A New Kind of Ice Cream

Last week following the monthly Association of Bridal Consultants luncheon I had a chance to taste some great ice cream. Pure Magic Ice Cream setup one of their ice cream bars in the back of the room at the Rosen Centre.

Pure Magic makes all sorts of ice cream flavors for your wedding guests right in front of them with the help of liquid nitrogen. It's a great and entertaining feature to have at your wedding. I mean who doesn't like ice cream. Well yeah you're right those who are lactose intolerant but other than them most love ice cream.

Pure Magic starts with cream in a metal mixing bowl and adds ingredients to make the flavor you want. Then they flash freeze the mix with liquid nitrogen and mix the concoction until it is ready to serve in a bowl. What's really cool is watching Pure Magic mix the ice cream in front our your guests and seeing the clouds of vapor from the liquid nitrogen roll off the bowl. Looks like a scene from an old mad scientist movie. The difference is what's left is yummy.

Pure Magic can make all sorts of different flavors of ice cream. From vanilla key lime pie to chocolate brownie they can mix and match what you want. And they can even add in extras to the ice cream like Kahlua or rum for ice cream like you've never had.

I think it would be a cool (yes pun intended) idea to have at any wedding or function especially in hot Florida.

Redesigned Business Cards Are In

They're in! It may not be exciting to you but it is to us. We redesigned our business cards and had them delivered this week. It's been a few years since we last had cards printed and this was a chance for us to freshen up the brand.

The old cards didn't have a photo on them. They were very professional-looking but I made the decision to not include a picture for the reason that it might date the card. This time around though I felt I need to have an example of my style to help a bride remember me better after our consultation.

So a couple of weeks ago I sat down at my iMac and started to search for a picture that exemplified my documentary approach to wedding photography. Another aspect the image needed was to have attractive people. I needed to keep in mind that I needed an image that was an easy read. Due to a business card's size I needed an image that was absent of extraneous compositional elements. So off I went to search my archive for that magic picture.

Let me tell you it's not an easy task to edit to one image that will brand your business for years to come. Some images were great but needed size in order to appreciate it's grandeur. Others just didn't quite fit my style. Then going through images I shot during my best friend Robert's wedding I found it. I remember when I shot it thinking it was a great moment of Angela and Robert on their day. They had a sincere look of love for one another in their eyes. They also looked like they were letting out a sigh of relief. I thought it showed what almost every bride feels about their wedding day... complete exhaustion and exhilaration all at once. This was it. This image captured my style of unobtrusive and "shoot it as it happens" photography.

The next step was designing the card. I chose to use the FedEx Office website to design and print my new cards. Being that I am the primary caregiver of my 2-year-old son I needed a way of getting the cards designed and ordered from my home office during nap time. I have to admit the FedEx website for ordering business cards could use a little help from my friends over at Apple but the end product is fantastic. I was able to create the front side in Photoshop and upload it to their site. Then fill in the details for the back of the card before completing my order. They have some nice options for small businesses which I liked and the fact that my cards arrived within 5 days was a nice finish.

I can't wait to hand out these new cards at tomorrow's Central Florida Association of Bridal Consultants luncheon. Let you know how it goes.

Small Weddings are Special

A few years ago I shot a friend's wedding where there were only three witnesses and we had to be mindful of the tidal changes. Sounds interesting doesn't it?

Stephanie and Brian told me about their wedding plans and had me hooked when they told me they were going to say their vows on "disappearing" Key a few miles off the coast of Key West. They were only going to have two friends attend and along with me would be the only witnesses. I couldn't wait.

I took the first flight to Key West so that I would have the entire day to document the day. All weddings are special and hold many sentimental meanings by their very nature. But when you have to take boats out to a sandbar that barely keeps the six people standing on it dry it's a different kind of special.

My job wasn't any easier. In fact in some ways it created more pressure because my images would be the ones to tell the story to everyone that wasn't on that tiny Key. Not to mention I had to make sure my cameras didn't go for a swim.

It was a fabulous 20 hours I spent in Key West. It was filled with a lot of smiles, laughter and love. I consider Stephanie and Brian's wedding the most unique wedding I've ever photographed.

So when a bride tells me they're having a small wedding I always tell them I've probably photographed a smaller one.