This is Kari, she’s a very talented, super nice and professional Make-up artist. Hope went straight outside into the blustery storm at Salish Lodge right after her make-up was applied. Not only did it last the weather but Hope looked incredible all night!

It was a pleasure working with Kari. We met for lunch the other day and she’s so super nice and full of life. You should hire her for your wedding or as photographers you should suggest Kari to your brides. You will not regret it!

Keri Strong
425.891.3795
[email protected]

What does crystal, mignons, leather and ribbons have in common? They’re the perfect combination to a collection of treasures we have to offer our clients.
The grey one is Cowhide with a Crystal Glance insert. We here in the states call it leather but our album company from Italy calls it “cowhide”. It’s gorgeous and comes in more colors than you can imagine! (Now I’m picturing fields full of Italian cows in all sorts of colors.) The dimensions are 12×8.
The ivory album we have on display at Newcastle Golf Club. It’s made with Nappa Leather, the softest leather I have ever felt. It’s ah-mazing! The ivory album is 13×10.
The black and white album is our Crystal Glance style. The spine and back are leatherette.
The tiny albums in a stack with cute little white bows are called Mignons…they’re mini albums! Everyone LOVES mini albums! They’re page for page the exact same as the big album they are duplicated from. They’re fun to carry in your purse and share with friends or mail to family or give to wedding attendants.
Did you notice our personalized Hildebrand Photography ribbon? That’s another thing I love. 1f609

This is Rani and Simon. Rani is so sweet. She called me to ask for photos of her and her husband at Willows Lodge in Woodinville for his birthday. They have many photos of their beautiful children and decided it’s now their turn. I think it’s a wonderful idea. One that every couple should do every so often to remind themselves of how great they are together.

I had a wonderful time and I think they did too. They’re a beautiful couple who are so obviously still very much in love.

We have been published yet again!

This time it’s different though because we are being recognized by fellow professional photographers in the wildly popular Shutter Magazine!

We are pleased to announce that our “Twilight in San Francisco” engagement session at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre has been accepted into the “Inspirations” article. It’s truly an honor to not only be published but to have a full page spread!

Three Cheers for Hildebrand Photography and our beautiful engaged couple, Emily and Matt!

sanfransal

Prints in one box and an album in another. The BIG prints (not shown here) are in my car ready to go to their new home. I can’t wait to get these to Lenore and Tyler. Just in time for Thanksgiving!

The album is for Sanni and Daniel. We tracked her down at the grocery store deliver hers to her. I actually rounded the corner and almost ran straight into her grocery cart full of Thanksgiving food and her sweet little kiddos in tow. It was a fun surprise with a big hello and big hugs! She had a lot going on so I handed off her album and said goodbye. Here’s what she wrote to me later tonight.
“Thank you guys so much!!!! The album is amazing!!! I cried all over again. You guys rock!”

albums

Yes, the busy season for weddings in the Seattle area has past but that doesn’t mean our work is done. We’ve been very busy making albums and look at the shipment that just arrived from our album making company, Graphi Studios, in Italy! This stack of boxes is the fruits of our labor. 5 packages full of memories, the culmination of 5 weddings which means a year long relationship with the brides and grooms, engagement sessions in Seattle at the arboretum, cheersing over wine, reviewing day-of-schedules, hugging nervous moms and dads, meeting family members, making silly faces at toddlers and soothing crying babies during family photos and trying to memorize names of entire wedding parties, setting up posing and lighting on lakes and in dark churches with beautiful stained glass, taking photos on golf courses with amazing views and in unexpected brand new Ferrari’s with a crowd of people gathered around, 2 photographers, 1 assistant, 4 cameras, 6 speed lights and a lot of batteries, remembering every shot you wanted to get…something old, new, borrowed, blue, first look, dad and bride before the aisle walk, “I-do, first kiss, sunset photo, mom tearing up, dad’s look of pride, grandma and grandpa dancing…and a partridge in a pear tree! 1f609

I love stepping into a “day in the life” of a couple and all the joy that surrounds them and all of their guests on that special day. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, details and moments. Then to be able to create an album that represents all of that amazingness in one book and present to share with their family for generations to come is a feeling of pride and accomplishment that I will always love.

Erin’s 40th birthday party was the best! The theme was “Break it Out” which meant you could wear anything in your closet that you want. Any crazy 80s band shirt with parachute pants you miss so much, your purple ball gown with big puffy sleeves and sequins that you miss desperately, or your smoking jacket…the sky is the limit! This group loves a good theme and adheres to it completely for every themed event, Erin’s party not excluded.
There were fairies challenging people to games involving potatoes, balloons, noodles and balloons where the winners received the coveted bracelets and the losers adorned beautiful party accessories like paper hats, horns and feather boas.
Erin got to use her skills as a scissor wielding wardrobe consultant to Emily’s purple dress.
The poker table was hot with scheming and plotting.
The photo booth was never a dull moment.
Fun was had by all! Happy 40th Birthday sweet lady!

Special thanks to Vanilla Bean Bakery for the delicious desserts!

This weekend was great fun. I got a call out of the blue from a couple who wanted photos of the two of them for her husband’s birthday. They’ve been married 10 years. They have 4 young kids. They decided to live it up for his birthday and spend the night at Willows Lodge with a dinner at Barking Frog topped off with couple photos of the two of them in the lobby and bar of Willows Lodge. It was beautiful. I was so proud of them. I would love to do that all of the time. If you think about it how many times do you really have professional photos taken of yourself in your life? After high school senior photos it’s your wedding then family photos. We all have many photos of our kids as did they but how romantic of them to have photos of each other to cherish and renew their love for each other. It’s something all couples should do for special occasions or just for no reason at all but to surprise your loved one. They held each other and giggled and hugged and walked hand in hand. I could see that he adored her and she him just as much as on their wedding day. It was truly an honor to capture images of their love for such a sweet couple.

I left straight from Willows Lodge full of people, drinks, live music a big roaring fire. Into the cold and dark I drove past farms and wineries in the crisp air to a beautiful house for a 40th birthday party for another wonderful person, Erin. It was a crazy, silly fun group of people all dressed wild and laughing loudly all night long. I set up my photo booth then ran back and forth between action party candids and the booth. I ate homemade chili and vodka with fresh berries floating in it, perfect on a chili night ;). I took family photos, pictures of Erin altering Emily’s purple floor length dress into a mini skirt of sorts, everyone singing Happy Birthday in their best Marilyn Monroe voice with the lights dimmed and my iso cranked to capture the glow of the candle from her cake in her eyes.
I captured artistic photos of pool table balls arranged in her birthday date 11-12-13. Took photos around the table at a heated poker game. Got my photo taken with the beautiful birthday girl with her feather boa, packed it up and said good night.
I felt a bit like The Cat in the Hat. I rolled up my bag of tricks and headed down the road.
Once home I slept like a rock.

Woke up to coffee, pancakes and an itinerary that included swimming with my family, spaghetti dinner out and a trip to the mall to use a gift card at an accessory store full of many shiny, colorful goodies for kids.
I’ll put in an hour of work now then straight to bed at 9pm as I can barely now just keep my eyes open.

Just another day in the life of a Seattle wedding photographer.

Good night. 1f609
Dawn

Here are photos from our off camera lighting class. It was fabulous…a really great group of people!
Yes, I was wearing rubber rain boots. I love my boots! I just came from a really intense play-off soccer game that went into two overtimes then ended in a shoot out (or whatever they call the goal kicks…no violence involved, thank gosh ;). I also look like I’m dancing the Hula. I’m not but if anyone wants to learn I can bring my mom to the next class. Yes, my mom is native to the Seattle area but can hula with the best of them. Aloha Mom!

Special thanks to Monte Villa Farmhouse located in Bothell, WA. Their venue is amazing. It’s beautiful, elegant, charming and the staff was very professional and welcoming. It’s a perfect place to get married or have an event. Many thanks to them for allowing us to have our Off-Camera Lighting Class there.

Monte Villa Farmhouse
www.eventvenuesofwa.com
(888) 759-9887

Thank you to Alyssa Stringer for her gorgeous, happy, natural modeling abilities and to her friend for doing her hair and make-up. Photos of Alyssa from the class coming soon!
Thank you Kendall Lauren Shea Nielsen for booking the venue for us! Check out her beautiful photos at: www.kendalllauren.com
And, of course, thank you to everyone for joining us in our class. We loved sharing, teaching, making new friends with all of you! We look forward to our next class! (Details on that coming soon…maybe it’ll be in our new studio!)

Help Hildebrand Photography House Hunt! We decided that we needed a more permanent place for meeting with clients. We have two favorite “go-to” places but they can be tricky as to whether they are available or not. It’s also more work for us to cart around everything we need for each meeting plus deciding where to meet and if there’s parking or if it’s too loud to hear each other is all a challenge. We’d like a place for our business to call home. A place where we can decorate it stylish and comfortable, we can keep all of our wedding albums there in one place and where we can display our artwork on the walls. I’d love for clients to be able to visualize a 24×36 metal print on hanging on their wall by walking up and enjoying the looks of it on our walls.

So, we’ve been dreaming about this for about a year now. Until recently it was just small talk. Now we are actually touring spaces for lease and talking numbers with landlords. It turns out that there aren’t a lot of places as small as we would need. Really, we are looking for a nice front room to lease. So, we decided that if we are going bigger anyway (which means more money out in rent) then we might as well get a space large enough to be able to photograph in. Now we’re talking! Now we can hold classes here, rent it out to other photographers, have open house events etc. We can get really creative with our photos and not have to worry about the rain and mud and sleet…oh my gosh, can you imagine it?! Now we are really getting excited!

So, the photos below are a sample of what we have toured. It’s a bit tricky to find the right space. Brandon really has a vision. I’m only seeing strange spaces. I think I’ll choose to let him lead on this one since he’s seeing amazing things. I had a vision when we bought our house and he let me run with it so now it’s his turn.

There is one in the line-up of photos below that we are very close to choosing. I’ll let you try to figure out which one that is.

I keep thinking that since we are wedding photographers we should be slowing down this time of year. It is November after all and not exactly prime wedding season around here. Never the less, here’s our schedule for tomorrow which is almost an exact duplicate of last weekend. Lets just hope the power doesn’t go out this weekend! 1f642

Early morning soccer playoff game
Teach a 3 hour off-camera lighting class
Another soccer game if we win first game
Soccer end of season party
Shoot dinner and a show event (really excited about having a gourmet dinner!)

What a day! Time for sleep now.

Good night,
Dawn

The Scariest Anniversary Party We’ve Ever Photographed but the coolest Anniversary party we’ve ever been to! 1f642
This party was fun had by all from start to finish. Bee and Jason and her mom, Kim, and everyone who helped went all out for this party and it showed. Just look at all of the crazy real decorations! The costumes are incredible and Willows Lodge was as impressive as ever! Here are a ton of photos for you to enjoy! Let’s hope they have another anniversary party coming up real soon…so much fun!