Katie & Tyler's Engagement Session

Katie and Tyler met during a chance encounter that their mother's had arranged (hmmm...) involving a shared ride home from college (I'll let you take a guess at what school it was...). While he didn't make a great first impression on Katie, fate kept working it's magic on the two of them. We look forward to working with their families again and know it will be an awesome celebration at the Schuster Center.

Destination Wedding, Powel Crosley Estate

We will be out of the office Thursday, March 24th thru Tuesday, March 29th, while we photograph and celebrate Marks son's wedding in Sarasota, Florida. We are very blessed to be adding a new daughter to the family!

We will have photographs from the happy event posted soon when we return. You can still send us emails and leave voice mails at the studio. We will return your messages as soon as possible next week. Thank you for your understanding.

Greta and Caleb in Los Cabos, Mexico

I had the pleasure of meeting the vivacious Greta on my research trip to Los Cabos, Mexico when planning the Society of XXV meeting. Greta captured my attention with her beautiful smile, warm heart and her sense of mischievousness. She had asked me to photograph her and her boyfriend, Caleb, on my return trip to Mexico a few months later.

I happily obliged Greta's photography request and was very glad that I did...what Greta and I both didn't know was that Caleb had planned to propose to her during our session! It definitely caught both of us off guard, but it was wonderful to watch the pure emotion of the moment.

Once the heart pounding thrill (she said 'yes,' by the way!) had subsided a little, we photographed the rest of their session on the gorgeous coastline and surrounding resorts. The thrill of the proposal had them both on cloud nine during their session and if really shows through their expressions. It was certainly one of the more memorable sessions...turned engagement sessions...that I have ever done!

I have to give Caleb credit for being such a romantic and for thinking up such a perfect engagement scenario. Congrats to such a cute couple and we wish them all the best! We already have one destination wedding in Mexico scheduled for 2012, hopefully we will have a second one now too! Muchas Felicidades!

Dayton Wedding Vendors...Thank You!

Some of you may already know that we have a wedding in our family this month. Mark's son Joshua is marrying Kristen in Florida later this month. Since they are doing a destination wedding, they wanted to have a 'Send Off Reception' for those guests who would not be traveling to the wedding.

We helped the soon-to-be-newlyweds plan this event and had lots of fun in the process. The kids wanted their party to be nontraditional, non-cookie cutter and above all super fun! With that in mind we booked the Taj Ma Garaj to hold the event. With it's nontraditional decor and game room, we knew it would be a memorable venue for guests.

We started with forgoing a sit down dinner. The whole evening was designed to be one big cocktail hour. Guests were free to mingle, eat, drink, play games in the arcade, dance, whatever they wished, whenever they wished.

Guests could sample food from the four different food stations (Asian, American, Carving Station, fine cheeses and fruits). Servers also passed beautiful trays of yummy finger foods as well. The bar offered a full line of wines, beers and a 'Signature Drink' of frozen Margaritas. The cookie and candy bar was meant to be enjoyed all night so guests were able to sample the sweets during the party as well as take some home.

In keeping with the kids desire to not be 'too stuffy or conforming,' linens and centerpieces were all different, but were in keeping with the red and black color palette. Four different types of tablecloths were used and combined with different textured overlays. There were also six different centerpieces ranging from all floral to all candles with mixtures of both in between. We also mixed the table sizes and heights. We opted for smaller tables holding between 4 to 8 chairs max making for more intimate conversation spots.

We wanted to give a very special thank you to the Dayton wedding vendors who helped make Joshua and Kristen's party so wonderful. There are many fabulous vendors in town and it was hard to pick just a few to use. Thank you for making our party such a success! We couldn't have done it without you!

The Taj Ma Garaj

Primetime Party Rental

Berstein's Fine Catering

Furst Florist

Ice Sculptures by Ramon

Square One Salon

Nicholas Viltrakis Photography

The DJ Company, Jim Manley

Stay tuned for the next round of Garber party images coming from the rehearsal dinner at the BeachHouse and the wedding at the Crosley Estate.

Canon Par Excellence Award

Canon just launched a web page featuring their Par Excellence Award Winners. While we won this award in 2008, it's inaugural year, we are still very proud to be one of it's 33 winners. We are also the only winners to have won with just wedding album entries.

To win the Par Excellence Award, the image maker must receive a score of 80 or above on all four photographic entries. District judges will then consider the maker's entire body of work using PPA's (Professional Photographers of America) "Twelve Elements of a Merit Image."

People often ask us why we still compete in photographic competitions and we can readily tell you its because we relish learning and polishing our craft. While photographers can enter any type of image they wish from fine art, landscapes, etc., we thrive on entering our 'everyday' work. Images that we produce for our clients on a daily basis. It keeps us striving to make our work better for not only ourselves, but also our clients...that is what really matters!