Pieces of the Puzzle: Part 3, A Wedding

In August I took my son with me to our nephew's wedding in Oregon. We went to Washington for a few days first, then off to Oregon and a really cool winery to see Wren marry his love, Jenna. Weddings are so beautiful, and the joy in the faces of these two says it all. Gotta love love!

The moms...

The dads...

Me with my travel buddy...

Wren is a special effects creator and this is a re-enactment of a scene from a video he did... great idea to personalize the photo shoot with his groomsmen, who also work with him. Check out their work on You Tube here and here.

The cake...

The bride... 

 The groom...

 The girls...

The vows... Jenna's mom officiated her own daughter's wedding! SO cool!

 The kiss...

 The joy...

 The vineyard...

 The goofballs...

 The flowers...

 The cake? ...or a stolen kiss...

 Oops, need a new knife to cut for the guests!

 The dance...

 ...and the PAR-TAY, BAY-BAY!

So as the pieces of the puzzle to my life fall into place, I hold this past summer dear to my heart as I got to travel, create new memories while healing from the old, and spend precious time with the people who mean the most to me. I have no idea how the puzzle will look when it's all done, years from now I hope, but these images will stand out as my best memories of 2014.  

None of us ever know what we are going to be faced with, but we do know what makes us happy and who brings us joy. Those are the moments that will hold the puzzle together to create an amazing image of our lives. The more pieces to put in the puzzle just means a bigger image in the end.

Brides, Weddings, & Blessings From Heaven!

Well, it's been a while since I posted a blog. Sorry...did I say that last time too? Life gets in the way. This time life brought the nastiest flu virus the doc's office has ever seen. 7 to 10 days of recovery the nurse said.

My most recent weekend was filled with so many things that, as my late father in law would always say, "Burn your candle at both ends & your wick will sag."

Well guess what, my wick sagged. Then just plain fell off. The alarm for a day teaching high school kids went off at 5:15. After work I went straight to a rehearsal & dinner for a wedding I was shooting the next day, got home at about 10:30pm to discover my son had the stomach virus. I was up with him all night, showered, & went to shoot the wedding. I got home at 1 in the morning Sunday & got some sleep, finally. then I woke Sunday morning to, you guessed it, the stomach virus my son had.

While I work on the shots from the wedding I am going to post the shots from the bridal session I did a couple months ago with this weekend's bride, as well as some shots from a wedding I shot for my nephew two weeks ago.

The bridal shoot was a blast since we got to shoot in the old Heights Theater in Houston. Max Harrison has changed it into an amazing art gallery while preserving the history of this glorious building. He was very accommodating & generous to our needs as well. The bride wanted a vintage, old Hollywood look. I think we got it.

The wedding for my nephew & his beautiful bride was in New Braunfels, Texas. It rained & rained before the wedding...after 5 months of drought & wildfires it was hard to complain!

After the rain comes the rainbow! My nephew, and the rest of us, recently lost the patriarch of the family: my father in law. Going to the lake house, his lake house, without him was so hard. We also lost the groom's great grandmother, my husband's grandmother this summer, & our uncle before either of them. As my regular readers already know, my two daughters passed years ago, but here's the thing: as a child the groom, Toby, was particularly close to my oldest daughter, Cheyenne. We lovingly called her our rainbow. Because she was.

So what do you think happened? Just as the pastor announced the newlyweds at the end of the ceremony, a rainbow appeared in the sky over the lake right behind the altar! Everyone just burst out crying. The amazing sign from God that we are never alone. The amazing approval from the old man, his brother, & great grandma. And for me, most of all, the amazing hug it gave us from Cheyenne to Toby.