If you don’t believe in love at first site then you need to meet Amber and Travis,  it happened to them.  The very first time when they met, they clicked, they just knew it was love at first sight!  Travis and Amber are down to earth  people, easy going and fun to be around. When you spend time with them you understand how love at first sight is possible, they belong together!

Amber says: ‘Travis is a very passionate person, everything he does, he gives it his all – I admire that fire!’.  Travis loves that they enjoy hanging out and they both LOVE going to sporting events together, seriously what guy would not like that in a partner

The wedding day started a little chilly full of dark clouds in the sky and a little on the back of my mind about  the possibility of rain,  but as the guests start arriving, the clouds lighten up and sure enough the sun comes out,  right before Amber walks down the aisle.

The weather combined with Firesky’s ambiance, their terrific Family and Friends was a perfect mixture, the party started with the first dance as soon as they were introduced into the ballroom and just kept on going stronger with people dancing all night long including a “drink/dance line”  that was too much fun (definitely a first for me).

Congratulations Amber and Travis!

A big thanks to all the wedding vendors that made their day so perfect!

Flowers:  Set the Mood Floral

Cake: Let Them Eat Cake

Wedding Dress: Suzanne’s Bridal Boutique

Hair: Laura Stewart

Makeup Artist: Val Pensky

DJ:  Citron Sound/Jimmy Davenport

Officiant: Jerry Law

Venue: Firesky Resort

Mae and Hugh had a very intimate and beautiful ceremony at the Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain Resort and Spa with just their families. We had a great time (I definitely did!), Hugh is a little shy and I did promised him not to post kissing pictures here Of course they kissed in front of the camera, but I promised…

So without any delays here are some of my favorite Images.

Congratulations Mae & Hugh!

The ceremony was beautiful and the weather perfect could not have been better. Check out some of our favorite images from the day, my personal favorites are from the photo booth (so much fun!)

Flowers: Flowers by Jodi
DJ: Got You Covered
Venue: Westin Kierland Resrt and Spa

Congratulations Jen and Craig!

When I first met Michael and Elizabeth to talk about their wedding, one of the most important things to both of them was to capture all the cute and fun moments, not only of the bride and groom but all the family and friends too, the simple smiles, the friends having a good time.  they wanted to have a great wedding day surrounded by their family and closest friends and just have fun! Well, I can attest that they did that and much more!

Elizabeth and Michael currently live in San Francisco,  Elizabeth is from Phoenix and that is why they decided to have the wedding here at the Camelback Inn, a place that Elizabeth has always loved and has had some great family memories at, including her older brother’s wedding rehearsal dinner.  Once Michael saw the place he too thought it was perfect for an outdoor ceremony and also great for all the friends and family to come a few days before the wedding, relax, hang out and spend time together.

The wedding was beautiful, the sun came out during the ceremony to shine on our happy couple and gave us some gorgeous light. Everywhere we turned there were smiles, they were contagious… I found myself smiling behind the camera.

Elizabeth was stunning and Michael did pretty good too. They make a great couple. At the end of the ceremony when they walked down the aisle together Michael said “it was the moment that the wedding went from this big event they’ve been planning for months and months to a real celebration”. For them It was great to see all their friends and family really coming together to celebrate their wedding day. And it was a celebration in Style, the dance floor was packed all night long, so much fun happening.

The one thing that was so hard to believe but after the fact they both agree on is that the day went by so fast! Everything went by so fast -They couldn’t believe it when it was over! People told them: “It goes by in a flash.” Now they can confirm, IT REALLY DOES!

Here are some of our favorite images from the day!

Congratulations Elizabeth and Michael!

Little baby Lili is just over 4 months old here and she is so cute. We first met Lili’s mom Jennifer for a photo shoot we did for the cover of  Finest Wedding Sites magazine, she was the model for the shoot. Like mother like daughter Lili is making her debut to submit images for an agency. She definitely has her mom’s talent, check out all the cute faces she made for us.

‘look at me I’m sassy’

Looking out in the distance

Cute Smile

Looking like a doll.

Looking surprised.

Just happy.

The basic baby photo looking up.

Looking pensive

I have to say, I love this relationship image, so soft.
She is already a super star!

Danielle and Ernesto got married at  St Joan of Arc church in Phoenix. Both Danielle and Ernesto were raised catholic,  faith is a very important part of their marriage and they both wanted to start their lives together  at this beautiful church. The reception followed at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge with so many great places to go and gorgeous backgrounds, we had it easy!

They met they met sort of ‘at work’.  Ernesto had just graduated with his Bachelors in Criminal Justice and Danielle was in grad school getting her Masters in criminal justice, they were doing research for ASU in the county jails when they met, such a romantic setting…

When they started dating neither one of them was looking for a serious relationship, Danielle wanted to move to the east coast and Ernesto was about to join the Phoenix police force, but somewhere along the way they fell in love and realized that one could not be without the other and after a 3 year dating period they got engaged.

Danielle and Ernesto love to travel whether it’s just a day trip to Sedona to go hiking, a weekend getaway to San Diego to hang by the beach, a vacation to the east coast to wakeboard in Florida or walk around New York City. They are always planning the next trip together

After the ceremony Danielle surprised Ernesto by renting a vintage car just for the two of them to go to the JW for the reception, and spend some very precious moments alone, so romantic…

Ernesto is originally from Mexico and a mariachi band was a must, we were walking with the entire bridal when the mariachis came to meet them and the party started earl y, everyone joined in.

The wedding was beautiful and thanks to Victoria Canada Weddings and Events and Danielle’s mom who dedicated all of her time to the planning, the wedding was everything Danielle and Ernesto dreamed of, they loved  having everyone get together to celebrate their wedding and like most couple they wished time went by a little slower on the wedding day but as they say,  time flies when you are having fun!

Wedding vendors:
Venue: JW Marriott Desert Ridge
Event Planner: Victoria Canada Weddings and Events
Videography: Serendipity Videography
Entertainment: Mancini Entertainment
Florist: Your Event Florist

It is that time of year again, I can’t believe it is November already! I love this time of year, the great weather, the great food, lots of parties and of course Artisan Cranberry Chutney ready. This year I finally got organized and typed the recipe, thanks to my good neighbors Therace and Mary who came over one day to learn how to make it and to whom I’ve promised to give the recipe. I love making these, last year I made 200 jars and gave them all away This year I am targeting 250 jars!

You can download the high resolution here

Hope you enjoy it!

The beginning of the photo session was promising, Maya had a full belly I had her in my arms,  just as Ira is getting Maya from my arms, she managed to pee on both of us before we even took one single photo, I think we laughed more than anything. We see babies do this to their moms on almost every shoot, I am still not sure why we did not think it was going to happen to us

Here are some of our favorite tender moments.

Have you ever deleted files by mistake? Lost years of family photos that were never printed?  Well, it happened to my dear friend Jenee.  Last week  Jenee was happily organizing family photos to have them printed when by mistake she deleted the main picture directory, the files were too big for the recycle bin and when the pop-up window came up asking if she wanted to permanently delete the files, her finger hit the ‘yes’ button before the brain could process what was going on. When Jenee realized that she was deleting all photos since the birth of her baby she tried to cancel the deletion but of course the computer took time to respond and just like that tons of photos gone,  gone from the recycle bin too!

Don’t start crying just yet, chances are your files are still all there. Basically the computer marks the space on your hard drive that your file occupies as free space, and will write new data over them if it needs to save new or updated files. What you do on your computer from this moment on will have great impact on how much of your photos you’ll be able to recover.  The first thing is,  to do as little computing as possible. Do not save any files or install any software on that hard drive. File Recovery is possible 

There are lots of programs out there that do file recovery, my favorite ones are: Undelete Plus and  PC Inspector File Recovery They both advertise that it is a free download(but it is only free for reporting purposes), it will let you scan your HD and see the recoverable files but to actually recover the files you’ll have to pay to license the program (both run under $50).

Here is a step by step on how to recover your files using ‘UndeletePlus’

1. Please read all the steps before you start.

2. Close all your programs and DO NOT save any changes, if you must save changes plug in a USB drive and save your files to it. If you save changes to the hard drive (HD) that you just deleted files from you could be writing over some of the very same precious photos you are trying to restore and they will be really lost forever.

3. Check the original directory where your files were as well as the recycle bin.

4. If your files are nowhere to be found. Download Undelete Plus onto a USB drive (thumb drive) or an HD other than the one where the deletion took place.

5.  You’ll also need  space available  on a separate hard drive to write the recovered files. Maybe an external hard drive?

6. Install UndeletePlus onto the USB drive and start it. On the left panel select the hard drive where your files were located and click on the blue top button ‘Start Scan’.

7. Once the scan is completed this is what your screen should look like:

8. If the initial scan did not bring the files you are looking for, you can try to do a “deep” scan, it will take a while for this type of scan but the results are great! here are the settings that I use:

9. Select the files you want to recover on the right hand side panel. If you ‘right mouse’ click on the right panel you will be able to select all of them at once.

10. Make sure you select the proper directory where the recovered files will be written to. DO NOT select the same hard drive where the files were deleted from.

The process of recovering files can take a long time depending on how many files you deleted, for Jenee’s computer the process  took us 36 hours of continuous recovery but in the end it worked great and Jenee has lots of photos to organize.

Hope you never have to go through a file recovery process, but if you do, now you know how.  These two programs should work on memory cards as well, so  long the computer or camera must recognize the card