“So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”" – Patton Oswalt
photo credit: Juan Maclean from his instagram
days like yesterday do a number on all of us. heartbreak, sadness, anger, denial, frustration- only just a few emotions we all felt yesterday. the most disheartening feeling is does this really surprise any of us anymore? what evil humans are capable of? we have maniacs who go on a shooting rampages in elementary schools, movie theatres and through an entire city. so the fact that someone picked the happiest place from a marathon, the finish line, doesn’t surprise me. it’s just sick. the shock of when it happens will always surprise me, but the fact that that much evil exists doesn’t.
despite all this, the best things that come to light out of of all of this, is how much good there is. when the explosions happened yesterday, you saw people running towards those fences and ripping it down to get to the helpless. you saw someone taking off his belt to help make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding on a victim. through these tragedies, all of these small acts combine together to make such an incredulous surge of believing in goodness of humans.
my heart hurts for Boston and those affected. i will be keeping those affected in my thoughts and prayers this week, that’s for sure. my heart hurts that such evil exists. but i will always have faith and hope in humans cause no matter what tragedies and what evil happens, the good will always prevail.
that being said, we all have hearts. let’s try to use them better every day.
consider this my OOO.
i’m off to Hawai’i for the first time ever…since i’ll be out and about frolicking, i’ve decided to not post anything til i’m back next week. need to focus on being where i am at that moment. but feel free to follow my tweets or instagram!
*throws confetti*
yes, that would be me having THE time of my life throwing confetti after dear friends, Jonathan and Joanne from Encarnacion Photography , renewed their vows. i literally threw about two bags of confetti outside the Cosmo. sorry, Vegas street cleaners… at least the pavement looks pretty for once. many thanks to Jeramie Shoda from ShodaLove for attempting to capture the blurry craziness i was that night. more about wppi another time.
til then, aloha.
just wanted to take a moment to remember today.
it’s unbelievable that it’s been two years since this. even more so that while the damage clean up has been amazing, there is still so much that has been lost and needs to be fixed over there. a lot of it has been left alone and just now sits like ghost towns. nevertheless, it’s just as important to acknowledge and remember what happened that day and the weeks and months after. important to remember the lives lost and the survivors on that tragic day.
i’ll never ever forget what we did. FOR JAPAN WITH LOVE will forever be something that’s so close to my heart. every so often, I have to pinch myself and whisper, “Did we all really do that?” i’m still not sure how to ever thank everyone for all that they did to help with this whole fundraising campaign. it just really showed what a caring and compassionate community we have- not just the wedding industry, but the blogging industry and more. i took a moment to scroll through the names of who donated last week and while for the most part, i recalled who had donated back then, i saw some names i didn’t realize had helped and now they’ve become personal friends. quite honestly, i wish i could meet all of you and thank you personally for what you did.
i still remember the texts between Utterly Engaged and i that first day we launched FOR JAPAN WITH LOVE. “We raised $845!” and i texted back “My hands are shaking!” little did we know that the goal of $5,500 we had set for us (which we thought was too much) was practically a joke. i remember telling my family not to donate yet til the last minute, just in case we didn’t reach our goal at all. seeing the amount jump up $1,000 every hour was…i don’t even know…i sat there in disbelief and blank stared at my computer screen. my thoughts were “who ARE these people? and why are they so amazing?!”
$66,733
that’s what we ended up with for the first round.
a total of 1,407 individual donations.
unbelievable.
on top of that, the Bloggers Day of Silence had about 1,200+ bloggers involved. it still stops me in my tracks and tugs my heart strings to know that from our little corner of the world we were able to reach so many.
after help from our Bay Area friends and their benefit event, the grand total ended up being approximately
$73,000.
all raised within a month.
i definitely have to thank ShelterBox for being such an easy and truly amazing organization to donate to and to work with.
so thank you again from the very bottom of my heart.
so let’s just take a moment today to remember what happened two years ago today.
for all those who cannot speak anymore and for those who lost so much that day,
our hearts and minds will always be with you.
ladies who are currently wedding planning…
y’all seriously need this book…like no joke.
“A fresh, modern take on wedding design perfect for today’s bride. Paige Appel and Kelly Harris started designing weddings in 2009, and their work immediately resonated with young brides and grooms: weddings in fields, art galleries, refurbished warehouses, vineyards, hip hotels, or farmhouses. Weddings that featured Mimolette and Mexican beer; fireside chats; succulents and wildflowers; funny jokes; farm-to-table dinners; recycling; offbeat photography; desert heat or mountain snow; salty cookies; pots of paint and confetti cannons. People, Real Simple, Daily Candy, and Design Sponge are just a few of the publications that responded to their addictive mix of old and new, vintage and modern. In this, their first book, Appel and Harris share ideas from the weddings they have designed, such as celebrations at a Palos Verdes farm (Red Hot Juleps, wildflowers galore, a mouthwatering “Sweets Stable”) and The Ace Hotel in Palm Springs (a bourbon-soaked retro cocktail hour, colossal balloons, and a marching band), all photographed here in detail. With their trademark wit, they walk the reader through planning their event, from vision statement and storyboard to color palette, stationery, signs and logos, centerpieces and bouquets, furnishings, linens, china and silver, aisle décor, menus, and more, providing hundreds of inspirational ideas in the process.”
seriously, every page is just simply gorgeous.
i love how it is set up, walking you through each step of how the wedding was designed from scratch and showing how crazy talented Paige and Kelly of bash,please are. it’s simply amazing how they show how to make a wedding absolutely aesthetically pleasing. your jaw drops every time you turn the page.
go over HERE right now to purchase the book. totally worth every penny.
oh, and if you so happen to be in Houston, Texas this weekend:
p.s. paige and kelly, so proud of you two.
i know quite a few of you all got engaged over the holidays…
so this giveaway is totally up your alley!!
check it out…
head on over here to see more of what you could be getting with winning this amazing giveaway from
goodbye, 2012.
you were good to me.
this was a year of emotional growth. i had never been stretched so far before. for once in my life, i felt like i had a grip on my career (both day job and blogging). however, learning to be IN a relationship, how to balance all aspects of your life with it and learning to let things go was a whole other thing. i’ll admit that i wasn’t good at the latter. the recent months made me re-examine everything. some things just aren’t meant to be and no matter how hard you try, the pieces aren’t suppose to fit. so you just have to let it be. don’t sacrifice your happiness for it. it’s not healthy and frankly, life is too short. through the heartaches and heartbreaks, some of my friendships have gotten so much stronger because of it and thus, i am thankful. additionally, you all probably noticed i’ve been rather silent on the blog the past few months as i’m also dealing with some family issues. it’s been trying times behind the scenes, but i’m learning a lot about myself and how strong i am and how strong some of my friendships are. but i do miss blogging so i hope these best of 2012 posts have got you all excited for the new year. i’ll be back with regular postings as the new year begins!
i do want to take this time to thank you all so very much for being so supportive and so encouraging of this blog for yet another year. i probably sound so redundant with every end of year post, but it never ceases to amaze me who sends me their work to be featured on here or who stops by to say hello. and from there who actually becomes personal friends. personal enough that they send encouraging words and are there for me when they know the going has gotten real tough behind the scenes. it truly sends my heart into explosions to be able to say without a doubt how much i value the friendships made through this blog. it boggles my mind sometimes. my blog would not be what it is (not that’s it that much) without you all submitting work, stopping by everyday, and the endless encouragement to keep chugging along.
this past WPPI, i somehow rallied up the most amazing talent in one room. the best part was all of them had been featured on the blog before and all of them were friends or became friends after that night. i have to humblebrag and say that i beam with pride that i know these people. it’s kind of amazing.
it’s just kind of amazing that i still have this blog and it’s here for another year (with a new look, mind you). i’ll still be bringing you something gorgeous from talented photographers from all over next year…i’m just as anxious as you are to see what they bring. i’m excited to feature the talent of previous photographers and cinematographers but even more so to bring you and introduce you to some new and amazing ones.
so 2013, i’m ready for you. i’ll take whatever you throw at me. this past year has shown me how far i can stretch and the fact that i still am learning to be a better version of myself constantly.
again, thank you all for always stopping by. i really do hope you’ve gained some inspiration for either your own big day or for your own work from this. i can’t reiterate enough to you how important a wedding photographer or a wedding videographer is for your big day and hope my blogs shows that. it’s not always about the details, but the emotions and the actual importance of love on that day. your wedding day can’t be remembered truly without these photographers and videographers around. so with every post, i highly encourage you to click on the photographers’ or videographers’ portfolio/blog and just lose yourself in their work and what they are able to capture. let yourself fall in love with it.
cause in the end, that’s what it’s all about.
love.
happy new year, everyone!
hello, 2013.
*throws confetti*
had to put this one again from EP Love
in just a few, i’ll be revealing some pretty crazy amazing frames from photographers all over.
let me start with a little about this week and what you will see. i’ve had this blog for about three and a half years now and if it isn’t obvious already, i’m a huge HUGE fan of photography. i think photographers are THE most essential vendor of any big day. think about it, who else is going to help you capture every moment and every detail of that day. and if you get a damn good one, all of that was captured beyond beautifully and perfect. i digress. throughout the years, this blog has been a huge advocate of showcasing some amazing work. i am SO fortunate to have so much encouragement and support from some of the best photographers in this world. even more blessed that some of these have become dear friends of mine and i mean dear, dear friends of mine.
a lot of the times at the end of the year, blogs will do a “best of” from featured posts from their own blog. i decided to something a little different and probably signed myself up for a most impossible project ever. i reached out to more than a handful of photographers, both friends and some i wasn’t too familiar with, and asked for them to submit their “best of 2012″. i wanted to be able to showcase these amazing photographers who have been so supportive of my blog and me, but also discover new ones to follow and admire. i honestly thought that people would be too busy with the holidays and not have time or not be interested really. note to self: when you ask some of the best photographers in this world for their “best of 2012″, you’re in trouble. you end up getting their version of the cream of the crop and handed literally an impossible task to pick. i ended up with 700+ images to cull through. ridic.
took me about 3 to 4 days, but i finally cut it down to roughly 110+. i didn’t want to overload you all with a ginormous post so i’ve spread it out over this whole next week. i tried my best to theme the images per day. so apologies if some aren’t where you think they ought to belong. these images are in no particular order, i must emphasize. each and every frame was picked by me because something stood out or because i felt like you all needed to see it.
to all the photographers that submitted, friends or soon-to-be friends,
thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for sharing your work with me.
honest to blog, it made my week impossible but in the most amazing way ever. it made super proud to know so many talented people out there. it’s just unbelievable the work you all captured this year and i can hardly wait to see what 2013 brings.
so without further ado,
enjoy.
