open to anyone when the Brewers are out of town, but there is a fee. I wanted to be sure that they got their money's worth in the hour they were alloted to explore the field and all the inner-workings of the stadium as well as some great pictures to document it. We got to see some really cool stuff including the locker rooms, dugouts, pitching bullpen and we were even allowed on homeplate. I think we succeeded on both goals. Lindsay tells me that Ben still refuses to wash the jeans he wore that day because they have "Home Plate" dirt on them.








Check out the slideshow below for more images. I've been feeling pulled towards textures again. I had abandoned them before because I thought they were overtaking the pictures, let me know what you think with these new experiments.

Family Session | The Reichels

Remember a few weeks ago when mother nature was dropping lake-loads of water on the city and sprinkling tornadoes across the countryside? That is the weekend that we had scheduled a family shoot for The Reichel Family. With two members coming in from out of town, this was a one shot chance. So when we cancelled on Saturday night because of the storms, we quickly rescheduled for Sunday morning. When I arrived in Racine, we had exactly one hour before the rain was supposed to hit again, and with two fully restored classic Chevelles also participating, we had to move fast. So to make this long story short, we had to focus on what we really needed - a nice shot of the whole family smiling, and less on what I specialize in. We hit three locations in the park of choice quickly, moving the cars, 8 people and one dog each time. Certainly not my typical session, but we got the basics of what we needed. Maybe one day we can do a real session and they can get some real Mthree Studio magic. Until then, these shots will have to do.