Our new blog site is up and running!!! Please visit us at our new blog home at http://www.ourweddingmoments.com/blog for all the exciting happenings of 2009!!!

We woke up this morning and found the following in our email and just had to share it with you!

WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced that In The Moment Photographs has won the 2009 Bride’s Choice Awards™!

In its inaugural year, the Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and honors vendors from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. This year’s recipients represent the top three percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which includes over 100,000 wedding vendors from across the US. That means In The Moment Photographs is one of the very best in Wedding Photography.

Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through surveys and reviews.

“We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community,” according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.”

Catherine and I would like to thank our past clients for speaking on our behalf and helping us win the 2009 Bride’s Choice Award!!!

Happy New Year to all of you! We want to thank all of our clients, family, and friends that have supported us throughout the year, as all this that we love so much would not be possible without you!

The holiday season was so busy, we hardly had a chance to wish you all a happy holiday. I feel like such a blog slacker! But it was great getting to visit with family and friends, as things were a little different for us this year and involved a bit of traveling. We hope your celebrations were great!

Now with all the festivities behind us, we are ready to rock in 2009! In the coming weeks we will be bringing up a new face to our blogs. Last year we split the portraits into their own space http://www.pinstripes-polkadots.blogspot.com/ to help our clients find stuff easier. We will keep the blogs separate, but make them a little easier to get from one to the other, as well as a whole new look.

We are also revamping our weddings and portraits websites. All new favorites from 2008 will be added as well as a revamp of some of the sections. It seems like we never get to this during the year as we are so busy making sure we take care of our clients.

We are almost 50% booked for 2009 already! We tend to fall in love with our couples, and whether big or small, all our weddings are awesome! We cant wait for our weddings coming up in 2009, and we would love to capture your wedding for you too! If you are considering contacting us about our wedding photography services, please do not wait too long! Even in this sluggish economy, the brides are booking and moving ahead with their wedding plans!

We will be rolling out some new offerings in 2009, so stay tuned for more info on those in the coming weeks!

It seems like some days that the world is unsure of what 2009 will bring. Whatever it brings, I can tell you that we are ready to rock in 2009! Come along and rock with us!

A couple of months ago, we were contacted by photographer Oana Hogrefe about being her "photographer family" for the Roadside Families project. This was our first introduction into a new project started by John Michael and Dalisa Cooper of Alt F. This is a "pay it forward" project that can best be summed up by this statement on the Roadside Families website -

"Kicking off on the VeryAltF tour of ‘08, John Michael and Dalisa Cooper start a Pay-It-Forward project to help photographers get in front of the lens with their families. Something photographers are notorious for not doing. These are their stories."

Over Thanksgiving we trekked to Virginia to visit Cat's brother and his family, and of course we brought our cameras along.    Having teenagers, we decided to work on our "Senior Session" offerings by taking the kids out for an urban grunge session.  

At our last PUG (Pictage User Group) meeting, we decided to have a photography shoot out to do something on the really fun side. So, twelve photographers and two couples headed out into the darkness to see who could get cool images. There was just one catch,  Available Light Only - NO Flash Allowed!  As professional photographers, we often are challenged by things such as no flash ceremonies, both inside and out, and we still have to deliver great images. There's nothing like a night time outdoor candle light ceremony with no lights!

Below are some of our favorite images from the night! Oh, and we have to thank Anna and Spencer, also photographers, for putting down their cameras long enough to be models for us! Thanks guys!

Mike's Images...













Cat's Images...

Saturday, our good friends Crystal and Jonathan tied the knot in a simple, outdoor ceremony in Carrolton. Having contemplated just running off somewhere exotic and getting married, we are glad they decided to stay close to home with a few family members. This gave us the chance to capture a few images for them before they headed off for Charleston for their honeymoon.

Friday it was raining cats and dogs, and we were wondering how Saturday might be. But as it turned out, it was a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding! After dirving around the block numerous times, we finally find the little park where the ceremony will be held. We must have passed this park 5 times and did not realize it! Once we caught up with the couple putting on the final touches for the ceremony.

When we first met with Heather and Kevin a few months ago about their upcoming April wedding, we knew that they were a very fun couple! As they put it, "we are just a couple of cut ups"!

We met up with our dear friend Crystal and her fiance Jonathan at the Roswell Mill for their engagement session. It was almost two years ago that we first met Crystal when we made a trip to Savannah to do Trash The Dress sessions in the fountains and streets of Savannah and at the Beach at Tybee Island. Since then, Crystal met Jonathan, the love of her life! Its always a priviledge to photograph for another photographer, and we are so happy to be able to do some engagement photographs for them!



Inside the covered bridge









There was a tree with just the perfect initials carved in it, making for a great shot.



We decided to head down the street for a few more shots at the Big Trees Nature Preserve. The leaves have not really started turning, but the sun filtering through the trees gave us a fun atmosphere.



Jonathan is a musician and brought his guitar and serenaded his beautiful wife to be (and us too!) . We have been spicing up our sessions lately by having the couple bring along something that shows their personality or means something to them. As we wondered the trails, Jonathan was picking and singing as we went and having a lot of fun!











Crystal brought along a prop of her own and it made for a GREAT series of shots!











Crystal and Jonathan, it was great to see you today and it was so beautiful outside! We cant wait for your wedding next week, and as simple as you say it will be, we know that the love that you share will shine and your wedding day will be beautiful!