I saved the best for last with all my wedding sharing… Primavera Studios!  Just like Brian and Ashley from the NEWview, Kevin and Kelsey are the cutest married couple.  They photograph weddings together and not only are they the sweetest people to have around (I seriously felt as if they were in my wedding party), but some of the most talented.  Their photos are truly breathtaking.

I always find myself looking back in my “Primavera” album on my computer to look at all my amazing wedding photos.  And, I’m very frequently stalking their blog to check out some of their new work.  You can check out their posts from my wedding and my engagement session.  Remember reading about my friends Brad and Kendal?  Well, lucky for them (and extremely lucky for selfish me!) Kevin and Kelsey are shooting their wedding this August, so I get to hang out with Kevin and Kelsey again, soon!  You can check out their engagement photos, too.  Aaaaand, it gets better!  Cortney and Jeff booked them for their wedding, as well!  Ahhh, I can’t wait to see what they cook up for Kendal’s and Cortney’s weddings!  Want even better news?  Kevin and Kelsey travel anywhere for weddings.  Kevin even went to Jamaica for a wedding.  So, even if you don’t live in the Chicagoland area, they just might be available.

Here are just a few more of my favorites:

And… My all time fav…

The other week I shared my idea behind the wedding welcome hour at my wedding.  Two fun details about the welcome hour come your way today and tomorrow.  Today I’m dishing out the details behind the photo booth I had set up (well, minus the actual booth as this all took place outside).

I got the idea while browsing one of Martha Stewart’s wedding magazines.  A bride had a camera on a tripod before two wicker chairs outside near her reception.  Guests were then able to sit in the chairs and use the self timer on the camera to take pictures of themselves.  I took this idea and twisted it into something more.

I asked a girlfriend to be my photo booth photographer.  Some of my younger cousins gathered people over to the photo area and my girlfriend snapped away.  I had a table full of goodies for them to play with in front of the camera.

I purchased a chalkboard speech bubble and felt glasses, lips, and mustaches on sticks from Etsy.  My fabulous mom painted and distressed two picture frames.  It was (and still is) a blast looking back at all the photos.  Here are a few for your enjoyment

Then, after the ceremony we had a couple hours before the reception began so we could take pictures.  During that time my friend who took all the photos went hard to work on my mac.  She imported all the pictures and created an iMovie with all of them.  She handed the DVD over to the DJ who had a projector set up and played it during cocktail hour.  Everyone loved seeing the photos that had just been taken of them.

The key to making this all work is having an amazing friend to do all the work the day of.  Thanks Beth!!!!!

We seem to be on the theme of memories this week.  So when I was thinking of what to write today, I thought of Rebecca Coopers Month in Photos.

It’s no secret I love taking pictures.  The problem is taking the time to print off the pictures I take.  For the last couple of years I’ve taken time every January to create a shutterfly book with all the photos I’ve taking over the year before.  I love how I don’t have to order prints and put them into albums and that all my photos are in once place in sequential order.  Anal enough?  Yes.  But now I’ve found myself procrastinating.  I have yet to begin a book for 2011.  Then I came across Rebecca Coopers blog, fell in love, and now I am a follower.

Rebecca takes a short moment at the end of each month, rather than at the end of each year, to put a monthly collage together.  She prints them off onto 12×12 pages so they can fit perfectly in a scrapbook.  She even gives away her templates if you’re a follower.

I’m thinking of doing this and rather than putting them into a scarpbook right away, put them in a few frames for a collage wall in my house.  Then I can change out a frame each month.  Now all I have to do is… well, make them!  Cort and I are taking our second photography class in early March, then my next goal is to take a photoshop class this summer.  Hopefully then I’ll feel confident enough to put frame worthy photos up in my house and good enough to share with all of you!  In the  meantime, you can enjoy Rebecca’s photos from January:

Brian surprised me with a DSLR camera (Cannon Rebel T2i) as my wedding gift this past July.  Since then, I’ve been researching like crazy trying to learn as much as I can to create great looking photos.  I’ve recently looked into new equipment for my camera.  A new lens (I’m forcing myself to start out cheap until I learn more), flash, and an adorable camera bag ruled my christmas list, along with photoshop CS5 Extended.  Lucky for me, I am a teacher, therefore I purchased CS5 with an 80% discount.  I was ecstatic!  I downloaded it right away and couldn’t wait to get started on making some amazing photos.  Well, it ended up taking me 20 minutes just to figure out how to open an image.  I thought photoshop was going to be something I’d be able to play around with and pick up on “as I go.”  No, Ma’am!  I have lit.er.ally no idea what I’m doing.  But just tonight, I was browsing photography on pinterest and came across this, 45 Amazing and Free Photoshop Actions from Vandelay Design.  I downloaded about 5 of these and they’ve given me a starting point with editing my photos.  Here’s what I came up with…

Two years ago this week, Brian surprised me with an engagement ring and a trip to Napa.  So I felt the need to edit some of my Napa photos.

Before                                                                         After 

My goal was to make this barn look old and antique-y.  I wanted the photo to look like is was taken in the early 1900′s.  My next plan is to learn how to add textures to photos so this would look wrinkled and aged.

For this one, I just wanted a very sharp B&W shot.

These Napa photos were taken with my old 8 megapixel camera.  This proves just how amazing Photoshop is!

Then I went into editing photos from our most recent trip, Kauai and Maui Hawaii.  These photos were taken with my Cannon Rebel.  However, seeing as the camera was a wedding gift and this trip was our honeymoon, I had owned the camera for one day before we left for this trip.  Therefore, most of these photos were taken in automatic mode.

This first photo is one of my favorites from our trip.  We were cruising around Maui and pulled over to look at some views.  Brian took this shot just by holding the camera out in front of us.  I thought the colors in the original were beautiful.  I never thought this picture could improve.  But, photoshop proved me wrong.  I used the high definition photoshop action for this one and the helicopter shot.  I miss being tan…

In Kauai we hiked along the Na’Pali coast.  This picture is from that hike.

So, those of you out there with photoshop, enjoy these free actions.  If you’re a photoshop expert, puuuuuhlease share your secrets!  Leave a comment or email me at justkalirae@gmail.com.