Katie & Paul are engaged! /// San Diego Engagement Photographer

I've been doing a ton of shooting with my fiance Stephen Knuth while I've been out here in San Diego for the month of July. I have a lot of beautiful weddings to blog about, but first I wanted to share this sweet engagement session for Katie and Paul that we shot in Del Mar. They both share a strong love for Jesus, and Paul recently started a church in San Diego. My favorite moment of the session was when Paul went to grab his guitar for a few shots to include in the photos, but before we took photos with the guitar he asked "Since I have my guitar, can we just stop and sing some worship first?" I got teary eyed watching Paul and Katie sing to each other and to Jesus right there in their midst of their session. I loved that even their engagement session kept God at the center just like their own relationship.

Here's my faves! I just couldn't get enough of the beautiful scenery on this cliff overlooking the ocean. Sooooo different from back home in Florida!










My hot fiance in action!

Our engagement photos!

It's been a busy month here in California. I arrived July 1 and going on day 21 of living out of my suitcase. By doing so, I'm actually realizing how much I don't need to survive that sits back in my condo in Florida. But despite the comments and text messages from friends who are wondering, no I haven't moved here. Just enjoying this beautiful state with my wonderful fiance.

Stephen and I just returned from a road trip up the California coast. I'm so used to Florida highways of road and trees, and that's all you see. It still fascinates me that here in California we can be on the highway and see the ocean and the gorgeous golden hills all at the same time.

We had a great time seeing friends along the way like Gavin & Erin Wade in Orange County, David Jay in Santa Barbara and Mike Larson in San Luis Obispo, who took our AMAZING engagement pictures. We had one request for our photos: the gorgeous golden California sunset in a field. Mike totally exceeded our expectations by renting a hot 1973 Porsche as we got his superstar shooting experience he gives his clients.

I love the picture above and how it captures the exact things we asked for, but more importantly, our laughter together. Whenever I'm asked to describe what I love most about Stephen, I always answer, "How much we laugh together." It's that kind of feeling where we just "get" each other and can be goofy together, and I know he is the one I want to laugh with the rest of my life.

Mike just blogged the rest of the pics from the session! Go check them out on his blog at:

http://www.mikelarson.com/blog/2010/07/stephenknuth_scarlettlillian

Our engagement shoot TEASER!

Ahhhhh. One thing I love about being in front of the camera is that it reminds me what my clients go through. Yesterday I must have tried on a million outfits trying to figure out what to wear for our own engagement session. I had something picked out, then last minute, as I tried it on, I just wasn't "feeling" it. So then I had to pull everything out of my suitcase last minute to refigure out what I was going to wear. I really wanted to wear this one dress my bride Courtney wore in her engagement photos I shot, but I didn't want to copy her. Finally, in the midst of my I-can't-decide-what-to-wear-stress-freak out-moment we girls have, I decided to just go for the dress I really wanted to wear in the first place.

So Courtney, thank you for sharing your awesome fashion sense with me. It saved the day! :-)

To see the teaser shot, go to Mike's blog and leave him some love! I'm a little biased, but I think Stephen looks sooooo hot! And it's crazy to me how much I see my mom's eyes in the photo, and my Grandma's famous eyebrow arch.

What an amazing day it was full of overgrown sunflowers, popcorn, a 1973 Porshe, eating cupcakes in a field, amazing golden California sunsets and a view that left me in awe of God's amazing creations amongst the San Luis Obispo mountains. So much more to come, but here's the sneak peek!

http://www.mikelarson.com/blog/2010/07/stephen-scarlett-teaser

Sea Island Wedding Published on Atlanta Occasions Blog

I admit, I still get giddy when I see my work published. It's a feeling that never gets old. Yesterday, the gorgeous wedding of Tiffany & Charles at The Cloister Hotel in Sea Island, GA got published on the Atlanta Occasions blog. When I was photographing Tiffany, I told her to get ready because not only was she stunning, but with her amazing location and details, I just knew a magazine would pick up her wedding. You can view her wedding and interview directly here:

http://www.atlantaoccasions.com/gallery/weddings-gallery/sea-island-wedding-tiffany-charles-1456

Why I love my ShowIt site.

Yesterday, I tweeted about how I'm in California hanging and chillin' with my hot fiance Stephen, but in one day booked 3 weddings. I gave a shoutout in my tweet to ShootQ and how I love that I can run a mobile business. With ShootQ, all my contracts are online, so I can book a wedding anywhere. Even on my last trip home, I was on a layover in the airport, and booked a wedding through ShootQ right there in the terminal.

After my tweet, I got this question on my Facebook by Chad Robinson:




Though I'm taking a break from teaching workshops to focus on wedding planning, I did want to share some awesome results with you I've been monitoring. What I also wanted to give a shoutout too in my tweet, but couldn't fit in 140 characters, is ShowIt Sites! As I mentioned when I first blogged about my launch, I was hesitant to give into ShowIt Sites. I mean, I had a pretty cool template site, how could a custom site REALLY make THAT much of a difference?

But since launching my new site in May, my wedding bookings in the month of June jumped up 400%, marking my highest booking month to date (all of which I could compare through my handy dandy analytics on ShootQ).

Then yesterday, as I chatted with bride #3 on the phone, she told me "I love your photography, but wow, I LOVED your website! The design was so cool. The venue referred a cheaper photographer but after I looked at their website, I wasn't impressed and kept looking online and discovered your website and was like, THIS is who I want to hire."

I've always had my blog where I've put a lot of my personality on there, but now that I've incorporated that directly on my website through how ShowIt lets me customize my site, I can truly testify that it has increased my business! Also because of this, I rarely need to meet brides during booking because of how they are able to get to know me through my site and my promo video with one of my brides testifying why she hired me. (Which by the way was not a fancy production, just an assistant following me on a wedding day with a cheap video camera, grabbing a testimonial, and edited together with a mix of my photos on my Mac.)

So I just wanted to share that tid bit with you because I want to see YOUR photography do good as well! Remember, you are an artist. You are not just selling your photography, you are selling who you are as the photographer behind the camera. "Show it" to those who visit your website! The more "you" you put into your website, the easier you make it for brides to hire you.

But that's just my humble opinion. :-)

The beauty of adoption.

Laura Lu and I first connected by email.

She reached out, one Christian photographer to another, to introduce her self and share a little bit of her heart with me. I soon began to know her beyond being a photographer, but as a mom of 5, 4 her own, 1 adopted. She quickly became a good friend and a great prayer partner.

Since then, she has recently adopted another child, this time from Haiti. To help offset the expensive costs involved in the adoption of her son, Laura Lu's friend, Aimee, has started a fundraiser selling the beautiful poster above she has created. All proceeds will go toward Laura Lu's Haitian son.

You donate toward the poster by visiting here:

http://96.30.6.201/~wildflow/2010/04/a-worthy-cause

The drive home.

It wasn't any special occasion.
No special date night.
We weren't even dressed up.
All we did was go see a movie.
Driving home, Stephen, driving, and I in the passenger seat.
In the dark.
Listening to worship music.
He held my hand like usual as he drove.
We were both tired so we didn't say much.

But then it happened.

For no reason at all, he lifted my hand to his lips and gave me a kiss.

Then I looked at him and smiled.
And he smiled.
And in that one gesture, I knew I was loved.
No words were said.
Only the words in my head thinking, "I can't wait to marry Stephen."

It's official.

OMG.

It's starting to hit me.

This is real.

I'm a bride.

I mean, Lord knows, I've been waiting as patiently as possible the past almost 30 years, and some days I started to lose hope that it would NEVER get here.... but now, it's here.

I'm a bride. And I'm actually planning a wedding, not just shooting one.

SO weird.

And I admit, it's a little stessful. Trying to run a wedding photography business on top of plan my own wedding on top of looking for a new home... all a tad bit overwhelming.

But what really made it feel REAL was when Stephen and I finally FINALLY nailed down a wedding date. There was a lot of back and forth back and forth, but, drum roll please..... our wedding date is..............

APRIL 16, 2011!!!

You want to know something ironic about that date?

When I was 15, I had my first kiss on April 16, 1996 to a boy named Steve. And now here I am 15 years later marrying a Stephen on April 16, 2011. Funny how things happen that way!

Stephen and I are excited to have secured a few vendors now that we have finalized a date. Other than figuring out the date, the other truly hard decision to make was WHO IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO BE OUR PHOTOGRAPHER?

We have so many amazing photography friends, and it was soooo hard to decide who to go with. But after much praying about it, Stephen and I have chosen..........

The Amazing Zach and Jody Gray out of Nashville!



We me them at last year's Pictage PartnerCon and were blown away not only by their work, but the amazing people they are. We became good friends with them and are super excited to have them be the ones to document our beautiful day. Not to mention, we were super humbled to hear that "our" photographers were just recently published in People magazine for shooting Vince Gill's daughter's wedding. I gotta brag for them and show off this photo from their blog!



The next vendor I've lined up, that without a doubt I knew from the moment I met her would be my wedding planner, is the Fabulous Terrica of Cocktails & Details.



When I was first starting out as a photographer, Terrica and I began emailing and instantly connected for our love of all things fabulous. She has since become a good friend (above we are pictured at the Southern Weddings launch party!) and she coordinated a few weddings we worked together. I'm super excited to see how she works her magic with all the hot pink details on my wedding day!

The next hard decision was choosing a cinematographer. With Stephen and I both having a background in filming wedding videos, we know how equally valuable a cinematographer is on the wedding in addition to a photographer. And again, I know so many great cinematographers that I've worked with, so how would I ever decide? After reviewing a lot of wedding films, and totally crying watching them as I imagined my day, we finally decided on a company we both adore based out of San Diego, California. Their name is Fortyonetwenty based on the bible verse Isaiah 41:20 which we thought was super cool.



They also have a background in graphic design, which I do too, so I really connected with their branding as much as their amazing wedding videos! They are actually shooting a wedding Stephen and I are shooting this weekend here in Coronado, Ca., so we're excited to work with them and then have them film OUR wedding in April!

Definitely check out their wedding films! A-mazing!

It's so exciting getting things in place for our wedding and moving forward one baby step at a time. Even though April is 9 months away, everyone keeps telling us it will fly by and be here before we know it. Let the countdown begin! :-)