"Old School Mondays"

So, I just thought of this fun idea: each Monday, I'm going to post some really old pictures from weddings that I shot long before I had a blog and I'm even going to try to go back and pick ones that are not on my website or anywhere else!

AND to make it even more fun, let's make a contest out of it - yay! Okay, so each week I will post some "Old School" pictures and whoever can tell me the name of the bride and/or groom in the pictures gets an AWESOME prize! No, I'm not talking about a travel chess board - I'm talking about something really, really great and super valuable - but I can't tell you what it is until the first person wins the prize!

I know what you're thinking: "How am I going to figure out who the bride & groom are?!" Great question! I encourage you to get really creative - mass email all of your friends and family and see if they recognize them. Heck, mass email your whole building at work! We're talking about 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon here and somebody will probably know either the bride or groom. Just tell them that you're going to win a billion dollars if they help you. :) (no, that's not the prize)

So, in honor of the very first "Old School Monday", here's a few pictures from a couple I absolutely LOVED working with! They had a lovely wedding at Mercury Hall in Austin and there were lots of handsome military men running around, which always makes for fun pictures! Good luck - you have until next Monday to complete your mission. You can send your answers to stacy@stacycross.com OR post them in the comments with your email address, so I can get in touch with you.

Old School Monday Post #1:

Angel's Maternity Session

My neighbor Angel is expecting her new baby VERY soon and I thought it would be great to give her a fun maternity session to celebrate her new arrival! Angel is such a sweetie and we had such a great time together - we laughed the whole way through! We were able to capture some really amazing, dramatic shots, but also some really sweet ones. A lot of times, the pictures from maternity sessions can be very intimate and personal, which is why I don't normally share them, but I also like to get quite a few shots that these moms feel comfortable showing to their families and friends. Angel was so great because she gave me the time I needed to be sure we had plenty of both kinds of pictures!







And one with texture because I've been playing lately and I like it! Stan says that it "makes the picture look dirty". :) Well, it makes me happy and it's just for fun - let me know what you think.

Simple Pleasures

I was walking out of my office this morning and I glanced into the guest room and this is what I saw. I'm pretty sure Boosky's favorite past time is sunbathing - he is so pleased that summer is coming!

Somebody PLEASE do this. Please.

I'm speechless.

Bill & Kathryn's Wedding

Today Stan and I went out to Mayfield Park to take pictures for Bill and Kathryn's wedding. It was the first time I had met these two and they were such a beautiful, wonderful couple. You can ask Stan - I was smiling the whole way home as I talked about what a sweet couple I think they are! The weather was questionable all day, but during their ceremony, it was perfect! We got lots of incredible pics of these two and their family and friends in the short time we had with them. We were only there for the ceremony, so we decided to make it count by getting a ton of great pictures of Bill and Kathryn together. :)

*Update* For those of you who are friends/family of Bill and Kathryn and would like to see their wedding pictures, you can go *HERE* to get to their viewing and ordering site. The password is their new married last name in all lower-case letters! :)

The beautiful and fun Kathryn




Handsome Bill with his groomsmen - they are all brothers and they all have the same smile - I love it!


The cute baby of the day award winner


Cute flower girl of the century award winner


Hilarious AND gorgeous bridesmaids




During the ceremony


Husband and Wife






My favorite picture from the day

Link to Emily & Dustin's Pictures!

Hey guys - I know some of you are eagerly awaiting pictures from Dustin & Emily's wedding - well, wait no more! Click *HERE* to get to the viewing and ordering site. The password is the Bride and Groom's married last name in all lower-case letters. Enjoy!

When I stop to think about it . . .

I have a pretty cool life! : ) I was driving home from the hospital today and was spending some time processing what my weekend is going to be like and here's what it consists of:

1) FRIDAY - I spent all day today in the operating room observing surgeries and it was so amazing. I'm going to the American Cancer Society's "Relay for Life" tonight to go hang out with some cancer survivors!
2)SATURDAY - I'll be at my friend Krissy's bachelorette party all day tomorrow with some of my closest friends! (I'm a bridesmaid in her wedding on May 5th)
3) SUNDAY - I'll be shooting Krissy's bridal portraits on Sunday morning. I'm also shooting Kathryn and William's Wedding on Sunday evening.

This may sound like a lot of stuff to do, but I'm super excited about all of it! I also plan to sleep late tomorrow morning. : )

Hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs,
SC

What's been going on?

Sorry it's been a few days since I've last "blogged". : ) Things have been pretty okay around here . . . just editing a whole bunch of pictures, which is really fun for me. I also had a maternity portrait session with Angel yesterday and that was great! Hopefully she'll let me put a couple of them up here - we'll see!

I haven't been feeling all that great, but have had some good rest time today. I think one of my tonsils is swollen . . . I have to wait till Stan gets home to find out if I'm imagining it. : )

I've been pretty sad about everything that has gone on with the VIrginia Tech tragedy over the last few days. I cannot even imagine what all of those folks are going through. My heart goes out to anyone feeling this loss - my prayers are with you and with them.

Much love,
Stacy

Emily & Dustin

Yesterday I shot Emily and Dustin's wedding and it was so fun! The weather was amazing - amazingly sunny, windy, and cold! :) We were able to get some gorgeous pictures of Emily, Dustin, and all of their family and friends.

Emily and Dustin had such an incredible group of people at their wedding - from their families to their wedding party - everyone was so incredibly happy and sweet! I don't think there was anyone there that didn't thank me for being there!

Here's just a few of the many lovely pictures from their big day. For those of you who were there yesterday, thank YOU so much for letting me be a part of this very special day - you all made it a beautiful day!

There will be an online viewing and ordering site with ALL of the pictures from Dustin & Emily's wedding, for those of you who are interested in possibly ordering pictures - I will send an email to Dustin & Em when it's up in about 2-3 wks and they will be sending an email out. If you would like to know right away when it's up, you can check back here often (sometimes it takes less than 2 wks!) and I will post the link to the site. : )

This is hilarious!

Friday the 13th

Hello, friends!

Wow - I am SO excited about shooting Emily and Dustin's wedding tomorrow! Emily and Dustin were at a wedding that I shot two years ago and Emily told me that she decided then and there that I would be her wedding photographer if and when she and Dustin got married . . . and here we are. :) You guys know that nothing is more fun for me than shooting a wedding - and I can't wait to share some awesome pictures from their day on the blog. Be sure to keep an eye out for them!

Also, I'm on a huge album designing kick. I love it. Really. I never knew it would be so fun and I think I have a new favorite hobby! Here's one of the pages I designed today for my new sample album that I will show brides and grooms in our meetings:

Who is that lady?

I thought I would thow a gorgeous picture of my friend Brittany up here, since people always see her picture on my website and ask me who she is.

She is a very good friend of mine from college and I convinced her to go out to the Eastside of Austin to do some fashion shots - it was so much fun and she is SO beautiful! And apparently I'm funny and I made her laugh here! :)

Albums are where it's at

Many of you know that I did not start offering albums until very recently because I simply felt that if I bride wanted to have an album, she would make her own. This was SUCH wrong thinking! The truth is, brides do sometimes make their own albums (I made mine), but it takes forever to put a good one together and even when you do take the time to make them, they're usually just "okay".

Well, I am now a BIG believer in leaving the album designing to the pro: your photographer! And I finally understand the value in offering wedding album design to my brides and grooms. I'm not shooting your wedding so you can throw a few 4x6s in a $15 target album, I am documenting memories from your wedding day that you will want to last for a lifetime.

What I'm basically saying is this: when you buy your wedding dress, do you just take it home, fold it up, stick it in a hamper, and shove it under your bed? NO, of course not! However, it would be okay to do that with a new t-shirt, right? With your wedding dress, you probably have hung it up in the cleanest, least crowded closet in your house with the protective covering over it. And you may even plan to preserve it after the wedding. Well, why in the world would you not take that same care in preserving your wedding pictures?

Okay, I'll get off my new kick and get back to the point of this post. :) I am offering wedding albums now and I have a variety of types of albums that you can choose from, with my primary album being a flush mount style. I wanted to show you a couple of examples of page spreads that I created. These are for a 12x12 album.

Just for fun

I'm spending some time this morning editing pictures and I ran across this picture from Misty and Kevin's Engagement session and I decided that it's basically my favorite picture of all time. :) And since I've been longing to have my pictures HUGE on the blog, I learned how to do it and I'm loving it!

Portraits with the ladies of 36th Street!

Today I had a lovely portrait session with Lindy, Resha, and Bethany from 36th Street Weddings and we had a really good time. Unfortunately their other coordinator, Gloria, couldn't make it, but we got some really great pictures of the three that could. Bethany is new to this group of coordinators, but I've been working with Lindy and Resha for a while and they are phenomenal! If I were planning my own wedding now (instead of 4 years ago!) I would totally chose them to coordinate it - they are so hip and so energetic. Bethany just fits right in, too! :) Here's a few highlights from today's session.