Congratulations Chris and Kehley!

On Saturday, I had the honor of shooting Chris and Kehley's wedding here in Alabama. The family was very kind and really wonderful to be around, which made shooting the wedding a real pleasure!

The wedding was my first time ever meeting the bride and groom, which was definitely a first! Shelli, the sister of the bride has been a client of mine for many years. (You know that picture of the triplets holding hands? Well, Shelli is their mom.) They asked me to fly down and shoot the wedding in Alabama, and I was honored to be asked.

I have posted a slideshow of pictures from the day on my website. It can be found at www.bethmerritt.com/Slideshows/_______ (the couple's new last name with a capital M and the rest all lowercase.)

Okay, well here are some of MY favorites from the wedding - as opposed to Lee's ;)

Enjoy!

Beth

The flower girl... isn't she adorable??

The three triplets, giggling at mom and dad. The little boy on the right is just cracking up - so funny!

Rachel (Take Two)

Well, so much for vacation... I am stranded without a car and a phone at the moment (long story, but let's just say it has something to do with my new found wedding assistant...) ;)

Anyway, I decided to get some work done while I'm waiting... I hope you guys like this shoot as much I do. I was really excited when I saw the images on my laptop!
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Well, this was the second portion of Rachel's shoot. Her original shoot was rained out, and we were forced to move the outdoors shoot to a later date. We were very lucky... thunderstorms came through about 9am, but by 10:00 when we met for our shoot in downtown Birmingham, there wasn't a cloud in the sky!

Well, here are my favorites from the session... (warning: I liked a lot of them!)

Enjoy!

Beth

(While Rachel makes this look easy, believe me, it's not! This was quite the balancing act!)

(And no, I didn't enhance the color of her eyes in this picture... I increased the saturation on the entire picture, and did a quick unsharp mask to make them pop, but the color was left alone. Aren't they gorgeous???)

(Is it just me, or does anyone else see the resemblance to Ms. Ferguson???)

All in the family...

Greetings from Alabama! (I shot a wedding here yesterday...) It was fun - and hot!

As you may or may not know, I have been training a dedicated second shooter to do weddings with me. I prefer to shoot almost everything by myself (kids and high school seniors), but weddings simply require a second person to ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible.

You see, the problem with weddings is that the photographer almost always need to be three places at the exact same time. Once, I actually had the sister of the bride scold me (she was furious) because I was taking pictures of the bride in a tender moment. She scolded me because I wasn't taking pictures of her daughter who was doing spins in her dress. At that moment, I vowed to always have a second person to accommodate even the most demanding client.

Well, I have been training a second shooter and he is... (drum roll, please.......)

...Lee!

Yep, I am teaming up with my husband to do weddings. He has learned extremely fast, and it turns out he has an eye for it... Here are some of Lee's pictures from yesterday's wedding - I think they are wonderful images, but you be the judge:

(Nice trees, honey...)

Okay, well, I had to throw the last one in there. When Lee saw it on the computer he said "Whoops!". (Notice I take credit for his good images, but not the last one... ;) Actually, this happens to even the best photographers... especially when people are moving.)

Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone is having a good day...!

Beth

PS: I am going to take a mini-vacation for the next two days while I am down here in Alabama, I'll resume business as usual on Tuesday afternoon. Thanks!

My Favorite things: Cakes!

I have thought about this recently, and I am going to start posting some of my favorite things - in terms of local vendors. In my experience, good help is hard to find, and so when I find something I think is a one of a kind, I want to make sure I tell the world about it... so, here goes!

We commissioned a professional to do the cake for my sister-in-law's 30th birthday. I have to say, the cake turned out amazing! (Since the cake was at our house, and I just happen to have a studio there... well, I snapped a couple pictures before it got all cut up.)



This cake was nothing like I had ever seen before. So cute! As you might expect, it was a big hit with the crowd at the party. But what you might not expect was the inside - the top layer was banana cream, and the bottom layer was a lemon cake. Both were wonderful. (We asked to steer away from the vanilla/chocolate route, because the birthday girl is anything but typical.)

So, if you need a one of a kind cake created for your special event, e-mail Katie at ka_norris@yahoo.com. She does great work!

Have a good day, everyone!

Beth

I have been waiting for this, without saying anything on the blog, but today it happened! Today, the ten-thousandth person logged on to our website. I have been counting ever since the new website went up earlier the year. I can't believe it...10,000 hits!!!

So, as a way of saying thanks, we are giving away free vouchers for a free 5x7 until we reach the 11,000 mark. (But hurry! Our website generally gets about 100-200 hits a day!) The coupons can be used in conjunction with other coupons and are valid until December 1, 2008. To get your copy of the coupon, send a message with "Free 5x7" in the title to beth@bethmerritt.com.

Thank you to everyone for checking in so often! It's fun to have people I bump into tell me about my shoots and about some of the crazy pictures I take!

:)

Beth

The (New and Improved) Vandeveegaete Family

This is one of my favorite families to shoot. Partially because they are a lot of fun... and partially becuase mom is one of my very closest friends. Recently, "Team Vandeveegaete" went up a member. They are now blessed with a newborn and a two year old. (They are not bored...!) :)

I got to spend a lot of time with Dad during the shoot, and we got some great pictures of him and his newest son. I always spend a lot of time with Dad and his bigger features against a new baby's tiny delicate features. I think it just makes for great photographs...

The oldest son is a ham, and he posed for us in sunglasses, with various props, and was obviously very proud of his new little brother.

Here are some of my favorites from today's session...

Enjoy!

The Phillips Family

Well, I had to wait to post this shoot, because this was the bait to get my sister-in-law Angie to come to the suprise party. Angie thought that the shoot was yesterday, but it had actually happened a week ago. ;)

Mom and Dad are good friends of ours, and we have known them for many years. (Angie and I went to school with her.)

Well, now she has a darling little girl, and I was very flattered when she asked me to take pictures of them. She is a very cute little girl, and I couldn't believe how peaceful she was!

Here are some of my favorites from the session...

Enjoy!



This watch was given to Dad on his wedding day by Mom... it looks so big on her! :)
Awake one minute...
...asleep the next. ;)

The Leistra Family

This family was a RIOT! At one point, we were all doing Kungfu Panda and laughing like crazy. (The other people in the park must have thought we were crazy!) It was really a ton of fun. We ran around, kids hopped on dad's shoulders, visited the ducks, got our shoes dirty, and in the end just had lots of fun and got some really great pictures.

Here are some of my favorites from the session....

Enjoy!

The Feldmaiers

I have known the Feldmaier family for a few years now, and last Saturday they invited me to photograph their family again. Their oldest son is one of my favorite little boys. He is so charismatic. I remember when I first met him he did the Heisman pose - and this time it was monster faces. Absolutely adorable.

Well this time, I got to meet his younger brother (I met him when he was a baby, but now he's walking and talking.) Both little boys were such little gentlemen - and so cute!

Here are my favorites from the session...

Enjoy!

Triplets!

I had the honor to photograph three super cute triplet boys. So full of energy. They loved puddles, and at the end of the shoot, mom let them play in some of the bigger puddles. They were really cute.

Here are some of my favorites from the session...

Enjoy!