Fabulous Friday | Albums

It has been such a long time coming.  I've wanted to be able to offer albums for such a long time and it has driven me crazy trying to get my act together to make it happen.  After asking around and looking at different companies and then trying to figure out the entire design process, everything finally came into place a few months ago.  One of the things about several of the amazing companies out there is that they have so. many. options.  And my brain was getting overloaded.  Now, for some people, options are fabulous.  Because they're way more creative than I am!  


But, I just wanted simple... for the benefit of my sanity and to help out my clients by keeping it simple for them as well.  Enter KISS Wedding Books.  I found out about them and their design software (that's online!) from the workshop I attended with Zach & Jody back in April.  Well, especailly after seeing them and some more of their albums just recently in Charlotte at the PASS Premiere Tour, it was decided.  Here was my album company!


I talked to one of my bride's mom's who I see fairly often and she loved that we could make this happen... for their one year anniversary present!  So, as I ordered that album, I ordered a few sample albums and I'm SO excited to share them with you.  Photographs by Sabrina is excited to now begin offering wedding albums, engagement albums, senior session albums and more!  I hope you're as excited about these as we are :-)

Below are two mini-KISSes, a 10x10 linen engagement album, and a 10x10 leather wedding album.

I'm so in love with these little guys, I can hardly stand it.  They're adorable!!

And the best part is that you get two... one for mom and one for whomever she decides to let have the other one :-)

This is the 10x10 linen engagement album.  It's slim and sleek and can be used for a guest book or a keepsake.

I used Brent and Abigail's engagement session for this sample album.  They are so adorable!

These can be intentionally designed to leave room for guests to sign their well wishes at your wedding!

And last but not least, the 10x10 leather wedding album.

The pages are thick and durable.

I'm still in love with the flowers from Cody and Seth's wedding last summer.

The lay-flat pages are fabulous!

Happy weekend!

Ashley and Kevan

Ashley was one of "my" interns at church last summer.  And then I got to hang out with her some in the Bahamas on one of our student mission trips.  And then I had the privilege of helping Kim DeLoach shoot her wedding this past December.  As Kim said in her post, with the evening wedding in December, we were able to get some pretty cool night pictures, but we weren't able to get any portraits of Ashley and Kevan before the sunset.  So, six months after their wedding, Kim and I took them back into downtown by the Reedy River and had a fun and relaxed portrait session!

This was one of those times that we as photographers don't often get.  Kim and I tag-teamed and took turns shooting and second shooting.  And Ashley and Kevan were up for just about anything!  I'm thinking we should do this more often :-)

Thanks, Ashley and Kevan (and Kim!), for a fun afternoon!

We had individual pictures of them on these stairs so now we were able to get some photos of them together.

And then we found this little gem of a spot...

Y'all are amazing!

I. am. in. L-O-V-E. with these two shots...

This would look really good as a LARGE canvas.  TRUST me!

The ivy was fabulous.

Y'all are WONDERFUL for coming out in the heat and letting us photograph you guys.  I hope you enjoy the pictures we were able to get in December AND for your six month celebration!

Wedding Planning and a Sneak Peak

Wow!  We've been engaged for 17 days already.  And our wedding is in 109 days!  I'm only s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y excited.  I have my dress, my mom has her dress, we have the bridesmaids dresses picked out, we have the groom and groomal party's attire picked out, we're working on the catering menu with my brother, we're working on figuring out the reception site, and most importantly, we have the photographers :-)  Just kidding.  Sort of.

Seriously though, as we were calling people and giving them the news, my photographers were some of the first people I called.  I needed to make sure they were available before we got too deep into this wedding planning!  The last thing I wanted was to have my heart set on a date and then find out that they weren't available.  So, as I mentioned on Facebook last week, our photographers are going to be none other than the wonderful duo of Kim DeLoach and Jana Candler.  Both of these ladies are not just friends of mine, but they're AMAZING fellow photographers, they love the Lord, and I've worked with both of them before.  And have loved it.  When it came down to choosing the photographers, I knew that having people there that I loved and trusted to capture the day were some of the most important criteria.  Plus, they're just really fun!

I'm so excited to marry this man that I've fallen head over heels in love with and I'm still in a "happy shock" that I get to spend the rest of my life with him.  And I think it will help this business too!  I've spent the past year attending several workshops and learning more about the business side of things, but Ben is much more business minded than I am, so as you begin to see changes (minor ones that will hopefully make a big impact!), you'll know that his hand has already been a part of it!

Anyway, there are still 109 days to keep you up to speed on the planning and what we're up to.  In the meantime, however, I have pictures to blog!  Before I went on vacation, I helped Kim DeLoach shoot a portrait session for our couple from December.  Kim already has her post up, but I'll have mine up later this week!  Can't WAIT to show you more!

Fabulous Friday | We're ENGAGED!

The desire to be a wife and a mom has always been in me.  And I won't lie... it's been a struggle watching all of my friends find their husbands and begin their families.  Don't get me wrong though, the time I've had as a single woman has been like nothing I would have thought to ask for.  God has given me so many opportunities and chances to grow over the years that I wouldn't have had if I'd been a wife and a mom.  And I'm SO thankful for that time.  I'm thankful for what He's taught me over the years.  I'm thankful for how He's been able to use me over the years.  I'm thankful for Him loving me like no man has ever, nor will ever, be able to.

But, that desire to be a wife and mom has never diminished.  But I wanted to wait.  I didn't want to get married for the sake of getting married.  I wanted to wait for the man that was right for me, who loved the Lord more than he would ever love me, who was capable and willing to lead our relationship and our family, who would pursue me, protect me, and provide for us.

And every moment I waited, every tear I cried, every prayer I prayed, every lesson that was learned was so. incredibly. worth. it.  Ben Fields is an incredible man.  Like me, he's human, which means we're both going to make mistakes.  We're both going to fail each other.  We're both going to be disappointed with each other at times.   But, as long as we stick together and look to God before we look anywhere else and keep HIM on a pedestal instead of each other, then we'll be able to make it through anything.  And knowing that Ben is willing to walk that road and wants me by my side is like nothing I ever could have dreamed.  I knew that waiting on a love like this would be worth it.  And God has blown my mind with not just the man He's brought into my life, but with the relationship He's continuing to grow between us.

Last Friday, July 1, 2011 (our 10 month "anniversary"), I came home from being at the beach for a week.  Ben had asked me to go to dinner with him that night but had said he wanted to come by and see me really quickly since we'd been apart for the week.  We talked throughout the day as I made my way back from Hilton Head and then I called him one last time when I was about 30 minutes out.  He said he'd had errands to run so it made sense that, with a 30 minute window, he could get to my house from anywhere in Greenville.

When I pulled up onto my street, I didn't see his car so I knew I had some time to unload and then at least straighten my hair (at that point, I looked like Hermione Granger from the first Harry Potter movie... it was scary).  So, I pull into my driveway, grab a few things to begin unloading, walk up to the front door and open it to this...

There were candles lit everywhere.  Rose petals were laying in a trail along the floor.  And our song, I'm Yours, by Jason Mraz, was playing from a CD player over in the corner.  I was blown away by how beautiful it all was.  My very first thought was, "wow! This is gorgeous!"  And as I looked around the room and saw all of the details, tears welled up in my eyes.  This was it.  This was what I'd been waiting so long for...  

So, I followed his instructions on the poster that was resting on my tripod and walked around my house, which took me through the last 10 months of our relationship.

The first time we met, we sat at Starbucks for close to two hours.  After they closed, we walked to my car and talked some more.  Not knowing how the evening would end, I smiled when he asked for my number :-)

When he called me a couple days later, we decided to do something again soon.  So, he asked me to go and see Inception with him.  When I pulled up to the Hollywood 20, he had already bought the tickets and was waiting for me.  When we walked into the theater, he asked if I was thirsty and proceeded to pull a bottle of Cherry Coke from his pocket!  Already, he was a man after my heart... 

There are so many good, painful, and wonderful memories on this couch...

Yes, the first time he came to my house we had pineapple pizza while we watched The Biggest Loser.  Hey, we'd been to the gym that week.  We were in the clear!

During Fall for Greenville in October, we went downtown where we ate at Pomegranate then wandered up Main Street listening to bands and enjoying our time together.  I'd hoped he would grab my hand as we walked through crowds, but one of the times he looked back at me, I linked my arm through his so as not to lose him.  After we started making our way back down Main Street, we sat on this bench where an incredibly intoxicated man named Tony sat down to wait on a taxi.  Tony was very nice and introduced himself to us no less than 6 times... so if you ever hear us introducing ourselves to each other as Tony... well, now you know why!

Ben is first and foremost a Tarheel fan (much better than a Gamecock fan! :-), but he quickly adopted Clemson as his second favorite team.  When I invited him to the Miami game last fall, I told him it was ok if he didn't have any orange to wear.  But, he went out and bought his first Clemson shirt!

I was (and still am) amazed that he hung rolls of film from this doorway!

After living in Belgium for a semester, where they make some of the most amazing chocolate in the world, I'm a self-proclaimed chocolate snob.  Hey, I can't help that I like really good chocolate!  So, Ben placed the film canisters around my house with Godiva chocolates sitting in them!

This picture is of his back porch where he took me on October 22, 2010.  We'd had my birthday dinner at the Melting Pot and then he took me to his house for the first time where he gave me and we watched Disney's Beauty and the Beast (I'd been waiting for it to come out of the "Disney Vault" for AGES).

We love cooking together... especially since Ben is such a good cook :-)  Although, I can make a pretty mean bag of popcorn!

Sunday when I left for the beach, he stayed behind at my house to figure out what was going on with my fridge (which decided to stop being cold) and to wash my dishes and start setting all of this up...

These were the fortunes I put in the fortune cookies I brought back from San Francisco last November.  They say "Sept 1, 2010" (first time we met), " "I'm Yours" (first song we ever danced to), "You are my sunshine", "Wait for the Lord, Psalm 27:14" (I've had it written on my bathroom mirror for ages),  and finally "I love you".

The week after my mom found and gave me the small red bistro table that you see in the picture (which I love and will frame and hang in that spot!), Ben and I both happened to have dentist appointments on the same day.  So, he brought breakfast over (croissants and Starbucks!) and we sat outside to enjoy the morning together.

I continued to follow the trail of rose petals and actually skipped over the bathroom (oops!).  But he took me back later. The purple writing is Psalm 27:14, which says, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  The lighter blue writing, which Ben wrote, says "I read this every time I came in here..." And below it he wrote, "Thank you for waiting.  Thank you for being patient.  Thank you for trusting the Lord.  Thank you for trusting me."

Be still my heart... would you look at those sun flares he captured?!?  This is the picnic table we've had a couple of picnics at when I've gone to have lunch with Ben at work.  The note next to the Godiva chocolate box says, "You don't have to eat this chocolate right now." :-)

Please ignore the title of this book.  It's so cheesy!  But, inside it has 101 questions for a couple to go through to help them get to know each other better.  Again, it may not be for everyone, but with both of us being introverts, it really spurred on some amazing conversations that we may never have thought to have.  And if you aren't up on "emoticons", that's a kissy face on the paper next to the book :-* haha!

Wow... just wow.  Ben, you continue to blow me away.  Thank you for loving me so much!

As I walked out of my room and into the little "hallway" there were several things on the closet doors and wall.  Ben got this foam bag (like a bean bag but bigger and with pieces of foam in it!) just before he officially asked me to be his girlfriend.  It's perfect to sit in snuggled up to watch movies on his large projector screen!

Mission Michigan 2011... need I say more?? :-)

This was the last thing that I saw before I parted the curtain to walk back into the living room...

As I walked back into the living room, with another version of I'm Yours playing on the CD player, Ben was on one knee holding a ring box, and asked me the words I've been longing to hear him say... "Will you marry me?"  After I said yes through the tears that had not stopped, he put the most gorgeous ring I've ever seen on my finger.

Benjamin Fields... THANK YOU!  Not just for such an incredible and thoughtful and detailed proposal, but for asking me to be your WIFE!  Can you believe it...?!?!  We're getting MARRIED!!!!  I love you so much and can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

After sitting on the couch, looking at the ring, and enjoying what had just happened, Ben went home to get ready and then come back to pick me up for dinner at Pomegranate!  He had prearranged everything there too... we had a table outside where a rose and a stack of notes were waiting for us.  The notes were from several people who mean a lot to me, including pastors, friends, my small group leaders, his parents and my mom.  Ben had gone to several of them and contacted others by phone and email to ask them to write a note to me about this new stage of life.  They are something I will treasure for the rest of our lives.

Believe it or not, we forgot to have someone take a picture of us at dinner!  So, we took this one when we got back to my house later that night.

And today... I put on my macro filter and played around with some ring shots.  With my engagement ring.  No big deal... :-)

Ready or not... November 5, here we come!