May 3: Wallflower Portrait Day at Lakewold Gardens

In our opinion, Lakewold Gardens is one of the most lush, beautiful gardens in the Puget Sound region. It's hard to beat, and it's particularly gorgeous in May. Wallflower has long been a supporter of the gardens and while we often photograph weddings there during the summer, this year Lakewold and Wallflower have teamed up to try something new!

On May 3 from 10:00 to 3:30, as part of Lakewold's annual May Fest, you and your loved ones can get portraits taken in this fabulous space by yours truly for only $27! We'll be donating $10 from each session to the gardens, so this is a great opportunity not only to get a fabulous springtime family portrait, but also to do your part in helping to restore and maintain Lakewold Gardens as the great community resource that it is.

The inaugural Wallflower Portrait Day at Lakewold provides a 15-minute portrait session with award-winning photographer Scott Schoeggl, from which you'll get at least 10 finished images for only $27 including tax (plus the cost of admission to Lakewold Gardens). A few weeks after Wallflower Portrait Day, we'll email you with a link to a website where you can view your portraits and order prints and other products on your own time, from the comfort of your own home.

We're looking forward to offering these mini portrait sessions as a quick, affordable, and easy way to take advantage of Wallflower's relaxed and artistic portrait style in a truly gorgeous setting.

To register for the event, contact Lakewold's Amanda Wood at 253-584-4106. You can also view more details — including a list of other garden events that you can enjoy on the same day — online. We hope to see you there!

Jennifer and Zach Win $30,000 Museum of Glass Wedding!

Last night was a special evening for us, as we — and a who's who collection of other top-tier Tacoma wedding vendors — joined forces at Museum of Glass's first-ever wedding open house. The turnout was great, and we enjoyed meeting a lot of wonderful future brides and grooms.

Of course, the highlight of the evening was the announcement of the essay contest winners! All the attendees packed the theater-style seats of the Hotshop (tucked inside the iconic cone) for the big announcement.

First, the runners-up were announced: Emily and Joe, who penned the memorable and touching line "Truth be told I would be happy to marry Joe in a cardboard box because all that really matters is that we are spending the rest of our lives together."

Then an excerpt of the winning essay was read to the crowd, and Zach was announced as the winner. He ran down to the Hotshop floor and was given the mic to explain to the crowd that his fiance, Jennifer, was finishing up her master's degree at Boston College and wasn't able to join him in person.

Little did he know that she was in fact hiding in a back room, and burst onto the scene to celebrate their amazing win!

The Museum staff asked us to snap a photo of the winning couple and we wanted to capture a memorable image for them, so we took Jennifer and Zach into the cold night air for a few quick shots in front of the Hotshop Cone.

Congrats to our new clients Jennifer and Zach! And for everyone else, we really enjoyed meeting you during the open house and hope to learn more about your wedding plans soon. In the meantime, here's a list of the other vendors who generously donated their services to the winners package:

• Gallucci's Catering
• Hotel Murano
• Celebrity Cake Studio
• J. Robbins Florist
• Stork Studios
• Thoroughbred Classics
• Christian's Plant and Tree Rental
• Sounds Unlimited

A New Year, A New Venue, An Old Friend

We didn't have to wait long for our first wedding of 2009 — 3 days, to be exact. And what a fabulous wedding it was!

Coincidentally, Laura knows the bride, Christine, from their childhoods in Northern California, and we photographed the wedding of one of Lawrence's "groomswomen" a few years ago.

Christine and Lawrence chose The Sanctuary at Admiral for their wedding and reception, a fabulously restored 80-year-old building that was recently voted "Best New Reception Site for 2008" in Seattle Bride magazine. The foyer is very wide, shallow, tall and red ...

... and features an elephant that Christine was brave enough to climb onto!

The amazing stage in the Grand Room, with diamond walls and starry ceiling, is our favorite feature at this venue, and an old wooden store sign made for some fun photos, too.


I love how both of the ceremony photos below show off the symmetry of the Grand Room, where the ceremony took place. The dads on each side of the aisle really make that first photo.

After the ceremony, I went off with the guys to take a few theme photos envisioned by Lawrence, all to great effect. These shots show off the Reservoir Dogs theme, followed by Cheesy '80s Sitcom Ending. If you look closely or click on the images to see them larger, you'll also spot the skull-topped canes that Lawrence's attendants sported – a really cool look that we've never encountered before.

The cocktail hour took place in the entry room while the staff flipped the Grand Room, and then everyone filed back through the twin doors to dine.

The lighting was very dim — I know all the guests had a really hard time getting good photos — but that gave us some beautiful mood lighting during Christine and Lawrence's first dance. Conditions were also perfect for rear-sync shutter effects, which you can see here in one of our favorite shots. This tricky technique combines a long shutter with a flash burst to capture both motion blur and sharpness.

This reception featured a twist on the usual bouquet and garter toss rules: Instead of girls clawing for the bouquet and guys diving for the garter (or passively watching it fall at their feet) the roles were reversed. Married men fought over the bouquet to give to their wives, while the women battled for the garter to put on their husband's leg (just kidding). Note the successful bouquet catcher's excellent strategy: Throw elbow at guy next to you, then grab bouquet.

Lawrence and his family are from New Orleans, so of course their reception included a Second Line, where bead-wearing, towel-waving guests follow the umbrella-bearing bride and groom on a weaving path around the venue. Rear-sync flash was again the perfect method for capturing the motion and energy of this traditional "nawleans" event.

Christine and Lawrence, your wedding was an awesome way to kick off 2009! Congrats again!

Visit us this Wednesday at Tacoma Art Museum!

If you've ever wondered what a wedding would be like within the fantastic Tacoma Art Museum, now's your chance to find out! The museum will be hosting a Private Events Open House this Wednesday, January 21, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm.

Guests at the Open House will be treated to savory hors d'oeuvres, hosted beverages, a live-music ensemble, and private access to the museum's exhibitions. It's a great chance to explore the museum while getting a glimpse of how your wedding might look in this airy, safe-for-a-rainy-day space.

Wallflower Photography will be taking part in the event as a sponsor, taking photos of the festivities and hosting a small sampling of our work.

The event is free but registration is required, so contact their events staff right away to take part! You can reach them at 253.272.4258. We hope to meet you there!

News from the newstands

If you're in the market for a wedding magazine, chances are you'll come across Wallflower on the newstands! This January we were thrilled to see several published features with photos from our recent wedding clients.

Take a look at Kristin and Chris' fabulous farmhouse wedding at Tazer Valley Farm in the current issue of Seattle Bride, one of four Real Weddings highlighted in the issue's Northwest Albums section. You can also get a peek of the article here (click to view larger):

Our clients Rachel and Tom also are enjoying fifteen minutes of fame with a feature on their summer wedding at Kensington Gardens, highlighted in the latest issue of South Sound Wedding & Event.

The same magazine also features a great article written by Wallflower's own expert on planning and successfully scheduling wedding portraits! Laura provides the nitty gritty on the most common pitfalls in portrait sessions and how to ensure you never encounter them.

In Defiance of Snow

For months, Sonya and Warren had an engagement portrait session scheduled with us for a few days before Christmas. They live in northern California and there was only a narrow window in which we could squeeze them into busy holiday schedules — both ours and theirs. Of course, I'm sure you remember what that week was like here in the Puget Sound region: SNOW. Lots of snow. Our time with them turned out to be our most memorable portrait session ever!

We entered Point Defiance the back way, after we arrived to find the main gate locked. From the boathouse parking lot, we walked into the Japanese Garden to find a winter wonderland.

Turns out Sonya and Warren are naturals in front of the camera (or cameras, in our case) and when the snow started coming down harder, it only made the photos better!

Sonya's sister and supermom hung around for the portraits to provide assistance with the wardrobe changes, and Laura caught them in the act of doing something cute!

It wasn't practical to walk any deeper into the park, so instead we utilized the virtually abandoned area around the boathouse, where we found this cool tile mural and wall ...

We finished off the session the way any good time spent in a snowstorm should end: with a snowball fight! I'm sure this left their hands colder than ever, but it was totally worth it for the photos ... you can see the warmth, love, and playfulness between them.

We're so glad we were able to pull off this session despite the slippery roads and bitter cold! Looking forward to seeing you again this summer for the Big Day, Sonya and Warren!

Wedding Day Recession Blues on MSNBC

We just spotted this article on MSNBC about the impact of the impending recession on wedding budgets and thought it was worth commenting on. It says that the average cost of a wedding — close to $29,000 — is expected to dip slightly for the first time this decade, and mentions ways that couples are saving money. For example, 48 percent of caterers reported that couples were spending less on their food.

We were glad to note that skimping on photography wasn't suggested in the article. Obviously, we're a bit biased as far as photography goes. But as a bride or groom, it's important to remember that your photography is one of the only things that lasts long after the wedding is over. Most of your other expenses — catering, florist, DJ, cake, hair — are gone as soon as the wedding ends. You and your bridesmaids most likely won't wear those fancy dresses again, either! But your photo album, on the other hand, becomes your new family's first heirloom. It will help you remember all those details, events, and emotions years later when the memories start to fade, and someday you can share it with your children and grandchildren. There's a wide range of skill levels and styles among wedding photographers, and degrees of quality in wedding albums. You'll get what you pay for, so think twice before going cheap!

The other thing in the article that concerned us was the descriptions of how the down economy has driven some vendors and venues out of business. Not only does this leave brides and grooms frantically searching for replacements after most other options have already been booked, but in most cases those couples never see refunds of their down payments. This happened recently in Tacoma when reception venue Stadium Bistro closed. Read about it here.

Wedding photography seems like it'll be really fun and easy until wannabe pros realize just how much hard work, time, and money go into it. That's when they give up and screw over their clients. Every year we book couples who are in a panic because their initial photographers have disappeared on them, and this year is no exception. For the sake of your family heritage, we encourage you to be very careful to book only established wedding vendors with excellent track records and at least a few years of experience. Ask your other vendors for recommendations, or ask your first choice of photographer to provide references, preferably from both clients and other wedding pros. The local "wedding industry" is pretty tight-knit and most of the top vendors know and support each other, and can make sure you're well taken care of with a high level of quality and professionalism. Recessions are temporary, but your photos will stick around for a lifetime!

Tall Ships is here!

We took a few hours out of our busy photo processing schedule yesterday to venture down to Ruston Way and take in the Parade of Sail, which kicks off the Tall Ships 2008 festival. Tall Ships will be in downtown Tacoma from July 3-7, and it's well worth checking out — not that we'll have much time to do so personally!

We arrived early (too early) and watched the ships line up for the parade at a distance. Scott brought his longest lens to snap the first shot of the Lady Washington while it was still miles away near Vashon Island. Then he turned around and caught the second shot of a cute kid watching excitedly from his room at the Silver Cloud. The third shot is of the replica Bounty (of "mutiny" fame) as it sailed along the waterfront.