It’s been pretty quiet around here right? Well here’s the deal… in 2 weeks, this little peanut will be officially due! Life has been a series of to-do’s lately, and as it seems, blogging has taken a back burner to preparing for our little bundle’s arrival. One part – too exhausted for anything but the “musts” and two parts – baby is sucking my brain power and it’s difficult to form a sentence.

January was an action packed month that I wasn’t really accounting for. So many exciting things going on for brides in our community, last minute baby projects, designing and sending out our new year cards, and a whole week of SNOWmageddon! This weekend marks the last event I’ll be participating in before I go on official maternity leave, and I wanted to invite you all (before the tickets sell out) to join me on Sunday for Weddings in Woodinville. This wedding event was voted one of the top three wedding shows in Seattle Bride Magazine, 2010 and 2011. Last year the event sold out within three weeks! Over 500 guests were in attendance.

I am utterly honored to be involved in such a beautiful event for the second year in a row (the first year of the show, Billy and I attended as a Bride and Groom! It was a fabulous experience, by far one of the best things we did while we were engaged)  This year I will be showcasing my work at one my my favorite Woodinville venues, Novelty Hill/Januik Winery, alongside the ever-so-fabulous Jen Taylor, Kerri Efendi Designs, Fena Flowers, and Wavelink Music… just to name a few.

There are 7 venues participating, and each one is full of top notch Seattle wedding professionals. Gather your friends and families to join this exciting afternoon tour of wine tasting, catered food, fabulous décor and live entertainment during a special open-house of Woodinville’s top wedding venues. Ticket holders for this event will board chauffeur driven luxury transportation for a half-day tour that will escort your group to each venue. SO drink up, eat as much as you can muster, and plan the wedding of your dreams! Please stop by my little area and say hello… don’t let the belly scare you.

Check out the website for more information, and click here to get tickets (I know there are SOME left, but not many!)

xo,

Laura

Last year around the holidays, in true Oprah fashion, I blogged my favorite things for the winter holiday season. Crafty me, I actually scored some of the things on my list as awesome Christmas gifts. Too easy, easier than writing to Santa Claus. Truthfully, winter… eh. Take it or leave it. Fall is where it’s at for me. In the last two weeks, we’ve plummeted into the fall season. I took an escape to Hawaii for a couple weeks, and when I returned, fall was here patiently waiting for me. What a glorious gift to come home to.

Today I wanted to celebrate fall with you, and share some of my favorite fall things.

1. The Pumpkin Spice Latte (2 pumps, not 4 please)

Fall always arrives for Starbucks before it does for the Northwest, but when the PS Latte rolls into town, you know that the cold and wet are following diligently behind. I actually like the taste of coffee, so I order mine with 2 pumps of syrup instead of 4, and currently I order it in decaf form. (Decaf, pish posh)

2. Crisp mornings, sunny days = sweaters with skirts

I’m not going to go on pretending like I’m some kind of fashionista… 99% of my clothes are recycled. HOWEVER, if there is one season I identify with the most style-wise, it’s fall. Bust out the Layers, warm hues, scarves, sweaters and boots! finally the boots are back! But still cling on to some of those key summer pieces. It’s not time to pack them up yet.

3. Early mornings that can start calmly

There is something about waking up with the sun in the summer (admittedly I’m a morning person), that charges me with a jolt of energy. The fall is quite different. I’m still up early, but the sun sleeps in. It gives me a solid 2-3 hours before it decides to crawl out of bed. In this time I’m able to stay in my bathrobe, make my morning decaf tea, have long talks with Brady (and Lady), read, write, and relax. The fall is a wind down from the busy summer months, and in this profession we deserve a little calmness at some point during the year.

4. Parties, Soirees, Wedding Showcases, Fundraisers galore…

These are the months when a majority of my favorite events for the year happen. Let me highlight a few that I can’t miss each year.

Every weekend in October is the Camp Korey Fall Festival, which the hubs and I fully plan to attend with bells on. Proceeds go to support this amazing charity, and we can score kettle corn, s’mores, and pumpkins. HOLY COW!

October 10th, my bestie Marie has her birthday. She usually tries to come home from Missouri around this time each year because she likes to party. This year she’s throwing a bash at her parents house featuring a tiered Harry Potter cake. I’m going as Hermione.

October 13th, Urban Unveiled happens at Benaroya Hall. Wedding showcase unlike any other put on by two of my favorite designers in the Seattle area, Jesse and Travis of True Colors. Still contemplating what to wear to this one. It’s going to be phenom!

October 27th, Get Hitched Give Hope is only the single most amazing soiree of the year. Not only is it a party, auction, and wedding showcase rolled into one, but the wedding professionals are donating their services on behalf of granting wishes to cancer patients. Perty amazing. You can support and get tickets here… and if you’re a bride, there are deals galore to be had!

October 30th, Bunco party. Ummm yeah. Can’t wait for this one. Joining up with some fabulous ladies for a night a month of holy hilarity and bunco. Win win.

NOW, to find some appropriate party dresses that A. fit, and B. don’t make me look like a whale.

Know of something in the area not listed here? I’d love to hear about it! Leave it in the comment section below so I can fill up my social calendar. k thanks.

5. Cooking with fall ingredients

Something about the fall makes me want to wake up in the morning and bake something. Mostly desserts, cakes, breads and such. Maybe this is more a pregnant thing than a fall thing… hmmm. Anyhow, I’ve been scrounging up my favorite fall recipes and here are some of the ingredients that really stand out.

Pumpkin (of course) and all other kinds of squashes… yummers: pretty much anything made with pumpkin, I’m guaranteed to like it and ask for seconds.

Cinnamon

Cumin (is it CUE-men or KOO-min) I never know.

Chilis

Walnuts

Flavored Butters

Hearty Mushrooms

Time to make some delicious breads, soups, pasta dishes, and pies… Have a recipe to share? PLEASE email me!

6. Cozy family time by the Fire.

Lady curls up with us, or makes her way dangerously close to the door of the fireplace with a bone, and Billy and I lounge on the couch with the remote and the fall lineup. We do this in the winter as well, but it’s somehow sweetest in the fall when it’s not completely necessary in order to keep from freezing to death. I’m also REALLY excited because now that we’ve rearranged the house to make room for Brady, my office now has a fireplace in it. Score!

7. Fall television is the best.

I’m a TV junkie, ugh, as much as I wish I wasn’t… TV is SO GOOD right now! Summer leaves no time for television, so I relish the fall when regular programming resumes and we can catch our favorite shows. Including but not limited to: Wheel of Fortune, Unsolved Mysteries, The Office, Modern Family, Parenthood, and Fringe.

8. College Football

Could go in above category, but not only is it a television event, but a live one as well. Since meeting my husband, I’ve grown to love college football. I prefer actually going to the game over watching it on tv, because the experience is where it’s at for me. I love the tailgating, cornhole, drinking games (although not at present mother… don’t worry), sporting your cutest team colored outfit, stadium food, mittens/earmuffs/sunglasses, eyeblack, yelling, pom pom shaking… I love it all.

Go DUCKS.

What is your favorite season? Do you love fall as much as I do? Tell me what I’ve missed here… there is SO MUCH TO LOVE! And on that note, I’m off to take a walk in the brisk morning air.

All images snagged from Pinterest… like what you see?

Planning a wedding is tough cookies. 99% of the reason we entered the contest, and put ourselves through planning a wedding in 4 weeks is because we couldn’t decide… on eh-nay-thang. There are SO many choices, so many resources, and so many talented people and services to choose from!

Some may say the best way to check out as many wedding professionals as you can in a day, is to attend a wedding show. I’m not really a tradeshow girl. I’m the one in the grocery store that gets to one end and forgets to pick something up all the way on the other side. My feet hurt, I come home with all kinds of crap that I have no recollection of intentionally picking up. WELL, I say, if you give one wedding show a glimpse this year, grab your fiancé and head out to Woodinville on January 30th for the best wedding showcase event of the year. 7 wineries, 80 of the best wedding professionals in Seattle, and a whole lot of wine! This and so much more, is Weddings in Woodinville.

Last year B and I went to this show as Bride and Groom, and we had the BEST time, the BEST. We met our caterer there, tasted some amazing cake (this girl loves cake) and had a blast meeting other couples. It is such an honor for me to say that this year I’ll be showcasing my work at Willows Lodge as part of the show. I’m SO EXCITED because I’m there with some of my favorite people in the world. Jen Taylor from Taylor’d Events is coordinating, Tanya from Elements in Bloom is doing the florals, and Eric Newland from Hybrid Moon will have his video booth there along with many many more awesome professionals! Please, if you want to attend, head on over to the site and purchase your ticket now! There are only 300 tickets and when they’re gone…. they’re gone.

Stop by, say hello, and give me a hug.

PS> If you watch the video from last year on the website… you’ll see a cameo of B and I at about 14-15 seconds in… I’m wearing my favorite green coat :-)

Last week the office was unavoidably closed due to the annual WPPI conference in Las Vegas. This was my second time to WPPI and quite honestly I am still absorbing most of the information I took home with me last year. I kinda over did it last year. Between the 8am classes, the gigantic tradeshow, and the out-all-night-til-dawn industry parties, I came home desperately needing a vacation from my vacation. This year my priorities were quite shifted.

Sunday morning I arrived and took a cab straight to the Las Vegas Country Club for the photoshoot I produced for Portrait House Fundraising. I talked a little on the blog about what an amazing thing my friends Justin and Mary Marantz are doing with their goals for Portrait House shortly after I met with them while they were in Seattle. Portrait House is a charitable outlet for photographers to give back. They have an ongoing project list, and first up is Habitat for Humanity.

It’s just so hard to put into words how amazing it felt to address all of the participants at the shoot and realize that all of this hard work for the past 3 months was finally coming to a head. The monumental feeling that everyone there felt the same way I did about the cause. Mary spoke about their reasoning, about the larger purpose, and yes I’ve heard it before…. but this time I heard it. I heard it loud and clear coming from the crowd of eager faces staring up at me. They all got it, they understood what I understood. What we were doing here today was much more about getting the shot. We all felt pretty great about that too, trust me. I went back to my hotel room that night and had a big cry-fest by myself. This was the single-most-hugest-most-best-feeling thing I have ever done. EVER. SO much work, but so much payoff.

I also want to give a HUGE giant shout out to all of our amazing sponsors and talent. Without them, this would not have been possible:

Las Vegas Country Club, Thomas Meyer Designs, Couture Bride,  Tux One, Megan Mulligan Makeup, Bella Vita Design, Sami and Joey, Amanda and Mike, Megan and Mike, Jenn and Tim, Chantal and Jared.

I didn’t get a ton of shooting done because I was running around like a crazy person (more than usual). But I thought I would share with you some of my favorite images from that day.

GIVING BACK IN FEBRUARY

I set a goal this year to do more for others with my business, last month I gave away a free portrait session (actually three) and this month I’m doing something even crazier!

I learned about Portrait House briefly last year at WPPI because the A-listers in photography were participating in the kick off of promoting it (yes, for all of you confused civillians…. in our community, there are celebrity photographers). I contacted Justin and Mary Marantz with my idea for this shoot and BANG, here we are. I’m producing a photo shoot to raise money and awareness for Portrait House. Portrait House is essentially a thoroughfare for us to participate in giving back. They have an active project list, project one: build a house for Habitat! They are still working on getting their non-profit status set up, so aren’t in the full swing of accomplishing their goals, but when they do! Look out! It’s going to be huge! With my mad production skills, and their cause combined we have an amazing portfolio building shoot set up to raise money for Portrait House in Vegas during WPPI.

In 3 short weeks, 25 photographers, 7 beautiful subjects,  one amazing goal! Win win win win.

I could go on and on about what I’ve set up for us to do, but that would spoil the surprise! The shoot has unfortunately sold out, so if you didn’t get a seat I do feel bad for you, it’s going to be pretty unreal.

Don’t worry though, next year we’ll be doing it again…. and maybe twice!

You can learn more about this PHotoshoot PHor PHamily here. AND on another note: If you are a couple interested in being photographed for the shoot (or know someone who might be) and will be in Vegas on March 7th, Please contact me!

THIS CHOCOLATE

I’m not a huge candy junkie, I much prefer my cake. However, I bought these for my clients for Valentines Day, and should never have let them cross the threshold of my home. I found out that I could eat my weight in Fran’s Gray Sea Salt and DARK chocolate caramels.

HANGING LAUNDRY ON THE LINE

Ok I’m a closet environmentalist, Billy calls me “recycle nazi”. I have a serious affection with hanging my laundry on the line, it feeds my soul! The sun, my toes in the grass, the smell of the clean laundry…. Yummm. The last few days it has been so beautiful and ::::GASP:::: sunny here in Seattle! I’m simply giddy! I can’t wait for the summer to start so I can hang my laundry outside.