Cody and Liz are getting married in Madison in October, but I was SO excited when they said they wanted their engagement photos in Prairie Du Chien. Not only is Prairie Du Chien only a 30 minute drive from my house, it has some seriously amazing locations for photos. Ah-mazing. Really. Check ‘em out:

PDC has some of the coolest historic buildings!

Here are a few of my favorites:

They were so cute: anytime they walked anywhere, Katie would reach over and rub Eric’s back, or he’d give her funny little looks that would make her crack up.

This last one was just a pretty shot I grabbed before leaving Olbrich.

Seriously, how cute are Rachel and Dave? I loved meeting up with them downtown Madison for their engagement photos in May! But I have to admit, I’m even more excited for their winery wedding in Door County in a few weeks!

Love this next one!

I love reflective windows!

Pretend these next four are in a little story board:
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Andy and Elona were married at Devil’s Head Resort in Merrimac, WI on May 22nd. Devil’s Head is near the Wisconsin Dells and is actually a ski resort in the winter, but during the spring and summer it’s a gorgeous site for an outdoor ceremony! They also held their reception at the same site. Since I’m sooooo behind on blogging, I’m going to just post a few of my favorites, but this in no way takes away from the fact that this wedding was a casual, fun day with some great people!

Special thanks to Carla for tagging along and acting as second shooter for the day.

How is this for a bride and groom portrait?  :)  Fun, huh?

This next one is probably my favorite from the whole day.  Andy looks so happy and Elona is so relaxed!

I love these next three in the series from their reception. Elona’s grandfather was giving a very lovely speech. (You’ll see him again in a photo, dancing with his wife.)

This next one is fun, too. After the maid of honor, Willow, gave her speech, she realized she broke her promise not to cry. Fun fact: Willow will be getting married in 2011 and I’m proud to be the photographer for her wedding, too! AND I’m the photographer for Willow and Elona’s mother who will be getting married in just a few weeks!

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but community giving is VERY important to me, and volunteering/charitable giving ranks up there in my list of priorities. With that in mind, I know that our food pantries struggle with keeping their shelves stocked. To go a step further, I have a huge soft spot for kids and it occurs to me that kids of families that frequent food pantries may not always have a birthday cake or fresh fruit (my personal favorite!) When the typical donations are canned or boxed foods, there seems to be a lack of both birthday cake mixes and fresh food given out at a typical food pantry.

So, I’d like to announce Cake For Comments!

Please leave a comment on THIS blog post, telling me something you appreciate about my business, a memory you have of me, or even a favorite picture. Basically, make me smile!

For every comment I receive, I’ll donate a cake mix, frosting, OR $1 towards the Crawford County Markets Care program. (This program allows local food pantry customers to obtain fresh goods from the local farmers market. For more information on how YOU can contribute to this extremely important non-profit endeavor covering many counties in southern Wisconsin, please click HERE or contact me.)

So… please help me help the local food pantry… leave comments!

So, I’d like to assure you that there is lots of blog awesomeness on the way, including four weddings, several engagement sessions, and one Rock The Dress session. Whew! If you’d like to see a little bit of what’s been going on, please make sure to swing by the Studio Noveau Facebook page where I post sneak peaks of every wedding/session I shoot. You can check that page out by clicking HERE. The fan page is almost to 600 fans, and when we hit 600 I’ll be doing another giveaway!

Lastly, more big news. Did you see the new Studio Noveau website? It was launched yesterday and is SO great that you MUST check it out. Right now. You can view it at www.studionoveau.com.

Check back soon for the latest and greatest… and have a great day!

-Rebecca

Recently, I had the honor of driving down to Des Moines for Bridget and Kyle’s tastefully elegant wedding. And, as many of you know, my husband Ben was acting as my second shooter and joined me on this trip! This wedding was especially fun for me in several ways in addition to Ben shooting with me. A little history on Bridget and Kyle is that they met on Facebook through mutual friends, and much of their early communication was done in person and on Facebook. So when Bridget found me on Facebook, we all thought it was fun that they decided to choose Studio Noveau as their wedding photographer.

My day started at Bridget and Kyle’s condo, where the girls were getting ready. Bridget planned ahead to reserve the beautiful community room in the building. With floor to ceiling windows, this room was gorgeous, uncluttered, and had simply amazing light. Future clients, please take note. This combination makes for gorgeous, relaxed pictures! I loved Bridget’s {blue} shoes and her dress.  Maybe I’m kinda partial to Pronovias dresses because my own wedding dress was by designer Pronovias.  Bridget also wore pearls (so did I!) so I couldn’t help but love her entire bridal attire!

Did I mention she was a radiant bride?  Just look at that smile!

I love this moment with Kyle and his mom!  And I also loved the curvy wall above, located in their church.  Of course we had to grab a quick portrait there!  Their church was the amazing St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in West Des Moines.

Their first look was one of the sweetest I’ve EVER seen!

These next two were taken by Ben.

How cute is this one!  By the time Kyle got Bridget and all her layers into the car, it was such a cute picture that I had to jump out of my car, run over to theirs, and grab this photo.  :)

Off to the Rose Garden, the location where Bridget & Kyle got engaged.  As such a meaningful spot, they knew all along that they wanted photos taken there.  And with the fun architectural pieces, the amazing light, and all the green vegetation around, I was one happy girl!

Ben took these next three.  Apparently Kyle likes golf.  (Isn’t that a requirement for doctors?)

After the Rose Garden, we had one more fun stop.  Their reception was at the historic and beautiful Hotel Savery in downtown Des Moines.  Kyle and Bridget rented the penthouse for a small pre-party for their parents and wedding party during the cocktail hour.   We were able to grab some fun shots up there on the roof that had great views of the capitol building and other cool things.  This post is already getting super long so I’m only going to post a couple, but there were so many great shots!

Reception:

Bridget and Kyle, congratulations! Thank you for allowing Ben and I to share such an important day. I’m looking forward to your Rock the Dress session in June!

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.

Then it was going to thunderstorm.

Then it was *maybe* going to rain.

SO… we ultimately decided we’d just keep Tricia and Dustin’s engagement session scheduled, rather than try to reschedule.  And, of course, the weather was AWESOME!  I love when things work out.  :)  And here are just a few of the photos from their session in Viroqua!  (Let me point out, dear readers… I am trying desperately to keep up on blogging in a timely fashion.  It’s one of my 2010 goals!)

Tricia and Dustin, I’m looking forward to your wedding in La Crosse soon!  I had a blast working with you guys!

Anyway, meet Casey and Zach. These guys rock. They were having a heck of a time deciding between a winter and spring engagement session, so we decided to do BOTH! Yes, we divided their session up into two mini-sessions so they could get the best of both worlds. (If you are a client of mine and interested in the same, please inquire for details!)

What I loved about this session was that we were able to try some SUPER fun locations that were very off-the-beaten-path. After all, you may not always get to be adventurous with photos on your wedding day, so why not make it a goal for your engagement session? I loved this location with all the crates!

Casey REALLY wanted photos with this old sleigh. I was a bit skeptical at first, but after her “crew” showed up to help us move it (thanks to her dad and brother!), I could see how cute it would be. Don’t you love it?

And I LOVE this grove of trees. And how Casey and Zach really just “pop” because of the muted background colors.