2010 Best of Weddings

Check it out! It's the Best of Weddings 2010 Slideshow!!!!! :) Leave some love in the comments!

And we're getting back to normal!

Wow, what a ride it has been folks! We are finally almost finished editing the remaining few weddings from 2010, and we'll be catching up on some long overdue blog posts next. Stay tuned to the blog for more updates, new posts, and hopefully our 2010 Best Of Slideshow! There's still a lot for us to do even though it's the slow season!

Quick Updates!

If you haven't been following our latest on our Facebook page I wanted to relay some information to all of our blog followers. Last Sunday, October 3rd, my grandfather passed away after a lengthy illness. During the last couple weeks I have been splitting my time between photographing weddings, seniors, and engagements and traveling down to Bellevue to be with my family. Last week we had to cancel several photo sessions, and I am working on getting them rescheduled. Obviously our editing turnaround has increased during this time period, but we are quickly working to get back on track. Your continued patience and understanding is greatly appreciated, and if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to e-mail us.

I will post blogs as soon as we're finished editing, however we will probably forgo assembling slideshows for the weddings until we are completely caught up. Again, your patience is appreciated, and I want to thank all of you who have sent us your condolences.

Facebook Fun!

Although I am behind on my blogging, you can still catch up on the latest and greatest that Everlasting Images is doing by following us on Facebook! You'll be able to see teaser pics, insights, and behind the scenes stuff that we normally don't blog. We'll also post your gallery links there prior to posting your blog, so it is beneficial to sign up! We also regularly run special offers such as print and session discounts. Don't miss out! Click Like today!

Our Facebook Page

Share your Blog Post On Facebook!

Blogger has now made it easier for you to share your slideshows and images with your friends on Facebook. At the end of every post, you'll see a bar that contains sharing options, just click the Facebook button and post to your hearts content! :)

It's Been a Long Time!

Well, now that the dark days of winter have passed us by and spring is in the air, we are extremely excited to get the 2010 wedding season underway! As April approaches, I wanted to remind everyone that now is the time to get your engagement sessions scheduled! We have 30 wonderful clients on the books for this year, and I want to personally ensure that everyone gets the highest quality service from us as possible.

I also wanted to share a customer testimonial with everyone from Laura and Thaylin, who we photographed last year. They were an awesome couple to work with, and the venue was incredible. I mean, the Detroit Metro Airport is just so cool to work with. Anyways, here are their kind words:

Planning a wedding from out of town is a difficult process. It's hard to get a good feel for a company if you aren't able to meet face to face. However, after seeing the quality and composition of the images on their website we emailed Everlasting Images. They were incredibly fast to respond and very excited to help us plan the best photo shoot possible for our wedding. Once the big day rolled around, Sam and Nicole arrived early, and quickly set to get shots of all of us getting ready. By the time we met with them they had already scoped out the area and had found surprising places that made full use of the venue. Throughout the entire process we never found them to be intrusive, quite the opposite in fact. They were like photo ninjas jumping around unnoticed, getting pictures from all angles. Even while all of the photos were primarily editorial, they still managed to get the standard family shots as well. Looking back on this day, there's not a single picture that we wish had been taken. Everything was covered and every person that sees the photos are amazed and think they look magazine quality.

We, as well as everyone involved in the wedding, has recommended them to everyone we know getting married. Even here in New York we refer them, letting our friends know that Everlasting Images is well worth every penny to bring them out.

From Laura and Thaylin

So with that, here is to an awesome 2010! We look forward to working with all of you. I'm going to be a blogging fool here in the next day or so, we've got a great wedding and an awesome engagement session to post!

We need a few of our clients to help us out!

We are hunting down some "Beta Testers" for a new service that we plan on implementing in full force for all of our 2011 clients.

We plan on launching individual customized websites for each of our clients, these sites will contain photos of you guys, details about your wedding, a thank you note for your guests, and will look something like this:







These sites are going to rock and we'll be able to do some pretty cool stuff with them as well, like tag you through Facebook directly from the site putting it directly into your feed so all of your friends and family can see and access it. We'll be able to update the galleries with your engagement pictures, link to your proof gallery, host your slideshow, and also post your favorite wedding images, and the best thing is..... it's all going to be free!

But first we need to work out the system kinks and work on the technical aspect of this project, so we need some volunteers to lead the way! If you're booked with us for 2010 and are interested in helping us out just shoot us an e-mail! We'll have a questionnaire for you to fill out so we can get your basic info on the site, but overall it should be a painless process. If you're interested in viewing the sample site just visit:

http://sample.everlastingimages.biz

Best of 2009!

2009 was another fantastic year for us, offering up lots of travel and lots of cool shooting locations. Along the way, we had the chance to work with with wonderful couples on the biggest day of their lives as well as a variety of awesome vendors who made the day possible. Each of the images in this slideshow represents someone's story, and it was an honor to be a part of it. So, check it out! :)

News!!! :)

Well now that the end of the season is here, I actually have a chance to work on the back end projects that get put off during the season. I have just finished adding an availability section to the website, you can view it right HERE, it's my goal to turn this into an all in one solution for booking new clients over the web, but for right now it serves its primary purpose.

We've also got new products being added to the lineup for next season, if you're a previous client some of these items have already been added to the shopping cart system and can be viewed under the "custom products" category of your Zenfolio shopping cart.

We're also going to be adding custom websites for our clients, with these sites you'll be able to provide your guests with a central hub for your wedding information, including times, places, where you're registered, and a personal thank you. We'll also be able to post your favorite engagement and wedding photos on the site for you in a personalized gallery. You can view a quick sample I threw together HERE.

Stay tuned to the blog as well, because I've got a few posts coming up including a rocking engagement session, a rocking rock band, and some personal stuff, as well as out Best of 2009 slideshows!

2010 Availability

I'll be adding on an availability section soon to our website that will update our availability in real time. We have had a lot of inquiries as of late so I figured I would post our 2010 availability. We have a lot of contracts out for some of our available dates so if you are absolutely certain that you want to book us, we highly recommend that you send in your retainer as soon as possible.


THE FOLLOWING DATES ARE BOOKED:

January 9th

March 20th

April 17th

May 22nd

May 29th

June 12th

June 26th

July 16th

July 17th

July 24th

August 7th

August 21st

August 28th

September 4th

September 18th

September 25th

October 2nd

October 9th

October 16th

October 23rd

October 30th

November 6th

November 20th



Again, those are the dates that we currently have booked as of 11/24/09. If your date is not listed and you are considering us as your photographer, we highly recommend that you contact us.

New Products and Features!

We've added a couple of product options for everyone to help make ordering easier, and we'll be adding additional product in the future. Right now we have streamlined the ordering process for your digital files, if you wish to purchase the digital files from your engagement session, trash the dress session, or family portrait session you just need to perform the following steps:












It's that simple! I just wanted to let everyone know that this option is now available. We'll be adding a whole bunch of custom products in the future, including albums and proofing options!

Schedule your Fall Family Mini-Session!

Mark October 18th on your calender everybody! We're going to be out at MacQueen's orchard for a day long marathon photo session. Our session fee will only be $25.00! Bring yourself, your boyfriend, your husband, your pet, your kids, your whole family! Each session block runs for 30 minutes, and your images will be uploaded to our gallery for easy viewing, ordering, and sharing. Session times are limited, so if you're interested in a session just shoot us an e-mail! Wear your best fall colors and we'll see you in the pumpkin patch!

We need E-mail Updates.

On July 10th we suffered a major hard drive failure on one of our primary computers. We take extreme steps to avoid the loss of any client images, and thankfully those preventative measures prevented us from losing any photos. However, our entire e-mail database was wiped out. We only have e-mails on file from July 1st forward.

If you have been in recent e-mail contact with us or you are a current or past client please e-mail us at contact@everlastingimages.biz with our most recent e-mail chain of communications so we are back on track. We apologize for the inconvenience and we have already taken steps to prevent this from ever happening in the future.

This only highlights the importance of ensuring that the photographer you choose to hire for your wedding is taking steps to protect the images that they capture. If it was not for our versatile and solid plan of action to protect our client images, we would have had no warning or ability to save the files. Hard Drives can fail suddenly and without warning, which is why all of our client files always exist in more than one location at a time during the editing process. Once the event is edited, we backup the edited event in two additional locations as well as off site storage.

New Website Coming!

UPDATE: As of 06/29/09 our new website is being set up to go live. We will not have e-mail access once this switch occurs. During the transition we have setup a temporary e-mail account for you to reach us: everlasting.images.oh@gmail.com

You can also call us at: 419-481-0833


Alright everyone, we are currently knee deep in transitioning over to our new website. We are no longer hosting our website through bludomain, which means that all of our sideshows are going to be down until we have transitioned to our new server. We will have to physically upload every slide show we have assembled, which will take some time, so we will begin with the most recent posts and work our way backwards. Do not panic though if our blog/site is running slow or not responding. If you guys need to reach us, please contact us directly at 419-481-0833. During this transition our e-mail will be non-responsive.

New Promo Slideshow!

Introducing - The Rainy Day Guarantee

At Everlasting Images we are constantly looking for ways to help improve our service and add value to your wedding package, and we are proud to announce the Rainy Day Guarantee.

You've been planning for months, and the big day is here. Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating and we cannot get to your outdoor photo locations due to a torrential downpour. Even though we are fully equipped to shoot in inclement weather, we understand that you probably do not want to be sopping wet when you're walking down the aisle. Most studios would do the best job they could with what they had available, but we take it a step farther. Everlasting Images is the first and only studio to offer a free post-bridal photo session to any client who may encounter this scenario on their wedding day.

The Rainy Day Guarantee allows for our clients to get the images that couldn't be captured due to inclement weather. The post-bridal session is completely free and includes the same proofing options that are included with your package, including digital files on disk, online proofing, etc.

There are some restrictions and limitations regarding this guarantee, and any clients who have already signed a contract with us will need to download and return the contract addendum. All of the information is posted HERE.

The Rainy Day Guarantee, just another way we give you peace of mind on your wedding day, because the weather should be the least of your concerns.

Katie Plays In The Rain!

*All Still Images Will Be Posted HERE*

So the story of this shoot began with an idea. Last week Noelle from Remembering the Day Photography and myself decided to traipse around downtown Toledo hunting for new shoot locations. One of our first stops was to check out the Amtrak station downtown. This location doesn't look like it has changed much since 1950, and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if we got a bride to do a Trash the Dress shoot here, with a 1940's spin on it."

Well from there, things took off. I contacted one of our brides from last year, Katie, and asked if she would be interested in this type of shoot. She immediately jumped on the opportunity. So my next task was to coordinate hair and makeup. Thankfully I knew someone, KD Alexander's. Teresa was very excited to have the chance to do something fun and funky for us, and they did an amazing job putting the finishing touches onto our photo session.

The next thing I needed was a sweet veil. Birdcage veils were extremely popular in the 40's, so I threw an alchemy request up on Etsy to see if anyone wanted to put something together for me. After several bids I fell in love with the work of Cindy Boggs, a custom veil designer. She knew exactly what we wanted, and put it together all on very short notice. I would highly recommend her to any prospective brides looking for a unique veil to top off that amazing gown.

Now I had to tie everything together with props, so I hit Craigslist. This is such an awesome resource as I was able to track down some cool vintage luggage for $10.00.

By the time I had everything nailed down, the bright sunny forecast for our scheduled shoot date had changed to cold and rainy. Fortunately, I love a good challenge and looked at this as an opportunity to try some things that I couldn't do on a warm sunny day. I headed out to the Maumee Antique Mall where I found an awesome vintage Umbrella for another $10.00 and I was good to go.

The only thing we weren't able to line up was at Snook's Dreamcars down in BG. We were planning on using their 1940 Packard Convertible as a prop, but unfortunately they don't like to take their toys out in the rain, not that I can blame them. I do want to give them a shoutout though because they were quick to respond to our requests and were extremely easy to work with.

I also headed over to our local Best Buy and purchased a small Hard Drive Camcorder. I have been wanting to play with video for a very long time, and this shoot was the perfect opportunity to see what we could do with it. The Fusion concept is a rapidly growing trend in Photography, especially as more SLR's gain the capability of shooting video. Understand, I have absolutely no desire to become a videographer, but the ability to merge short clips of video with awesome still images brings a new dimension to what we can offer our clients.

So below is our first attempt at a Fusion presentation, comments are welcome. It's not perfect by any means, but I am pretty proud of how it turned out. If anyone is interested in adding this option to their wedding package, please let me know. And with that VOILA! (Keep in mind that this is a low resolution video for web)





The Recipe for the session:

Hair and Makeup: KD Alexander's Perrysburg

Veil Provided By: C.R. Boggs Designs, Rhododendron OR

Props Provided By: Maumee Antique Mall, Craigslist

Locations: Toledo Amtrak Station, Crowne Plaza Aqua Bar, Fun Little Back Alley

Crew: Noelle Schumer (Photographer) Sam Adams (Photographer) Benjamin Adams (Video)

KD Alexander's , Before and After Session! - Toledo Commercial Photographer -

Yesterday we had an awesome time covering the before and after session's that Teresa from KD Alexander's organized. We had 20 wonderful volunteers participate in the event, and the end results were amazing. I'd like to thank the entire staff of KD Alexander's for providing us with such a wonderful opportunity, and I would also like to thank all of the models for being so patient. We got a ton of great images to share, so feel free to click HERE and browse through the images. A couple of my favorites are posted below!

Spring Print Sale!

With spring in the air we happily announce our spring print sale! Right now save 15% on all of your print orders through Zenfolio. Just login to your event and use promo code: springin09 at checkout! The sale runs through March 31st, so order now!

Fun News!

We got an exciting e-mail today from Teresa over at KD Alexander's, it turns out some of the images that we shot for the salon ended up in an upcoming commercial. :) Special thanks to Channel 24 for the clip!