Congratulations Angie & Chris!
On Saturday, we photographed Chris & Angie's wedding & reception at Ritz Charles! It was such a great day….awesome couple…awesome details…fun families…fabulous vendors…gorgeous weather….everything was perfect! 🙂 Janice Mays (Lady J's Flowers) did a fantastic job with the flowers and decor. She was amazing and so sweet to work with! Here's Angie and Chris during their private moment…
I love it when couples want to see each other before the wedding. It's always such a sweet moment between just the two of them and I think it's much more of an "authentic" reaction when there's not a lot of people in the room…
Here's Angie looking gorgeous as always…. 🙂
And her hubby Chris…
Hilarious!! 🙂
Sofia (the groom's niece) followed me around taking pics all night…she was too cute! She started out taking pics with her camera phone…
Gorgeous details!
You all know how much I LOOOVVEEE bright blue skies with a great silhouette – wow!!!
Angie bought a wrap to wear outside, which was perfect since February's weather is so unpredictable in Indy…they got very lucky with the weather though – no snow! (Although I think I told her she looked like a snow princess in this shot!) 😉 Too cute!
I LOVED her bling too!! 🙂
Oh la la…. 🙂
Here's Sofia being goofy before the ceremony!
Then John grabbed a camera as we were testing the light and setting up for the ceremony…Melissa and I don't have many pics together so this is a new favorite!! 🙂
I have to give a shout out to all of the staff at Ritz Charles too. 🙂 I LOVE the chapel at Ritz Charles…Anne (their coordinator) is fabulous to work with…she's soooo sweet and easy going and yet so very organized and detail oriented!! The Ritz is such a gorgeous venue, there are so many great photo opportunities there inside and outside. The catering staff is amazing too…they take SUCH good care of their vendors and they even let Angie & Chris check out the reception hall set-up before the ceremony since we were done with photos early. We love Ritz Charles!! 🙂 So if you don't have a venue for your ceremony and reception yet, I highly recommend checking them out.
This adorable little girl was waiting patiently for the bell ringing to begin…of course, I loved her pink hat and jacket…too cute!
Classic Cakes did another amazing job! Loved the cupcake cake!!
Cool champagne glasses…
GORGEOUS!!
Angie surprised Chris with a Steelers groom's cake!
One of my favorites from the day….
After dinner, the staff brought out chocolate covered strawberries…YUM!!
Sofia upgraded to a point & shoot digital by the reception… 🙂 We were joking that she would be shooting with our equipment by the end of the night! LOL She started posing groups of people and telling them to get together for a shot and all kinds of funny stuff. Actually, I think I was about her age when I started shooting so you just never know where it will lead! 🙂
Instead of a traditional guest book, they had guests sign in on a plate that could be displayed in their home…fab idea!
Congratulations you guys! More pics to come soon…. 🙂
7 hours left to bid!
I just received an e-mail clarifying some of the bidding details for the Thirst Relief auction closing procedures:
"The Anti-Snipe Feature – this means that if a particular auction is experiencing a bidding war at the time it is SUPPOSED to end, the auction will stay open instead. As long as bidders are willing to bid on a mentor the auction for that particular mentor will stay open until no one bids any more. This is extremely important for all bidders to know. Remind bidders to check and write down payment information so that they will be able to immediately go to www.thirstrelief.org to make their donations. Donations need to be made in 48 hours or the auction will go to the next highest bidder. Exactly how to make their donation is in the payment details of every auction. Also, a reminder that ALL auctions are closing at different times. This avoids having too many people trying to bid on any one person at a time. Make sure you and your bidders know exactly what time your auction will close."
Our auction ends at 9:00 p.m. EST tonight!! 🙂 Please go bid if you haven't done so already…it's for a great cause and even if you're not attending WPPI in a few weeks, that's ok…we'll do your session via phone or e-mail. I've already placed a few bids on other photographers too because I believe it's important to share ideas and to continue to learn as much as you can in the world of photography.
In fact, to sweeten the bidding process, I'll make all of the photographers out there a deal…if we get more than $1,500 in bids for this worthy cause in the next 7 hours, I'll throw in a free portrait shoot & CD for the winning photographer at WPPI next month! We can do fun portraits around Vegas, head shots, whatever you want….or you can do a photo shoot with us if you don't like to be in front of the camera 😉 …you'll also be the first business featured on our new photo mentoring website that will go live next month in addition to having your one-on-one with me. 🙂 So, let's go raise money for Thirst Relief International!! Who's thirsty??! 🙂
Live Chat Now Available!
Have a quick question? Want to check availability of your wedding date? Try out our new live chat feature on the right hand side of the blog, just under my photo! 🙂 If I'm online and signed in, I can reply instantly and let you know if we're available for your wedding date…give it a try!
Last call…
We have two charity projects ending within a day of each other! LOL Tomorrow is the last day to bid on a one-on-one mentoring session with me at WPPI and Wednesday morning will be the last chance to donate to Jessica's Fund before we surprise her with the charitable cancer fund! So far, we've raised over $4,100 in two weeks…my faithful blog readers are AMAZING!! Now I just wish we could do that for the Thirst Relief International group!! 🙂
The way customer service SHOULD be…
A little over a year ago, we sold my Saturn and I bought a fabulous, used Infiniti I35. I love my car, we even named her…LOL…her name is Gigi. 🙂 She rides well, she's super reliable and she has plenty of extra fun stuff in her like a heated steering wheel, 6 CD changer, a rear window shield for blocking bright lights and other cool stuff. (Actually she got her name "G.G." for gas guzzler but we love her nonetheless…) 😉
Anyway, the actual experience of buying her at Tom Wood Nissan was not the most pleasant experience to say the least. A lot of back and forth haggling went on for awhile, I even had to get a rental car after I sold mine while still deciding what to do. (Note to self: don't sell your car until you have another one or you trade it in!) Of course, Saturn wasn't happy that I wasn't buying another one of their cars so they lowered the amount of my trade-in and put extra pressure on me to sell it to them fast. So I had to sell it or they would've lowered my trade-in value again…yeah, nice sales tactic, huh? 🙁 (That's one way to "rethink" Saturn…LOL)
Anyway, before Saturday's wedding this past weekend, the key fab on my Infiniti broke into two pieces. I remembered the sales rep saying we'd have to go have it reprogrammed if that ever happened so I called over to Tom Wood Nissan today (where we bought her) to schedule an appointment to get it fixed. You would've thought I was asking for the whole car to be rebuilt. LOL I was on the phone 20-25 minutes by the time it was all said and done…no one had returned my call from the message I left yesterday…I was transferred 7 or 8 times I think and ended up telling the key fab story to 5 or 6 people. No one seemed capable of telling me if #1 they would have the correct key fab for me before my appointment (supposedly they don't carry a lot of Infiniti-specific key fabs) and #2 what all I needed to do to schedule an appointment to make sure it would actually be taken care of at the appointment without having to schedule another one! One guy even tried to schedule an appointment without confirming they'd have the right key fab for me before I got there! LOL
It was so frustrating…I usually don't do this but their system was so screwed up and being a business owner myself, I knew that someone in charge needed to know how their customers were being treated. I called back and spoke to their Operational Manager and explained this to him. I told him that if my staff ever acted like that (which they wouldn't – because they know better) and wouldn't take responsibility for following through on something or making sure something would be done correctly, I would want to know if I were in his shoes. I think he appreciated knowing about it but that didn't change the fact that by the time I finished telling him what had happened, I had just wasted 30 minutes of my life dealing with his incapable employees and nothing had been accomplished.
So I decided to move on…I knew I would pay more for a key fab by going directly to the Infiniti dealership but let me tell you – after what I just experienced, I know it will be worth the extra money. Within 5 minutes, the receptionist had sent me to their service department who told me it was an easy fix and that I wouldn't even need an appointment and then service transferred me to their parts department and they confirmed they have 3 key fabs in stock and I was done. How easy was THAT?! So…moral of the story…Infiniti cars are awesome and so is the Dreyer & Reinbold Infiniti Dealership…Tom Wood Nissan wasted more of my time than it was worth…and sometimes it's worth it to pay a little more for the extra customer service and knowing that you'll be taken care of – this is true for the car industry and the wedding industry!