Brides and grooms, make sure you save the date and attend the exclusive Naples Bridal Show, Love in Bloom! It will be held at the fantabulous Strand Country Club in Naples, Sunday, March 15th from 1:00 – 4:00!
If you missed us at Bridal Blast, make sure to come out and visit us! We will have our fantastic albums on display along with some beautiful and truly unique wedding works of art! Questions about the show or visiting our booth? Shoot us an email!
It’s that time of year again when I sit down and comb through all the weddings we shot the previous year, looking for the best images to submit for competitions and magazines. Last night I was putting together a nice collection of cake shots for submission to The Knot magazine, and decided to put that gallery up on the blog, too.
I did some research as well and found some of the trends that are a buzz right now for cakes for 2009. There seems to be a varied consensus as to what trends are hot for this year. I am going to list the links I found further down below, which should help any brides out there who are still making cake decisions. The ones that stood out the most to me where:
Check out these resources for more information on hot wedding cake trends for 2009:
Here’s a fab video featuring the hottest trends in wedding cakes with new thinking on shape, size, decoration, and flavor. Carley Roney of The Knot magazine shares the latest with Harry Smith of the Early Show.
And last but not least, here’s my gallery of cakes from last year! Of course, some of my brides were already showing their cake savyness by implementing some of the trends mentioned above.
My favorites include the simply amazing beach-inspired coral cake (first picture) created by the Naples Grande. It’s a stunner in the image below, and absolutely unbelievable in person!
My other favorite is the Celtic-inspired cake with the intricate knot designs over different shades of purple fondant. And yes, it SO tasted as good as it looked!
And check out the picture of mom crying out as the topper almost falls over when the bride and groom try to cut it! (Note to brides: this is the beauty of having two photographers at your wedding)!
Next to trying on gowns, I think cake tasting is one of the best must-do activities a bride has to endure while planning that perfect day!
Enjoy,
Astrid
Now that we have some weekends off to enjoy each other’s company, we like to take weekend excursions to all sorts of neat and offbeat spots right in our own backyard. It’s really amazing just what you can find within a few hours if you look hard enough!
There’s a TON of spots around Florida that we are wanting to visit. And like us, these spots are a little off the beaten path, a little ‘un-normal’ and lots of fun! I know, I know. You are all dying to know just what’s on our list for this year: Well, here’s the short version! Gibsonton, home of lobster boy, the Burt Reynolds Museum in Jupiter, Butterfly World in Coconut Creek, Coral Castle in Homestead, Dinosaur World in Plant City, Potter’s Wax Museum in St. Augustine, the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg (which is a MUST SEE if you are in the area) and the list goes on and on!
So, this time around, and very fitting for Friday the 13th, I am posting about our trip to the Shell Factory in Fort Myers, Florida. Being almost a native Floridian, I had been to the shell factory but when I was a wee lad of only 8. I do remember it because my dad let me get one of those oysters that contain a pearl. Well, I did find a pearl and my dad had it made into a ring, which I still have. So it’s a ‘warm fuzzy’ memory type of place for me! And I can’t believe that Rene, also being an almost native Floridian, had never gone. So, it was top on our list.
The Shell Factory has changed in the last 10 years. It’s huge now! It’s definitely a tourist spot that kind of feels like you’ve entered a black hole/Twilight Zone-ish place once you arrive. Time stands still as you are lured in and begin to explore the many weird spots in the park.
Like animals? They have a nature park. I lament that I did not partake in the park, but the report from Rene and Ali was that it was clean, the animals looked happy and the enclosures were pretty large. I don’t like zoos or “nature parks”. End of story.
The shop is more like a mega-complex of junk, err everything under the sun made of shells, sand, plastic, lights, bright colors, loud textures and loud noises. It’s definitely an interesting visual experience to walk through the humungous shop that includes different rooms for different things.
When you first enter, to the left is the ever-famous men’s suit made of, you guessed, it shells! Check out the pictures below in case you really didn’t believe what I just wrote. And yeah, someone did actually wear it, for a long time, every day!
There are certainly some amazing shells that you just won’t see anywhere. If you are coming from up North and don’t have access to shells, this place has some beauties! And the price range goes from very inexpensive to lots of mula! They also have some funny wooden characters sitting in different spots around the store, ready to creep you out at every turn. And of course, who can go home without the plastic gold Jesus in a shell figurine or seashell night-light.
If dead and dried out sea animals, a la Spongebob is more to your liking, there are plenty of those! Bin after bin of dead, dry and stinky sea horses, sand dollars, starfish, blowfish, alligators and other ghastly stuff is all on display for your perusal. Oh, and don’t forget to grab some shots of you and your dead sea souvenir in the photo booth!
There’s the Christmas store, which has a ton of well, Christmas and holiday stuff, including Ali’s favorite, a pink tree. It even has an upside down tree complete with presents. And of course, to make the Christmas store complete, two huge tiny villages were set up. Pretty cool actually. We of course totally loved the Halloween village. Ali and Helena actually got to ride Santa’s sled. Of course, I think that we now have permanently scarred Helena as evident by the look on her face in her picture below! Our duty as parents: DONE!
So what were the highlights of the day you ask? Well, in third place would be the preserved shark fetuses in a jar, of which you can take home with you and proudly display on your mantle (just don’t bring it on board the plane with you as that’s a no-no!).
In a close second place, the Gator Things display also had some beauties: dry alligator heads with shiny black eyes, all lined up on a shelf ready to go home with you OR the best treat of the day! The alligator claw back-scratcher! Huh…now I know what to get Rene for his birthday!
And in first place? Why of course, the United States’ larges taxidermy collection, right here in our backyard! It’s an impressive collection of animals ranging from the zebra, to baboons, to a monster polar bear head and skin, to gazelles to cheetahs. You name it, it’s here!
So, words can’t really describe. My gallery down below is a good teaser, but you really must come out and see for yourself. Kitschy, fun, unique and definitely memory-making, the Shell Factory is fantabulous if you want something of the totally mondo-beaten path! Oh, and don’t forget to stay until dark to catch the waltzing waters show! 
If you go, leave us a message here telling us about your day!
Go forth and explore your world, and create your own perfect day!
Oh, and Happy Friday the 13th….
Astrid
In our inbox this week was an email message from Wedding Wire, letting us know that we had been selected for a Wedding Wire Bride’s Choice Award! Yay! We love winning and it feels SO much better when we win because our brides select us! Here’s the scoop about the award straight from Wedding Wire:
In its inaugural year, the Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes vendors from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds (brides and grooms) through surveys and reviews. Our winning vendors have set the bar high for this competition, demonstrating excellent service and expertise in their industry.
Woo hoo!! We put together a little collage of our brides and grooms that reviewed us below. A very, very special thanks goes out to them (and their moms) for leaving us such great reviews on Wedding Wire.
When you love what you do, it’s easy to do it well and with passion!
With thanks,
Astrid and Rene!
Moving along with editing, I wanted to post this quick teaser of Jon and Abigail’s wedding. Having such a fantastic backdrop that is the beaches here in Naples, Florida, we don’t often get to shoot weddings at churches. And I love to shoot in churches! The challenges are great and when done right, the lighting can be dramatic and quite lovely. And thanks to my trusty Nikon D700, shooting low light without a flash is a total breeze!
This shot was taken in the front of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. This was our first time shooting in this lovely church. As expected, the church had some great spots to shoot like wall to wall stained glass in the front (which made for some amazing portraits of the bride and groom), a fantastic patch of sunlight streaming into the aisle of the church, right in front of the alter and perfect for creating beautiful portraits of the bride. After the ceremony, we headed to the beach for some romantic bride and groom portraits, then it was off to a fabulous reception at Grandezza. But more of that to come!
For now, I have posted this shot that I really love! I am a total sun flare aficionado (be it lens flare or sun flare). I had seen this technique perfected by some fantabulous, great, rockin’ awesome wedding photographers out in California and I finally got just the right opportunity to try it out. The idea is to shoot directly into the blazing hot afternoon sun, using enough flash to light up the subjects and still get a beautiful sky and a flare sun. I’m happy with the results and I hope to create more portraits like this in the near future. The sky and sun here in Naples, Florida is perfect for just this type of portrait.
For those of you who have asked to see the Edison/Ford Winter Estates images, they will be up soon!
Thanks and happy week!
Astrid
