Studio Noveau Blog

Just wanted to share a snippet of a recent email from Kristin, my April 10th bride.  She wrote:

First of all, Luke and I (along with EVERYONE else that has seen them) love, love, love the wedding photos!!  I knew that I loved your style the first time I saw your website, and you definitely captured and delivered that style again for our wedding day.  And I am still amazed at the variety of settings you found throughout the church to use in the photos, especially the plain, little meeting room with the single window with light streaming in that you had me sit in front of…so simple, yet so dramatic…only someone with an eye for photography would have known that was going to be such a perfect spot!  Love it!!  Ben did an awesome job as well…we’re so lucky to have had both of you join us (I, too, am a fan of the fish-eye lens)!  I hope you both had a good time working with us!  Thank You so much for everything, we’re so delighted with how everything turned out!!

Thanks, Kristin and Luke!  Ben and I absolutely enjoyed sharing your day and documenting it for you.  :)  Congratulations again!

To view the original blog post, click HERE, or check out their Facebook album with over 100 images by clicking HERE.

I’ve never really been a gambler. But in spite of that, I find myself in Vegas for the third time ever this week… attending the Wedding and Portrait Photographer International (WPPI) conference. This is the mac-daddy of photography conferences, jam-packed with a solid week of trade show, seminars, meet-and-greets, and more. This year I’ll be taking three MasterClasses, attending some fun photoshoots and workshops, and even taking some time to explore some of Vegas’ finest. I’m stoked!

I’m here with my good friend Mandie of Red Gecko Studio in Madison.  (Shot above is us in action at a wedding.)  You may remember Mandie joining me in Mexico last August for Ashley and Jon’s wedding in the Riviera Maya, as well as in Green Bay for Jen and Tim’s wedding, Melanie and Joe’s wedding in Madison, … and at the more recent wedding of Beth and Dan. We love traveling and shooting together (and our poor husbands get left at home!) so stay tuned for a few fun ideas we’re hoping to bring to fruition here in Vegas. I won’t give any hints now, but we are SUPER excited to work on this project!

This upcoming week I may take a little longer than normal to respond to calls and emails, but I’ll be checking both regularly so I will definitely get back to you as soon as possible. Have a WONDERFUL week, everyone!

*Photo of Mandie and I was obviously not taken by me!  :)  Thanks, Anda.

So I’m VERY guilty of not keeping up on this blog. But in my defense, I’ll just say that the benefit to not keeping up like I should means I have fresh weddings and sessions to post during the slow months.

On that note, meet Matt and Mallory! They were married a couple months ago (I refuse to say exactly how long for fear of incriminating myself on the grounds of late blogging) in Iowa. Matt and Mallory seriously brought the awesomeness to their wedding day. They got married in a church that many members of their family were married in, and found so many fun ways to personalize their day. About half of the couples I work with choose to schedule a “First Look”, which is a private moment for the bride and groom to see each other before the ceremony. The benefit to a First Look is that you have the opportunity to take photos together before the ceremony, reducing the time needed for pictures between the ceremony and reception.

Here is their First Look… I LOVE these ones for the sheer happiness that you can just sense!

I LOVED Mallory’s shoes. I mean really, who doesn’t love a red, high heel, peep-toe, glamorous shoe?

And I love this picture of Mallory herself. She’s just radiant!

We didn’t have a lot of time to wander around town before the ceremony, so the beautiful bride and handsome groom ventured outside for just a couple fun pics before their ceremony started.

This shot of Mallory and her dad is so sweet! They saw each other in the hall, and this candid shot is the result. Doesn’t he look like a proud daddy?

Time for the ceremony!


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Next, we headed over to the college to get some wedding party photos. I loved all the brick buildings and arches!

Time for the reception!

Matt, being the thoughtful guy that he was, knew his reception was taking place during an Iowa game. Okay, it’s been a while and I don’t remember exactly what game it was… but I think it was important! So while there were regular reception things going on like cake cutting and dancing, there was also the game playing on TWO large screen tv’s at the Grinnell Country Club.

And look at this adorable little guy!

Groom’s cufflinks:

The cufflinks coordinated nicely with the newest addition to their centerpieces:

I love when everyone has so much fun with speeches:

And I also love old wedding pictures. As a wedding photographer, I’m probably biased in thinking that wedding photos are one of the most important parts of the day… since it lasts generations, and serves as a lasting reminder of the love that resulted in entire families coming together for marriages of their children. I always wonder which of the photos I take will end up on a table in 50 years at their children and grandchildren’s wedding.

Groomsman by day, Iowa fan by night



Can you see everyone in this room watching the game? Just on the other side of the wall was the dance picture above. Haha.

Matt and Mallory, I hope your last few months have been wonderful! Thanks again for letting me share such an important day with you!

Several weeks ago, I entered this photo in the Modern Photographers “Best of Wedding Day” contest.

A little background on Modern Photographers: to become a member, a photographer must apply and be judged by a panel of peers. They must uphold high standards, shoot with professional quality equipment, have full backup equipment, and more. The photographer’s style must all be considered “modern”. Earlier this year, I applied for membership and was accepted! That acceptance made me the second photographer in the state of Wisconsin to be considered a “Modern Photographer” so I was pretty excited.

Well, a few weeks ago, Modern Photographers announced a photo contest. Those of you who are Facebook fans of Studio Noveau may remember me posting about this. As I mentioned above, I submitted the photo of Ross and Amanda from their wedding in Viroqua at Pedretti Party Barn (and vineyards). Today I received an email… not only did this photo place in the top 10 of all submissions, it actually took THIRD place! Hooray!

Thanks to all my fans, family, friends, and clients who voted for me, and special thanks to Ross and Amanda for being so wonderful to work with on their wedding day!  I’m honored to have your support, and so excited to have placed third in this national contest!

Last September, Ashley called me and asked if I’d consider shooting her and Jon’s destination wedding in Mexico at the Grand Palladium Resort. I gave it a lot of thought… no, wait. I IMMEDIATELY told her that I’d love to do it! So for the last 11 months, I’ve been looking forward to this wedding. Since my hubby is in Iraq and unable to take a vacation for obvious reasons, I called up my good friend Mandie from Red Gecko Studio in Madison, and asked if she’d accompany me. Luckily she was available and we had a fabulous “girl’s getaway” for the week. So a special thanks to Mandie for joining me on this wonderful wedding. And thanks to Chris at All-Ways Travel Agency in Janesville for planning a smooth trip. What fun!

And now I present to you… Ashley and Jon, in Mexico! (And let me say that I have WAY too many photos to choose for one blog post. Heck, I have way too many good ones for 5 posts! So I’ll try to condense it to two posts.)

One nice thing about having two photographers was that we were able to split up. Mandie joined the guys and I stayed with the girls. I loved Ashley’s dress and flowers:

And it was so fun that all the girls were getting ready together. Back in the states, I often don’t arrive till the bride is nearly done getting ready.

Ceremony… total awesomeness. There were these amazing, gorgeous clouds above us. It was so dramatic for a backdrop! Luckily, the rain held off until after the ceremony.

Ashley is super attached to their dog, Gizma. In fact, Gizma even had her own seat down in Mexico even though she was still in Wisconsin. It was complete with pictures, and everything. This is actually Ashley missing Gizma right after the ceremony… too cute!

I love this next one:

We had a few moments of light sprinkles while we frantically tried to take some quick family photos. And then… well, and then it started pouring. Buckets. Cats and dogs. (Or gatos and perros if you are in Mexico.) We’re not talking a nice, cooling rain. We’re talking about the kind of rain that is so pouring hard that we wondered how we were going to make it from the wedding gazebo to the shelter of the nearby beach bar. I’d like to give special thanks to the groomsmen and guests who helped shield my cameras (and me!) from the rain by holding trash bags over my head. You guys are troopers. You rock.

This is our “We don’t care that it’s raining because Ashley and Jon just got MARRIED!” photo.

They had a nice dinner on the resort as a precursor to their “real” reception held in Janesville a few weeks after their wedding. This was a nice dinner, complete with a delicious cake, touching speeches, and of course, wedding tequila. Is there such a thing as wedding tequila? Well, there is now. I think I made it up, but if it really exists, someone should please let me know!

See?
Wedding Tequila. Told ya. It looks prettier than it tastes. Not that I would know… it’s what they tell me!

The Wedding rings. They also look prettier than they taste. Once again, not that I would know.

I. LOVE. THIS. SHOT. It took about 50 attempts to capture, but this is their wedding dinner venue with (are you ready for this?) honest-to-goodness lightning in the background. Please keep in mind it was pitch black unless the lightning was striking, so I’m pretty proud of this one!

For the sake of the length of this already-too-long post, I’m going to continue it later with a second post of their formal and Trash the Dress pictures, a few behind-the-scenes, and a few from their reception in Janesville. So check back soon for some of my favorites of this wedding!

Make sure to leave a comment below!  Please let me know what you think of the pictures or leave a message for Ashley and Jon! As always, more images can be found on Facebook if you search for “Studio Noveau Photography”.

Good morning everyone!

As I write this from the hotel lobby of Grand Palladium White Sands in Mexico, I wanted to give you all a little sneak peak of what I’ve been up to the last week… more to come later!