By now you probably all know that one of my weaknesses is my inability to condense anything I’m trying to say.  Write a 10 page essay?  Sure no problem!  Summarize my thoughts into a single paragraph? Forget it.  However, I’m going to attempt to be short and sweet on my words with this blog (you’ll know by the end if I succeed or not).  The reason being that as I was processing these photos, I realized how much they speak for themselves.  I decided that all I needed to do was to comment on each photo (like I do for all the wedding photos that we post on Facebook… become a fan if you want to see whenever we post new weddings) to sort of fill in the gaps and let the pictures do their own talking, rather than rambling on and on. The photos from this wedding are very moving and I wanted to have just enough words to add to them without distracting from them.  Ha ha, I think I’ve already failed, so we’ll see how this goes! This is Linzie and Chris.  A freaking beautiful couple, don’t you think!?

These are Chris and Linzie’s friends.

I love how this picture is a little bit sloppy with the motion blur and the barrage of sun flare.  I think it makes it feel a lot like it really was with everyone smashed, bumping into each other, and just having fun with a little bit of chaos.  A very put together photo just wouldn’t have done for this. :-)

And let me just say what awesome friends they are!  These were some of the most helpful bridesmaids I’ve ever seen!  They helped with everything from planning… (we shot a wedding for one of the bridesmaid’s sister so she was kind of enough to tell Linzie about us, thanks Daryl!) …to etiquette (telling Linzie what things were appropriate and were not appropriate, which is a great thing to have advice on!)

Look at all the help she had putting her dress on!

They were helpful even to each other!

They also did a great job relaxing her whenever her nerves were about to get the best of her!

I’m sure the groomsmen did a lot more than just stand around looking cool, but I was with them pretty much just long enough to take this picture that Scottie set up for me, so I can’t really attest to that as much!

But I think that a groomsman’s main job is just to look cool anyways, so I’d say they fulfilled their duties well!

I do think that Chris went above and beyond the normal duties of a groom because he took care of all the flowers!  He has a “go to” lady that has been there for him throughout his entire relationship with Linzie and has provided beautiful flowers for all their major moments, so of course she was there to help out with this big event!

And she did a FANTASTIC job, the flowers were amazing and she worked extra hard to create special designs that reflected the uniqueness of this couple… and her hard worked paid off! Everything from the bouquets and boutonnieres, to the flowers in the aisle and on the cake was perfect!

Call Linda Beeckman in the floral department at AJ’s Fine Foods on Val Vista and Baseline the next time you need flowers for anything!

The flowers weren’t the only thing about this wedding that were beautiful… check out this location.  Three cheers for Ocotillo Golf Resort!

In case you’re wondering… yes, that is a horse drawn carriage!  Linzie rode in with her dad…

… and out with her new husband!

You would think the carriage rides would be the highlight of the wedding, but everything in between rivaled it pretty well!

Sorry carriage ride, but you can’t beat a wedding where you get to witness such genuine emotion between the couple.  This is the stuff I love about weddings.

I hope you’re not too embarrassed by the picture on the left Chris, I totally love it so I had to include it!  Ha ha.

We’ve decided that it’s shots like these that are the reason God made Scottie so tall.

How many times am I allowed to say how good these two look together?  If I haven’t met my quota then insert that comment “HERE”.

This picture makes my smile appear and my eyes water at the same time.  I can’t even tell you how much I love seeing a bride THIS happy on her wedding day.

And when you realize that the groom is equally as happy, then it’s even better!

And Chris, I’m sure you know that it’s a HUGE compliment to say that you are as good looking as this beauty here! :-)

What did I tell you about Ocotillo Golf Resort?

This is what I call the “stunning” section of the blog.

Scottie and I had a little competition over this photo.  He took it from his angle with his vision and I did the same from my own perspective.  Well, lets just say this is mine and I won’t include Scottie’s because I don’t want to embarrass him. ;-)

I loved how this family wasn’t afraid to express their real emotions during these dances.

I was told that grandpa was a tough guy, but even he let a little emotion slip out. Sorry if we ruined your image by capturing you in the “Monkey suit” with this softy look on your face.  But it’s beautiful.

Scottie and I agree that this photo of the father- daughter dance is one of our very favorite photos we’ve ever taken (and by the way he took it, so 1 point for Scottie there).  Let me start by saying that her dress is fine, his hands aren’t dirty, they’re just stained from his line of work.  The reason I love this so much is because it’s so symbolic.  It says so much about how hard he’s worked in his life and these are the moments in his life where it’s payed off as he dances with his wonderful daughter at her beautiful wedding. Plus as he gently puts his rough hands around his daughter in her elegant dress, it shows that he’s worked hard to provide for his family’s physical needs, but that he also cares for them deeply and provides for their emotional needs as well.  One of Scottie’s goals in life is to have “manly hands” like these one day (hopefully he’ll get more than just arthritis in the finger he uses to snap pictures with).

Well I don’t want to make it too serious here because there was also a great party going on all around us that night!

See, I told you it was a fun party!  Click to see and buy the rest of the photos from the Radiant Photobooth here.  And if you want free photobooth pictures on your Facebook page, just fan the Radiant Photography Facebook page, find the photo album called “Linzie & Chris’ Photobooth” and tag yourself in the photos!

Pheww!!  I made it with the short comments!  Now, I’m going to talk as much as I want!!

Thank you Linzie and Chris for being such great people to work with!  And thanks to Linzie’s parents who we spent a lot of time with before the wedding and who worked to make this occasion special even for their measly little photographers! :-)  Every time we met with this family we spent way more time talking and laughing with them than we did going over business stuff… and that’s our favorite kind of meeting.  The first time we met them, Scottie and I both turned to each other and said, “I really want them to book us!”  simply because they were one of the most fun families we’ve ever met!  We love how well they all get along and how Linzie’s parents are involved enough in her life to not only be close to Chris (it helps that he works with her parents of course), but also close with all Linzie’s friends.  Check out the rest of the photos from the wedding to see some great ones of Linzie’s mom hanging out and laughing with all her bridesmaids!  We loved getting an up close view of a family who is so committed to one another and who genuinely enjoying hanging out together!  Thanks for letting us into your world, we take your trust as a HUGE compliment! :-)

We’re looking forward to working with this family even more as we get ready to do a “Unique Session” with Linzie and Chris pretty soon!  If you don’t know what that is, click here.  Keep a look out on our blog for that one because it’s going to be a great session (and if you’re Facebook fans of Radiant, you’ll get notified when those pics go up)!

Click to see the rest of the photos from Chris and Linzie’s fantastic, fun, and beautiful Arizona wedding!

As much as we want to let everyone in our personal lives a little, that doesn’t really happen very often during our busy season… mostly because we don’t really have personal lives during our busy season! Ha!  But low and behold, we actually do take time off on major holidays and special occasions, if you don’t count our momentary lapses when we sneak a peek at our email and such.  That said, Scottie and I both recently celebrated our birthdays and we actually did some fun things to celebrate!  Scottie (celebrating his 33rd birthday) had a bonfire… or rather a small fire in a fire pit in my parents backyard, along with the type of party that has a “bonfire feel” to it.  In other words it was an awesome, chill party with all our close family and friends sitting around a campfire telling stories and laughing.  Awesome.   I got to make a special Scottie-esque playlist for it (which means lots of Incubus, Gary Jules, Led Zepplin, and Muse), so it felt like my birthday too.

Unfortunately one weakness that we’re trying to improve on is that we have a tendency to neglect taking pictures of our life.  Ridiculous right?  We spend so much time hiding behind the camera that we have a hard time pulling one out when we’re trying to participate in life and enjoy ourselves.  We’re trying to get past the idea that our pictures from these fun times in our lives have to be good enough that someone would actually pay for them.  They don’t have to be good, they just have to be US and we’re so used to pushing ourselves and viewing photography as an art to create and perfect, that it’s really hard for us to just take a deep breath and chill out!  We’re getting used to the idea of just having an easy to use camera handy (even if it’s just an iphone and not an expensive contraption with multiple lenses and settings) and pulling it out for a 2 second shot (not one that takes 2 min. to figure out) whenever we want to capture a moment in our life whether or not the lighting is perfect or the background is beautiful.  We just need to do it and love the memories we get!  And honestly, it’s this lack of photos that keeps us from blogging about our lives much as well, we don’t have pictures of our life to include in these blogs!!

So here is my 1 picture from the party that I took with my little point and shoot camera.

That’s the birthday boy and that’s our dog Jasmine trying to stay warm and showing off her bat ears at the same time.  She definitely has some chihuahua in her and we suspect a little weenie dog to be hiding out in her as well.  Or at least we hope there’s weener dog in her because then we can call her a chiweenie or my personal favorite a weenie-wa-wa (take a moment to say it out loud because it’s really funny)!  This is the same dog who is at this moment insisting on laying on top of my arm while I try to type.  The computer is her arch nemesis because we spend so much time on it she thinks we love it more than her. Since I’ve spent so much time talking about her, here’s an iphone pic of me with her (and somehow our messy house snuck itself into the back ground on this one… sneaky house mess).

By the way some of our favorite nicknames for little Jasmine is Snoop Doggy Dog, Jazzercise, Jazmanian Devil, and DJ Jazzy Jeff… Scottie’s the brains behind that cleverness.

After realizing that we only have 1 photo of Scottie’s once in a lifetime shot of turning 33, we made it a priority to take a camera along on my birthday and to actually use it!  We got some great shots that I LOVE!

(Aww, Breanna and Scottie!)

While they may not all make it into a photography magazine or win any awards for their artistic perfection, they capture the night perfectly and that’s all I wanted!

(This is me by the way, Breanna.)

(Now every time you see the word “me” on this blog, you know who I’m talking about!)

So here was the scene for the night.  We called up 4 different couples to come along for the night and help me “celebrate” turning 27 (sorry if you didn’t get invited, we had to keep it small if this plan was going to work).

We all got dressed up cocktail style attire and hopped on the light rail.  We rode it around downtown Phoenix, making different stops along the way for different courses of our meal.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to work out right, but it went PERFECTLY!  And it was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had, rivaled only by my hot pink and black themed, “Ugly sweater and sangria birthday party” a couple of years ago.  Oh yeah, my costume slumber parties when I was little were pretty rocking too.  So this one was in the top 3 at least!

We started out the night at a swanky little place called the District to hit them up just in time for Happy Hour.  While the atmosphere was perfect, the service, not so much.  It definitely seemed like one of those nights where a couple of people didn’t show up for work and everyone else was very pissed about it!  It didn’t matter though because we were having a great time with great friends in a place that was way too cool for us and we liked the place enough that we’ll give it a second chance one day.

(This isn’t actually at the District, but you should click the link to see how cool it is there!  It was really dim inside the first two places and we totally would’ve disturbed people around us if we’d taken pictures, so we didn’t).

After that, we were still pretty starving since it took so long to get the first round we ordered that we gave up on getting anything else there, so we hopped on the rail to head North towards our dinner destination, Switch. The people who own Switch also own a few other trendy little places around town including Fez and I think Deluxe Burger as well.

( I love how happy Scottie is in this picture!)

They’re all awesome places, and all places that support different non-profit organizations each month (they give you brochures for the organizations with your check)  sounds a lot like Radiant Love to me… it was a perfect place to go!  The food at Switch was amazing!  I looked down the table and I was envious of everyone sitting there because I wished I had the same food on my plate that every person around me had, it all looked so good!  Only, FYI don’t try the drunken italian sodas, my friend Liz had the pomegranate one and I had strawberry, and just “eww”.  Everything else was how I imagine food to be in my dreams! :-)

The walk back to the light rail was a fun one from there, mostly because we were still a ways away from the station when we saw the train headed our way.  In a split second decision someone yelled “RUN!!!!” so we booked it in a single file line despite our fancy dresses, matching stilettos, and uneven brick cobbled sidewalk!

(I SOOO wish I had a picture of the running! In my mind it’s  pretty hilarious picture!)

I’m sure the boys weren’t used to running in dress shoes either, but we all made it safely without even so much as a sprained ankle or a coat stuck in the light rail door!  Of course that adrenaline rush quickly turned us into that loud obnoxious group that flaunts how much fun they’re having when all you want to do is have a nice relaxing ride home after a late shift at work (you know the group I’m talking about!).  Yep, that was us, sorry if any of you were on that train, but we were having as much fun as it looked like!

We finished off our night at The Rose and Crown.  It’s one of my favorite pubs that I always forget to go to.

It’s in an old historic house in Heritage Square downtown.  One of my friends came out from a bathroom trip inside and said “it looks just like a college house party in there!” Because it really is an old house and everyone looks totally comfortable just hanging out and having a good time!  (This is our pathetic attempt at a funny pose).

We sat out on the lawn, late into the night while sipping our drinks, eating our little cheesecake bites that looked like they were straight out of Alice and Wonderland, and laughing until our sides were literally aching.

(I don’t think you can literally “die laughing” because if that was possible, we would’ve keeled over right there!)

It was so perfect, sitting under the stars, listening to all my current favorite songs (The Cure “Just Like Heaven” is my very favorite song in the world right now for some reason) that were drifting out of the bar, while having fantastic conversations with my friends who are as  intelligent as they are hilarious.

(Laughing until I was crying right there!)

It was just one of those nights that I know I’ll think about the next time I have a bad day and wish I was there again.  It couldn’t have been better (I’d say “perfect” but I’ve already way overused that word already).

Thank you to all my friends who braved the dressy clothes, got infected blisters (like I did) from their fancy shoes, pulled muscles laughing (like I did), and trusted me enough to plan such a crazy adventure for them!  Oh and thanks for the cards, the peeps, and the promise of Anthropologie joy!  You guys are all great and you meshed together to make the… dare I say it… “PERFECT” group on the PERFECT night!!  Love you all!

Oh what to say about Julie and Andrew!?  I don’t even know how to describe such a fantastic couple!

We have a special place in our heart for sweet Julie because she was referring us to all her friends back when we first started Radiant, long before we did her wedding photography or she was even engaged… she was one of our first true fans and we love her for it!

And I have to say that Andrew holds a special place in our heart because he’s simply hilarious and a ton of fun to hang out with! :-)

(Yep, that’s him!)

(Told you he’s fun!)

We’ve gotten to know Andrew and Julie pretty well throughout their engagement/wedding process, I was even invited to Julie’s bridal shower which not only made me feel like a VIP, but also gave me the chance to spend time with her friends and family before the wedding so that on the day of, they were more comfortable with me and trusted me enough to let me into their world a little bit so I could capture it better!

So thanks to all of Julie’s family and friends for bringing me in and letting me feel like part of the crew on the day of. :-)

We are firm believers that our relationships with the people we’re photographing can totally make or break the overall feel of the photos.  There’s something to say for earning the trust of the people you’re taking pictures of. They have to feel comfortable enough with you to be truly vulnerable around you and to allow you to not only witness them being real with who they are, but to let you capture that and show it to the world.

The buzz word for our style of photography is “photojournalism” and it now makes more sense to me then ever when I think about a journalist as someone who others trust  to reveal who they are to the world.  They trust that the journalist will do it with truth, accuracy, and beauty.

And I think it’s the same with pictures.  When we’re exposing people’s true emotion and personality to everyone, they have to trust us to do it right.  And the better they know us, the more willing they are to let us do that.

A wedding is a very emotional day (obviously!) and we’re with the people involved every step of the way.

We always tell couples that no matter who you choose for your wedding photography, make sure it’s someone you’re comfortable with because you spend more time with your photographer on your wedding day than you do with your fiance!

(We were with her before the dress was even on!)

When you’re hanging out beforehand with your bridesmaids, and you start re-living moments from the bachelorette party…

(or admiring each other’s shoes…)

…do you want some weirdo hovering over your shoulder hanging on to your every word and making you feel awkward enough that it  shows on your face every time he interrupts your natural moments and shoves a camera at you?  Or would you rather have a friend (who happens to also be a professional photographer that you hired) standing there snapping shots of you and laughing along with the stories you’re telling? I can tell you right now which one’s pictures will turn out better!

(I love all the photos of brides breathing deeply right before they walk down the aisle. She’ll be OK once she sees him!).

So Julie and Andrew both did a great job of letting us into their lives, being vulnerable, honest, and emotional around us… and let me tell you, that means the world to us.

We can’t even describe how much more a wedding means to us when there’s a real connection there between us and the couple.  Not only does it help them be more natural and real in front of the camera but we inevitably add our own emotion to the photos.

Even if we wanted to separate ourselves from our art, we couldn’t do it.  It’s just a part of us.

Photography is a fluid combination between ourselves and the people we’re photographing, so the better we relate to one another, the more spectacular that intertwining turns out!

Sorry, I got a little carried away with all that… back to the people of the hour, Julie and Andrew!

As a whole I’d say their day was a HUGE success!

Everything about the day was beautiful…

… everyone there had a GREAT time…

….and of course, Andrew and Julie emerged from it as husband and wife!

That’s a pretty perfect wedding I’d say!

I’ve already thanked Andrew and Julie both privately and publicly, but I’ll say it again…. you guys have meant the world to us!  Thank you SO much for your kind words, support, encouragement, etc., etc, etc, etc. (that’s right, 4 etc.’s!)  You guys are awesome and I feel like I’m totally doing you an injustice with this short little thank you, but I’m just out of words to describe you.  So I’ll just put a giant smile here and hopefully you’ll know everything that it means! :-)

Lucky for us, we get to spend even MORE time photographing Andrew and Julie during their upcoming “Unique Session“!  If you don’t know what that means, click here! Keep an eye for that session because I have a feeling, it’s going to be a great one!  By the way, if you haven’t seen their engagement session, make sure you check that out, it’s a fun one!

Click to see the rest of the photos from Julie & Andrew’s Gilbert, AZ wedding!

It only took a couple of emails from Rachel to figure out that she LOVES color!

Unfortunately for her, it’s winter time and the dead vegetation (if you can ever call it “vegetation” in Phoenix) doesn’t really provide a lot of vibrant color right now.

She was OK with that though and she just decided to make up for it by wearing lots of bright colors.  She rotated around between her flowing green skirt….

…her bright yellow shirt….

….and her pretty purple shirt.

Aside from her colorful attire, the other thing that really stood out about Rachel that comes across very strong in her pictures is her confidence!

From the moment we met her, we could tell that Rachel was very comfortable in her own skin.

She definitely had a unique, sparky little personality and she was confident enough that she wasn’t afraid to show it!

That bodes very well for photographers whose goal it is to communicate who you really are through pictures!

Cameras tend to freeze people up and change their personality, so we definitely rejoice when we meet someone who seems the same on camera as off!

You wouldn’t think that would show up in a frozen frame, but it really does!

Unfortunately for many people, confidence isn’t the only thing that guides the feel of your pictures, insecurity rears its ugly head pretty well too!  So the moral of this story is that if you are not a confident person naturally, try to at least fake it on picture day!

Here are some of our other favorites from the day (click to see ALL the photos from Rachel’s Arizona senior photo session).

Thanks Rachel for being comfortable enough to be yourself around us and for not being afraid to express your opinion (mainly about the high importance of color)!  We had a great time with you and we hope you love your pictures!!  Click to see the rest of Rachel’s Tempe, AZ senior photography session!

If I didn’t wish I had a sister even half as bad as I do, after spending just a few minutes with the Shano’s, I still would’ve be back at my parents door double checking to make sure they are absolutely positive I don’t have a missing sister somewhere out there.  These girls have an absolute blast together!

Every time I looked over at them during this session, they were laughing, messing around, picking each other up, or fixing one another’s hair.

After shooting their daughter’s Sweet 16 Party, we’ve spent enough time with the Shanos to know that this wasn’t a fluke…. these sisters genuinely like each other!

It seems like living in the Shano house is 24/7 of clothes swapping, dance parties, Twilight marathons, and cheer leading practice. Even though I know there’s probably the inevitable hair pulling days… I’m SOOO jealous! :-)

Just as I was mustering up the courage to ask if I could join their family, Scottie reminded me that their mom has just as much fun as the girls do so I still have a chance to have daughters as fun as them!

That is very true, Kathy is just one of the girls and I saw her laughing and messing around with them as much as they did with each other.

So there’s still hope for me!  I guess I’m content to keep living at my house for now… but if I end up having all boys I might still give the Shano’s a call to see if they’ll have me! Ha ha.

Not to be out done, the only man in this house has his fun too!

You can tell by this beautiful car that he gets to play with!

He said he’d never really had photos taken of it, so while his daughters were practicing cheers in the yard, he saw his opportunity and grabbed Scottie to go have some fun of their own with their toys (Scottie with his camera and David with his car).

It’s funny to think of the differences between Scottie and I… if he were writing this blog it would be all about the car with a casual mention of sister time fun (sorry David, we’ll have Scottie write one for you next time! Ha ha).

So if you don’t get it by now… this is a FUN family!

They’re fun and to top it off they have a lot of cool ideas too!  If you saw the photos from Morgan’s Sweet 16 party you know what I’m talking about!  And they didn’t disappoint when it came to this session either.  We started at their house and then they gave us the idea to go over to this big grove of trees near them.

What type of trees?  I don’t know, I’m a photographer not a arborist!  I’m not a detective either, but I did pick up on the clue of the pistachios shells all over the ground, so I’m guessing that might solve the case.  Anyways, we were very proud of them for thinking outside the box and having the vision for something that most people would look at and think “ew that’s ugly, why would anyone ever do pictures there”?

And to answer that question, we do pictures there because of something called “juxtoposition”.  That means we put beautiful people in front of ugly trees and the contrast makes the beauty stand out even more!

That’s your vocab word and photography lesson for the day all tied into one!  So anyways, thank you Shano’s for understanding creative perspective and for braving the dead branches cutting your feet and the chance of hidden bugs in the dead leaves.  Your eye for beauty plus your adventure seeking spirits got you the type of pictures that very few people in AZ have (and that very few photographers in Phoenix get to shoot)! :-)

See, by now everyone reading this wishes they were in the Shano family too!

So Shano’s, if you can’t tell… we had SOOO much fun shooting your session!  We love hanging out with your family and we’re so glad we had the opportunity to catch these memories for you.  We always consider ourselves lucky when whenever we get the chance to witness a family who has fun together.  It’s such a great example to us for when we have a family one day.  Thanks for being so transparent and for sharing your fun with us. :-)

Click to see the rest of the Shano’s Fun Family Photo Session in AZ!

Oh and here’s my own personal little P.S. to readers… I’m SOOO doing my hair this color after seeing this pic!

I’ll be happy if mine looks even half as good as hers does.  Thanks for the inspiration, ha ha!!

I have to say that as Scottie and I have been thinking about Radiant lately, we’ve been getting more than just a little excited.  We are incredibly happy with where we are and where we think we’re going so we just want to take a moment to bask in that relief/excitement… ahhh.  We also have been so overwhelmed with the sheer volume of people who have been coming out of the wood works to show us a ridiculous amount of love and support.  As overused as this phrase is “we wouldn’t have made it here without them”, it is undeniably the truth.  I think there are plenty of people who have done so much and have no idea how much they’ve changed our lives and then there are others who have done things that may seem very insignificant to them, but have been a big deal to us.  Since we’re never going to give an acceptance speech for a Grammy or design an album cover for a CD, it’s unlikely that we’ll have the opportunity to publicly thank the people who so dearly deserve it.  So we’re taking this opportunity to do just that.  I am so afraid to put individual names in here because it is inevitable I will forget some since I’ve only been planning this blog for a few hours rather than a few years and my memory is not always the best.  But I do want to use names because I do really want to honor the individuals who deserve it.  So forgive me if I forget your name, it’s not because I don’t value you, it’s just because I’m not quite as smart as I wish I was!  I do want to warn you that if we were doing this as an acceptance speech, it’s long enough that they would start playing the music to get us off the stage in the first half of it… so no hard feelings if you just want to scan for your name and move on, we know you have a life to get back to. ;-)

Just for the sake of being unconventional and keeping you on your toes, we’re NOT going to start by thanking God, our family, or our best friends.  We want to start with thanking some very specific couples who chose Radiant Photography to shoot their wedding in the past and then have been some of our biggest supporters, referrers, encouragers, Facebook commenters, and are at this point our good friends.  These are the people who have made us realize that we really are doing something valuable with our time and our lives when we invest in the memories they have from the most significant points in their lives.    They value and cherish every single second we’ve spent pouring over their wedding photos and they deem our creative touch as worthy enough to want all their friends to have the same experience they’ve had with us!  These are the people who have gone way out of their way to say more than just “thank you”, but who have told us (though maybe not in these exact words) “we want to devote our time and energy into helping and supporting you because we love who you are and what you do for people”.  So thank you with all our hearts to:

Tracy & Paul

Wes & Moriah (and the rest of their family)

Krystal & Dave

Julie & Andrew

Emily & Mike

Katie & Lawrence

We would’ve quit a long time ago if all of you weren’t in our lives.

So since all of those people I just listed are our friends now, I guess I’ll move on to friends!  We have such amazing friends that I have the same things to say about them as I do about family so I’ll combine the two! These are the people who listen to all the complaints, work around our over busy schedules, suffer through our short fuses that come with too much stress, and most of all… celebrate our success with us.  We try to focus on the good whenever we get the chance and thankfully, we have an amazing family who really does care to hear about that.  Every once in awhile we get really really excited about the things going on with Radiant and we get the urge to share.  Luckily our family gets excited with us and lets us be honest about our successes without thinking we’re just full of ourselves!  I call my mom on a regular basis and say “OK I’m going to brag for a bit, because I know you and dad are probably the only people who brag about me more than I do about myself so I’ll give you some material”.  So thank you from the bottom of our little photographer hearts for listening to both the bad and good, reading our success story emails, proof reading boring stuff for us, lending us things, storing things (props to my mom and dad for letting us fill up their garage), and taking the time to look through the many links to photos we send you. Thank you for choosing to care about the things we care about because you love us.  Our relationships to all of you guys are the highlight of our lives.  In fact, we should probably be sending success stories about our relationships with you all to everyone else, instead of sending success stories about our business to you! :-)  Thank you to both sets of our parents and grandparents… we could never even begin say enough to thank you… there truly are not enough words in the world to explain (so we’ll spare our readers their time and leave it at that!).  Thanks to the rest of our family: aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins (especially to Jeff, Amy, Bethany, and Kelly for your excitement about Radiant).  Thanks to our friends: Erik & Chelsea, Amanda, Sharon & Pat, Jay & Chelsea, Sandy, Mark & Meg, Chuck & Toni, Molly & Ryan, and Tim & Liz.  You guys are all UNBELIEVABLE and we hope to learn how to be as good of friends to all of you as you have been to us!

Here are some pics of our family playing around in our photobooth at Christmas…

(My cousin Bethany and me!)

(Bethany’s husband Brandon, Scottie, and my cousin Jeff)

(Cousin Jeff, Brandon, Cousin Ashley, my brother Ross, and Scottie)

(My cousin Amy and her daughter Tatum… I love any pics of the two of them playing together like this!)

(Best pic of my aunt Gaylene ever!)

(My mom Kathy, my nephew Jimmy, and me)

This next group are the people who might be the most surprised to be included because many of them have no idea what a great impact they’ve had on our work and on our spirits as we’ve pushed through day to day struggles with our company.  These people are other photographers who have in one way or another encouraged us, helped us, lent us things, taught us things… and done so many other things for us both big and small that have helped us get to where we are.  Since these people may unsure as to exactly what they’ve done to help us, I’m going to explain a little bit about each one.  Chelsea Hudson… you have become such an amazing, wonderful friend to us and it is SO good to have someone we know and trust to talk business with or just to relate to on normal life issues.  Thank you for your immediate acceptance of us as friends and for teaching us how to have great relationships without the sting of competition!  Jefferson Todd (the photographer who shot OUR wedding)… thank you for spending time with us and helping us figure out the ropes when we were newbies.  You saved us so much pain and work (and tax penalties!) by allowing us to learn from your experience instead of having to learn the hard way.  Thanks for caring enough to get involved.  Becca Knight (from Studio 222)…. I know you may not think you’ve done much for us, but we want to assure you that you have!  You were the first photography that we truly admired who began commenting on our blog.  You made us feel “big time” even if it was just an illusion ;-)  and we would get so excited every time you sat down to read our blog and comment.  It was a big encouragement that someone who is as talented and cool as you are, really liked our work and our blog!  Thanks for taking the time, we hope we’ll make it down to Florida and get to meet you one of these days!  While I’m at it… thank you to ALL the photographers who comment on our blog.  It’s a huge compliment to hear from others in the industry who are fans of our work.  And as I’m sure you know well, we all have days where we just need that ego boost!!  I feel weird thanking a messaging board, and maybe it’s lame but I don’t care because it’s absolutely necessary if this list is to be complete because really, we learned most of what we know about photography and the business from Open Source Photo.  So thanks to David Jay and all those great working minds behind it that have brought us to where we are.  Without OSP, we’d just be 2 people who liked looking at pictures a lot during our rare spare time between our 9 to 5 jobs that we hated.  And most of all, we want to thank Tim and Shauna (from Visionyard Studios)… all of this started with them.  Thank you guys for all the time spent working with us, helping us, critiquing us, and pushing us to be our best.  And also thank you a million times over for all the laughs and the unforgettable moments.  We never would’ve considered photography as a career and we never would have succeeded in making it one if it wasn’t for the fact that we got to start it all off with people we love so much.

(This is us with Jefferson Todd at our wedding!)

(This is Tim and Shauna with Visionyard. You have to just imagine Tim smiling… because he usually is! Ha ha).

And I’m not done yet!!  We have a lot of other vendors who refer us to brides and who encourage us regularly as well (can you tell yet, that we REALLY value encouragement?!).  Some of these people have worked with literally hundreds of photographers and have decided that we are one of their favorites.  These people put their neck on the line every time they tell a bride to give us a call because it is a huge step of faith to recommend another company.  If we mess up in any way… the reputation of the person who refers us gets damaged.  So THANK YOU to all of our vendors who trust enough to put their reputations and the work they do on weddings into our hands to take care of.  We are forever mindful that you are such a major part of our success and as a result, we are forever grateful to you for that.  Thank you to:

Carrie (at Stonecreek Golf Club… see her on our blog)

Dawn (at Ancala Country Club… see her on our blog)

Nic and Gina (at Eagle Mountain Golf Club… see them on our blog)

April (at Arizona Golf Resort… see her on our blog)

Sue (with Suzan M. Flowers… see her on our blog)

Molly (with A Simple Touch Wedding Decor… see her on our blog)

And also Margie (with Party Presentations) as well as Sandy (with In Awe Weddings and Events).  Thank you all for your badge of approval… we wear it proudly!

The people who put the most confidence in us are the actually couples who choose us for this oh so important task! I definitely have to thank all our brides who have put faith in us and trusted us with something that is so unbelievably valuable to them. Our couples have worked with us through all sorts of circumstances and they see us go through a gamete of emotions on the wedding day… and they still love us through it all!  Thank you… all of you… for being so fantastic to work with.  We really have yet to have a couple that we haven’t felt some sort of connection with.  We’ve definitely been blessed beyond belief that you all have treated us so kindly and have always had nothing but grace, compassion, and encouragement to extend to us.  You are ALL wonderful and we truly mean that with everything in us (from the top of our heads to the bottom of our tippy toes).

There’s no way to thank God without it being cheesy enough that everyone reading will roll their eyes (definitely overdone) but let me just say that I wrote a list in my journal when we first started Radiant of 50 HUGE things that worked out just perfectly, at the exact right time, fitting together in the most opportune way, that can’t be explained, that affected the functioning of the universe… all that made Radiant possible.  Radiant is nothing short of a miracle, so thanks God.

And as any good award acceptance speech would say… “I’d like to thank our fans”.  But to break the mold just a little bit I’ll say, “I’d like to thank our FACEBOOK fans” as well as our loyal blog readers. Your comments make our world go round.  And in true Facebook fashion, I’ll keep my comments about you short and sweet… but very deeply meant.

I also want to thank Bearhug for letting us use their SWEEEEET music on our website.  We looked the whole wide world over for the perfect sound for our site and we were positively elated when we found it (especially since they’re right here in good ‘ole AZ), but even more so when they actually said we could use it!!!!  Help us repay the favor and fan them on Facebook!

If you made it all the way to the bottom, be sure to put a little smiley face as a comment before you leave just as a badge of honor that shows you made it all the way through our long-windedness, that way we can be sure to thank YOU for your patience next time! :-)

Much Love,

Scottie & Breanna Chanson

As a general rule, we love shooting weddings at Ancala Country Club, but to have a fun couple like Pam and Kyle makes it even better!

There were so many good things at this wedding, I don’t even know where to start!  We’ll start with Pam (why? because it just makes sense to start with the bride, right?).  Pam had the freaking coolest dress and I couldn’t stop looking at it and taking pictures of it.

I did refrain from touching it because that would make me the creepy photographer that her and her friends talk about for years to come at reunions… but the ruffly shininess was definitely tempting!  As you can see from the tons of pics I have of them… her flowers were another irresistible force for me!

I think there’s this little girl part inside of me that believes (after years of being told this on Valentine’s Day) that red roses make you special and beautiful.  Add that to the whole “diamonds are a girls best friend” thing and I’m hooked.

(oh and by the way, it didn’t actually come with a diamond ring in it.  Although that’s probably the only thing that could’ve made it better than it already was. Ha).

So not to revert to my subconscious too much, but I’m pretty sure Pam’s flowing dress and bling bouquet captured my “little girl wanting to be a princess on her wedding day” psyche perfectly.

You know they are made for each other, because as Pam fully represented girly wedding day dreams, Kyle was the epitome of guy coolness as he threw on his shades and slapped down a few chips for this poker game before the ceremony.  What guy doesn’t want a photo of himself looking this awesome!?

Here’s another one with Kyle in all his awesomeness…

Pam and Kyle decided to veer from the traditional wedding day superstitious practices and see each other before the wedding.  So we set up a “reveal moment” on the golf course for them.  We try to do pre-ceremony reveal moments whenever we can because we LOVE the fact that a couple gets to have some intimate time alone together on the wedding day (the rest of the day is filled with craziness, a little chaos, and mobs of family and friends rushing them at all times).

Having a reveal moment is the perfect chance to freeze a moment of time together to cling to when they remember their wedding.  Pam and Kyle said multiple times that they are so glad they did a reveal moment because it took a ton of stress off the wedding day schedule since we got all the photos done ahead of time so that once their day got going, they were able to just hang out with their guests and go with the flow without an hour of interuption for photos.

It also helped Pam a lot to have a reveal moment because she was very nervous to walk down the aisle in front of so many people and as soon as she saw him, she relaxed a ton and felt like they were more together in all of this. It was awesome for them to get to really feel and express their true emotions the first time they saw each other, instead of feeling like they have to be all reserved in front of a bunch of people during a formal ceremony.

We see a lot of brides who are either stressed or very nervous and then relax as soon as they are with their groom (which we love because it definitely shows how good they are for one another), but for a lot of them this doesn’t come until after the ceremony so the brides spend a good chunk of their day trying to handle these crazy emotions all on their own.  It was so beautiful to watch Pam and Kyle come together on their wedding day in a private moment that was meant for the two of them to step back from the insanity of a wedding day and just be in love for awhile.  Awesome.

I mentioned earlier how much we love shooting at Ancala Country Club… and that’s SO true!  The coordinator for weddings there, Dawn, is AMAZING at what she does!  We’ve done quite a few weddings there, and while the location is beautiful (just check out the photo below), the biggest reason we like it is because we love working with her! She is super professional, but she’s also the kind of person that I can totally see sitting down with a bride and just going back and forth in girl language, getting more and more high pitched as they BOTH get super excited while going over all the details that the wedding entails!  She’s a planner who knows what she’s doing, but she’s also your friend in the way that she loves talking about your wedding and she’s very easy to relate to.  You can have a blast with her even during a formal meeting!  So thanks to Dawn and all the staff at Ancala for helping to create another beautiful wedding for us to capture! Here are some shots that speak volumes about this amazing location!

As you can probably tell by now, Pam and Kyle were an easy couple for us to work with because one of our main goals is to capture genuine emotion… and they were awesome at putting it out there for us to catch!  They were so fun and super expressive.  Here are just a few of their great expressions that we got (check out the rest of the photos to see more)!

(I love how he’s looking at her in these).

(Trying so hard not to cry… she almost made it too!)

As you can see, they were just as expressive about the fun stuff as they were the serious stuff… and their guests were the same way.

(The groomsmen are winning millions on the lottery tickets the bride and groom gave them as a wedding favor… so do Pam and Kyle get a cut of everyone’s winnings?!  I wonder if traditional wedding etiquette has an answer for that. Ha ha).

(The bridesmaids are ready to get the party started!)

Their reception was a fantastic party!  They had their DJ go crazy with fun games and events!

Of course there was all the usual fun dancing time as well!

I had the hardest time choosing which pictures to use for the blog, I love them all (Click to see the rest of them)!  Here are a few more on my giant list of favorite pics from this wedding…

Pam and Kyle, thank you so much for choosing us to be the ones to have the privilege of shooting your wedding. I know that sounds cliche, but I really do mean it and there’s not better way to say it because we really do consider it an honor that you trusted us to get the photos on your once in a lifetime day!  You guys are SUCH a fun couple and we really loved your wedding.  Congratulations!  Click here to see the rest of  Pam and Kyle’s Scottsdale, Arizona wedding photos!

Bethany and I met right before I got married, so she was able to go to my “destination” wedding (if you count a little mountain town 4 hours North of Phoenix as a”destination”), and now I get to go to her destination wedding… as her photographer!  Considering that Bethany’s wedding is international, I think it definitely counts as destination!

With as much trouble as Bethany and Mike had with their wedding planning, we couldn’t be happier for them with how it all has worked out!  Radiant was the first vendor they chose but they couldn’t find a location in Phoenix they liked.  Once they did find a place, it went bankrupt and they were starting at square 1 again!  Finally they just said, “Screw it, we’re outta here!” and they decided to do their wedding in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico (near Cancun).

So we’d been talking about their engagement session for awhile before they even officially booked us since they were still waiting on finalizing a location and a date.  By the time the day came to actually do their session, we were very excited and I think it’s safe to say that Bethany was very relieved that she was finally making headway in her wedding planning to do list!

We couldn’t have asked for better people to work with!  Though Bethany and I were friends, we’ve been out of touch for the last couple of years (and then re-united thanks to the magic of Facebook), so when she contacted me about doing their wedding photography, I was thrilled!  It’s been so fun getting to spend time with her again, especially during such an important time in her life!  Mike is super friendly and the kind of guy who makes you feel comfortable the very first time you meet him, so of course we liked him right away and we could not be more happy that Bethany found such a great guy! :-)

You only have to see one photo of Bethany and Mike to know that they are a photographer’s dream!  I don’t think we could take a bad photo of 2 people who are so good looking even if we wanted to!

The actual session was a blast too!  Mike has 2 boxers that he loves… we knew that because he showed us a picture of them on his phone the first time we met him! ;-)

These dogs are definitely a part of the family so we thought it would be fun if he brought them along…I’m not sure if Mike agreed in the end because these guys were full to the brim with excitement and Mike was stressing out trying to get them to be better models for us!

We loved it though, they were hilarious and we couldn’t think of a better way to ease some of the awkwardness that couples inevitably feel in the first 15 min. of their sessions!  Plus, Scottie LOVES boxers, so he was very happy to get a chance to spend some time with these 2 loving animals. Although, as much as he loves our new little chihuahua (how we ended up with a chihuahua is a whole other story in itself), I’m sure being around these awesome dogs did make him a little jealous that he doesn’t have another boxer yet.

We only kept the dogs for the first part of the session and Bethany’s parents were kind enough to come get them and take them home so we’d have a chance to get some shots where Bethany and Mike’s arms aren’t being yanked off!

And I’m happy to report that we did in fact get some “normal” shots (if you can call any photo of these 2 anything other than amazing) of them hanging out together at DC Ranch once the dogs were safely at home.

Thank you guys so much for choosing us for your photography and for being such good sports about bringing the dogs to your session!  We absolutely can’t wait for your Playa Del Carmen wedding!  Seriously, Scottie talks about it and reads about the location online every single day!! Click to see the rest of Bethany and Mike’s Phoenix engagement photo session!

The engagement session we shot with Rachelle and Paul was really fun for us…. and also a little different for us.  The couple was great and totally on their game with smiles and poses.

We loved it because whenever they looked at each other they would just bust up laughing… such a cute couple in love!  It was awesome.

The part that was “different” about this session was that Scottie and I switched roles a little bit.  Usually Scottie is the “lead” shooter.  Which means he poses couples with his vision, while I stand further back with a lens that zooms in close and I focus on catching the intimate moments that happen “between” the poses.  This time, I led the session for a good part of it and Scottie got the sneaky shots!  Scottie was VERY excited because it can be exhausting to lead all the time, so he just got to chill in the background and let me take over this time.  Luckily, Rachelle and Paul were very easy to work with and I was totally relaxed around them, so I was good and ready to take over the session!

Scottie and I always joke about who’s the better photographer (don’t worry, we’re still great at encouraging each other as well!) and him being the lead most of the time puts him at an advantage to get the shots that you get to “design” a little more and you can take all the time in the world to get that perfect shot.  Second shooter is at the mercy of chance… to chance that you can click the button at the EXACT right moment of the couple interacting, not a moment too soon (aka blinking pics) and not a moment too late (aka guys wiping lip gloss off pics) and to chance that your camera settings are perfectly right to catch that perfect moment in the perfect setting.   So basically, now that I’m leading more sessions… watch out Scottie!

(This is my favorite photo that I took when I was leading)!

(Oh and this one…)

(… and these… well, you get the idea. Basically I had fun leading)! :-)

Back to the happy couple…

Rachelle and Paul confided in us when we first got there that they were worried about being awkward in front of the camera.  I was totally shocked when they told me that because they seemed so natural!

Some couples do better when we pose them and some do better when we just put them in the right lighting and tell them to hang out together.  Rachelle and Paul did amazing when they were just interacting.  We loved capturing all the tiny intimate moments between the two of them!

Hopefully they felt good enough about how the engagement session went that they can spend their time worrying about things other than photography on their wedding day (i.e. tripping down the aisle, passing out before you say “I do”, and bees being drawn to the flowers… you know, all the important stuff!).  Don’t worry guys, I’m totally kidding about this stuff,  I’ve been to countless weddings over the years and I’ve never seen any of this happen!  This is why we do the engagement session… to give us all a little practice session before the wedding!  Now we know that they feel the most comfortable when interacting with one another and they know how to hold a long kiss with people looking on and cameras shoved in their faces!

Rachelle and Paul, thanks for being so friendly and easy to work with!  We can’t wait to see your smiling faces standing at the alter with all your family and friends smiling back!  Click to see the rest of Rachelle and Paul’s Tempe Town Lake engagement session.

The main goal of Lee and Suzanne’s wedding (other than for them to be joined as husband and wife!) was to have a great time with their friends and family. 

So they planned an intimate morning wedding at The Buttes Resort…

…and had a brunch reception (complete with an awesome chocolate fountain) at Top of the Rock Restaurant there. Top of the Rock has a special place in my heart because it is where I wanted to go to every year for my birthday dinner when I was a little kid.  My parents were always confused why I wanted to go to a fancy place instead of  somewhere for kids.  One year they finally asked me and I said it was because the door handles there are made out of rocks!  We started going to Chucky Cheese after that.

And let me tell you, they definitely succeeded in their goal to have a great time with family and friends!  It was so fun watching them interact with their loved ones before the ceremony, during family portraits, and at the reception.

Well, especially at the reception I should say!  I’ve never seen people get down and dance so hard during the afternoon before!  I’m sure a good part of that had to do with their AH-MAZING DJ, Chad, from All American DJ.  We’ve worked with him on more than a few weddings and every time he is super professional, fun (but not obnoxious), and he gets the party going with some great activities, all while managing to keep the attention on the right people and off of himself…. perfect.  He was a success, yet again, at this wedding where everyone was on their feet most of the time.

Lee and Suzanne had taken dance lessons for their wedding (we got some shots of them practicing at their engagement session), and by the looks of it, you would think the rest of their guests had been taking classes with them all along as well!  The father/daughter dance was particularly one of our favorites since they did a really fun song (I believe it was “Another One Bites the Dust”) and just had a blast with it (that’s the pic on the left above)! Of course the mother son dance gave it a run for it’s money since it was totally beautiful and full of genuine emotion.

Lee & Suzanne, we were very proud of you on your first dance as well… your lessons paid off!

Somehow Lee and Suzanne had enough time to plan, not only a really fun reception, but also to add in some beautiful details as well!  Here’s a few shots of the little things that made up the bigger picture of their wedding day…

(Just a minor detail there… it’s only the marriage license!) :-)

And here’s a few more of my favorite pics of the happy couple!

Congratulations Lee and Suzanne!!  We’re glad your wedding was a success in all ways and we wish you all the best!  Click to see the rest of Lee and Suzanne’s Top of the Rock wedding photos!

You may remember Tim from my brother’s wedding.  He was the main photographer there since Scottie was pulling double duty as a photographer/ groomsman and I got the chance to be a full- fledged bridesmaid!  So because we love his work enough to choose him for our own family member’s wedding, here Tim pops up again as the main photographer for Vicki & Zach’s wedding!

One thing we love about Tim (other than his mad photography skillz and just his genuine, intriguing, intelligent self ) is his desire to truly help people.  You may remember our blog about Abby and the work she does in Africa (especially since it’s right below this one) well, Abby is Tim’s sister-in-law!  Tim is saving all the money he makes doing photography to go to Africa with his wife to visit Abby next summer.  We’re more than thrilled to help fund Tim’s worth while goal.

When he’s not working with Radiant, Tim is a High School English teacher (this is starting to sound like an add on eharmony or something).  Judging by his extraordinarily creative vocabulary (and his chosen profession) I figured he was a good writer, but I was still surprised by just how good he actually is when I read the blog he wrote about Vicki & Zach’s engagement session!

And now, some words from the man himself!!

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They say, “Good things come to those who wait.”  For Vicki and Zach’s engagement shoot, this couldn’t be more true.

We were originally scheduled to shoot in December, at Tempe Town Lake, but the Iron Man Triathlon foiled the plans – not many people want short-shorted people adorning the background of their engagement photos.  We blindly rescheduled for January, a few weeks after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

A few weeks before the rescheduled shoot, we realized the PF Change Rock and Roll Marathon was scheduled for the same day!  Coincidence?  Nay.  Frustration?  Yeah.

We settled on Scottsdale Civic Center Park – home of the infamous “LOVE” sculpture on a chilly Sunday morning and the day couldn’t have gone better.

Vicki and Zach were such a pleasure to work with.  Comfortable in their own right and with one another, they were photogenic to say the least.

We cruised around the park, and with Scottie as our guide, hit some great spots for shooting.  Vicki and Zach appeased our creative risk-taking as we placed them on cold metal walls and had them dance around in plain view of passersby.

All in all, it was a great shoot and I am very much looking forward to photographing Vicki and Zach’s wedding in May. Click to see the rest of Vicki and Zach’s Scottsdale Engagement photos.

Do you ever have those experiences that completely transform the tone of your entire day within an instant?  That’s how I feel every single time I read my friend Abby’s blog.  Now you might be thinking “wow, she must have some really hilarious kids, a very intense home improvement project, or an especially cute little puppy to have the ability to affect you that much”.  Umm, not so much.  Abby lives in Africa in a home for street kids.  She takes care of these kids like they are her own and she deals with situations, emotions, and tragedy that is beyond my comprehension… and way above the abilities of most 20 somethings I know, and of most 60 somethings I know actually!

(so… she’s the white one! Abby or the people on her team took all of these photos.  These are not Radiant Photos.)

The lives of street kids in Africa is something so difficult to hear about, that most people would rather not know about it.  As a result of war, the HIV/AIDS virus, and severe poverty; 13% of all children under the age of 18 in Uganda have been orphaned. Once on the streets, these children experience significant levels of all kinds of abuse and mistreatment. They are hated and feared by the rest of the community, even though they are only children.

The kids are forced to sleep wherever they can.  Since they are in danger of being taken by the corrupt police force, being kidnapped to be sold into slavery, or just receiving random beatings while sleeping, they never get to feel “safe”.

(This is where one kid chose to sleep so that it would be harder for people to get to him).

Here’s where some of the other street kids sleep.

These children, who are left to fend for themselves in a community that is out to destroy them, are the children that Abby provides shelter, food, medical care, education, counseling, friendship, and family to.

She has 14 of these children in her home in Kivulu and she (along with others in her organization, “A Perfect Injustice“) support another 100 street kids through a program that meets 3 times a week that provides many of the same things that the children who live in the home receive.

(Here’s Abby, providing medical care at the clinic.)

(There are much more graphic photos of her doing this on her blog, but I figured there were some people who wouldn’t appreciate seeing those!)

“A Perfect Injustice” also financially supports other street kids who have been sent to boarding schools where they receive the care, attention, and education they need.  Thanks to the commitment and love that Abby and others have shown towards these kids, all these children are now being healed (medically, emotionally, and relationally).  They now stand a chance for the kind of life that every child deserves to experience.

(birthday party!)

(They love soccer)!

(I think this photo is my personal favorite.  This pictures just says “family” to me).

Now that we’ve been exposed to what she’s doing over there, we couldn’t help but participate!  We support various non-profit organizations through our “Radiant Love” program so we’ve supported Abby in the past… and we can’t help but support her again now.  So for every wedding we book from now until we change organizations (at an undetermined date), 10% of our shooting fees are going towards supporting these kids and the changes they are working so hard to make in their lives. (Click to read more about our Radiant Love Program and click here to see organizations we’ve supported in the past).

Nothing I can say could ever communicate what’s really going on with Abby and these kids in Africa.  Luckily, Abby has an extraordinary talent for writing (and photography!) and uses these skills to reveal her heart and explain her world to everyone who takes the time to read about it.

So please, PLEASE take the time to read at least this one blog post from her regular blog that we believe is life changing.  If you don’t love it, then you never have to read another blog by her again (even though we might still share her posts on our blog from time to time)… but I think you’ll be hooked!

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Danger! Hatari!

Posted on Jul. 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am

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Of course Abby has many more AMAZING pics on her blog and also some videos that help you really connect to the kids that she’s dedicated her lives to.  Here are some of my favorite cute kid pics of hers!

(Abby has stories about all these kids on her blog).

(Abby said that he carries his little brother rain or shine, even when he’s stuck wearing snow bibs (and sweating profusely because of it). She said it took so many shots to get this picture because he would never push back when all of the other kids crowded as close as possible for the picture).

(She said it was really hot out this day, but he loved the jacket so much, he wouldn’t take it off)!

Scottie and I have committed to reading at least 1 blog post from Abby every day for the next 2 weeks.  We want to be reminded every morning that there are bigger things going on in the world than we see every day in our tiny little lives.  We hope you will join us in this commitment to be inspired every day by how love can change everything.

Do you know Moriah?

If you’ve lived in AZ for very long, the answer is probably “yes”.  It seems like Moriah knows everyone!  In fact, every time we show her wedding album at a bridal show, every other girl that stops by points to her photos and says “hey, I know her!”

And to Moriah’s credit, out of all the tons of people we’ve met who know her, none have had a single bad thing to say about her!  And how could they?!  I mean she’s MORIAH… and since knowing her, that name now represents one of the most caring, friendly, loving, social, wonderful girls I’ve ever met (I’m not even exaggerating).

(doesn’t she just look like a nice person?!)

Needless to say, we feel beyond blessed that we had a chance to shoot her wedding two and a half years ago and to continue developing a relationship with this girl who treats everyone like they are the most valuable person in the world.  Who doesn’t want to be friends with someone like that right?!

It would be impossible to talk about Moriah, without mentioning her husband Wes, who treats her like the true princess she is!  Okay, I’ve reached a level of cheesiness that I’m highly uncomfortable with… I just couldn’t help it because I could gush all day about these amazing, beautiful people.

(Scottie took these awesome pics of him while I was getting shots of her.  You can’t help but notice the way he’s looking at her…  I think he loves her!)

(Once you see them you may think that when I refer to them as “beautiful people” I’m talking about them on the outside, but of course I’m referring to all the beauty that’s hiding behind those breathtaking eyes they both have)!

We’ve mentioned before that one of the best parts of our job are the people we meet along the way.  We not only gain some great friends through the time we spend with them preparing for their wedding, but we also get to follow them through all the major celebrations in their lives.

Going through the entire wedding process can be a pretty bonding experience, so then to get a chance to see these same people as they begin preparing to be parents for the first time is an opportunity that we feel very honored to have.

All that to say, we were VERY excited when Moriah called us and asked us to do her maternity photos!  You would’ve thought we couldn’t have been any more excited… and then we heard about the kind of session she wanted to have and… well she just made our week!

Her goal was to be different than most maternity sessions she sees and also different from the style of photo sessions her and Wes usually have.  They have a lot of green grass, sunny, happy pictures (aka the Christmas pictures we did for them this past year) and she thought it was appropriate since she is having a boy to go a little more rustic this time.

Her vision for the session consisted of her wearing a white dress, standing among yellow/dead looking fields and also posing in front of a few rustic looking places. Translation: A freaking cool session that fits PERFECTLY with what we like to do! :-)  Good job being ridiculously creative, Moriah!

There are a lot of open in fields around Phoenix, but the trick was to find tall, yellow grass.  It just wasn’t really happening.  Luckily, Wes and Moriah found this cool little fake Old West looking town.  We were a little skeptical when we first heard about it, but we should’ve known to trust their opinion… because it ended up being perfect.

We even got a few tall, yellow grass shots there (thanks to the teeny tiny patches that we were able to make look bigger than they actual were)!

Here are some more of our favorites from Wes and Moriah’s session…

So as always, Wes and Moriah, we had a blast with you guys and we feel so honored that you’ve allowed us into your lives and had us there to share in all the biggest moments of your lives.  We’re thankful you’ve decided to “keep us around”. :-)  Congrats on the pregnancy, we’re VERY excited for you guys and we can’t wait to meet little Camden when he gets here!

Click to see the rest of the photos from Wes & Moriah’s Scottsdale Maternity photo session

4 hours of sleep… a long day of hard work… 1 meal a day…. 3 days in a row.  What is the name of this torture?  It’s called the Phoenix Bridal Fashion Debut.   I joke about the horrors, but really I absolutely love having a booth at the bridal show (aside from the horrendous work involved in setting up/tearing down our booth), and I always have a great time doing it.

Speaking of our booth… check it out!

Our friend Amanda drew all the rectangle frames (THANK YOU AMANDA!), I drew all the oval frames, and Scottie drew the logo… all in chalk!  What teamwork!

I love nothing more than watching thousands of the happiest girls you’ve ever seen prancing through the aisles with their entourage of bridesmaids in matching t-shirts tagging along and picking up flyers from booths the bride missed along the way.  Talk about an entertaining group to people watch… and talking to them is even better! :-)  The energy in a room of 6,000 soon-to-be married girls mixed in with hundreds of hopeful vendors is unbelievable. Such a fun place to spend a weekend!

(This is Dave & Krystal.  We shot their wedding a while back and they came to be a “testimonial” to say that we do in fact shoot real couples and that they really do like us enough to come help us out later on!)

(Scottie and Breanna, aka= us.  The people behind Radiant Photography)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to stop by our booth and say hi… you all made what could have been a very difficult weekend for us, transform into a riotous good time! If you missed the January show, be sure to stop by in June… we’ll be there then too!  And what else are you going to do when it’s 115 degrees outside?!  See you then!

Ashley and Don were very excited to do their engagement pictures with us… because they almost didn’t get them!

In fact, they almost didn’t get us as their photographers at all!

We received 2 calls for the same wedding date within literally 30 seconds of each other!  Fortunately for Ashley, she called us first.

And she was not about to risk losing us for her big day, so she booked us asap without even meeting first.  When we did first meet (after she had booked us) we were excited to be able to skip all the normal meeting stuff and just jump right on in to talking about the details of their wedding and planning their engagement session!

The only real request they had for their session (other than just fitting in with their busy work schedules and being within decent driving distance from their house) was a little bit of desert landscape.

Considering we live in the Arizona, that seemed like a pretty simple request!  So we found some saguaros and a bit of wide open sky, framed by a couple of mountains and had the happy couple stand and smile in front of it all!  You can’t go wrong with such a beautiful background and a fantastic looking couple like this one! ;-)

Here are some more of our favorites from the day!

Thanks for choosing Radiant, guys.  We’re very happy that you booked us and that we get to shoot your wedding!  We’re SO looking forward to the big day!  Good luck pulling it all together! :-)

Click to see/purchase the rest of Ashley and Don’s Phoenix, AZ engagement session photos.