Today is Sunday and there’s one thing I love most about Sunday, it’s the only day of the week that I don’t work (usually, unless I have a wedding planned). I love that the whole day is full of no technology, no worries for the day, nothing I have to get done, it’s all about relaxing and enjoying my family. I know there’s obviously a whole lot more about Sunday to enjoy and write about but I’m not focusing on that, I’m focusing on enjoying doing hardly anything. So my picture for today takes place on our fence in front of our home, where I sat today and watched the sunset.
Ashton and Adam are such wonderful people! They are from my hometown and will be getting married on June 12th! So I have got to share how Adam proposed!!! It’s so cute. I won’t go into all the details because I just know I’ll mess them up but he was on a family vacation with her family down in Florida. They had a condo on like the 13th floor or something (see that’s probably one of those details I’ll mess up)…. and he enlisted his future family in law (along with random people on the beach) to spell out “Ashton will you marry me?” in the sand!!!! How adorable. I can’t imagine how large they had to have made that so you could see it all the way from up there! If I can I’ll try to get a photo of that for you all! They are Razorback fans and drove up here on a weekend when the Hogs were playing in Little Rock. They sported their fan gear and we walked all over campus for some great shots! I loved that Adam was getting text messages the entire session of important game updates from his little brother!!! There’s a shot of that in an earlier post!
Natalie and Brad were married Oct. 21st, 2009 at the Garden Room on Dickson St. They were married in the outer courtyard and it’s beautiful out there!!! Brad is in the military and they will soon be moving overseas!!! What an adventure! Thanks Brad for serving for our country and thanks Natalie for supporting your husband while he serves!!! You two were so wonderful! I enjoyed spending the day with you two!
Natalie wore RED wedding shoes!!! I love this trend of wearing shoes that you’ll actually wear again!!! I loved the red with the zebra!!!
Everything fell right into place for these two. In fact this dress was one of the first few she ever tried on!!!
She’s beautiful!
Her aunt let her wear her real diamonds for the wedding!!! How sweet is that!!!
I just snapped this one real quick in the doorway at Pratt Place. I told you she was gorgeous!!!
This may just be my second fav shot of the day, or lets say favorite portrait!
Here’s a fun shot of the guys during the reception with their cigars!
Our intern, Tanja, got this awesome shot of her amazing bouquet!!! The florals were provided by Holiday Island Florists.
My favorite image for the night!!! I can’t take full credit for this shot though! A guest suggested the idea and we all went with it!!! What a beautiful day for a wedding!!!
Congrats Natalie and Brad!!! I wish you two the best!!!!
I just realized I missed a blog post!!! Well as they say “better late than never”!
McKinzie and Alex were married at the beautiful outdoor reception location also known as the Botanical Gardens. They had such a gorgeous elegant wedding!!! I just loved all their colors!!!
These guys planned their wedding to end during the sunset so they opted to do a first look. I can’t stress enough how excited I get when my clients go this route!!! Honestly it just makes for a much smoother day! You get everything done and over with (except family portraits usually those are after), you can get to your guests more quickly, you don’t feel pressed for time, as well as you get yummy lighting.
Did I mention how beautiful Botanical Gardens is yet?!?!?!
What about how gorgeous McKinzie and Alex are? Did I mention that yet!?!?!?!?
I think this is my favorite image from their wedding!!! It’s so sunny and fun!
Mostly showing this image for the result……
I LOVE it!!!! :) He’s super stoked to get that garter!!!
I love how unscripted this image is!!! They were really into that “get low” song. I’m pretty sure McKinzie’s reaction is that of surprise that Alex could “get low”!!!!
What a precious moment. I love his grin!!!! I love the motion! I love the black and white! LOVE IT!
And finally how could you have an Arkansas wedding without callin those hogs?!?!!? Woooo Pig Suey!!!! Thanks to MS SoundWorks for keeping the party alive! Another must have at a wedding if you plan on having dancing is a DJ or even a live band, but they sure to make your reception run much more smoothly!!!
We had a Halloween party this morning for my seminary kids. We had a couple guests too so I was super happy!!! I took a group photo and I was so excited to show you all of their lovely costumes, but somehow (which I still haven’t figured this out) they aren’t on my memory card? Not so sure. I even took images of my outfit once I got home and those are the only ones I can see. So unfortunately I can’t post that image since apparently it doesn’t exist, but I do still want to show you what my Halloween costume was!
I’m not much of a Halloween fan. I love the part of creating a costume and all that creative side but I don’t much care for the extreme scariness of it. I don’t like being scared anymore, I used to love it! In fact my best friend Jessica and I used to watch horror movies at my house all the time. We really never got that scared though, we mostly watched them for laughs, ok so maybe we’re a bit morbid but that’s why I love her!
Enjoy!
-erika
(Keep an eye out later today for a post with pretty pictures from my wedding last weekend!!! Congrats Natalie and Brad!!!)
Hey guys I’ve had some concerns about the contest raised here recently. I’m going to address a few of them real quickly before I get to photos! :) For everyone wondering about the difference in voting and the results, I heavily stressed that the voting had nothing to do with my final decision as to who would win. The voting moved these girls forward through the entire contest while the final meeting I had with the two of them was where I finalized my decision. They both put great effort and creativity into this contest and are such awesome girls!!! Before each round began the girls were all emailed very specific rules and expectations so they knew all the rules ahead of time before they chose to continue. With that said I had a super duper hard time choosing who I wanted to win this contest but after meeting with both of them I learned some things that made me choose one over the other, I did however offer Meredith a discounted package for being a trooper and working so hard and getting so much involvement going with her fan base. So in my opinion they are both winners!
Now back to pictures!!! I shot three engagement sessions this weekend of which I am going to post one from each session tonight, but then I will give each guy and gal a personal post over the next three days so no one feels gipped out of a blog post! :) These are just eye candy for now! More to come so keep looking!
I know there have been way too many posts without photos so I’ve got some for you! These girls are the last of the contestants left and I had them incorporate their images with Erika Dotson Photography somehow and this is what they came up with. I love them and think they are both super cute! Please vote on the one you think is the most original. Voting will end on Tuesday at 8pm.
Thanks for your participation!
Erika
This submission is from Alyssa A. Kilgore:
This submission is from Meredith Ehrhard:
“I hope this is sufficient! Thanks for working with our circumstances and making this fun! Since we started dating a year ago, we have typically been apart about 3 months at time, (a total of about 8 months now) as Sean travels to college campuses across the US speaking to college students for his job. This is the reason we are getting married in December even though we only got engaged a month ago: we can’t stand to be apart any longer and we are ready to hit the road and travel together! We really didn’t want to back out of round 2 even though I am in Arkansas and he is in Georgia right now. So, because we are always up for a challenge, we decided to get real creative and take two separate photos and place them together as one! Hope you enjoy!!”
Hey everyone if you didn’t win we are still offering 15% off our original packages from now until Oct. 28th 2009! All you’ve gotta do is call us or email us and book a free consultation so we can meet up and discuss what you need photography wise! Your wedding date doesn’t have to be before that date but you’ve gotta book us before that date for the 15% off (that means retainer fee and contract signed so we will hold your date for you).
For the Round One Winners……………..
Hey guys you will be voted on by our staff (which would be Tanja, my momma, my stepdad, my husband, Ellie (my puppy that really can’t read so I’m just including her as part of the family) and myself.
But you will also be voted on by how many comments you can get on your story. So if I were you I would get all your friends to go and vote once they are published!!! Send out the word via twitter, facebook, emails, phone calls, snail mail, myspace, skype, whatever you’ve gotta do to get people to comment on your story!
Please remember just because you had the “most” comments doesn’t necessarily mean you win automatically! The judgement call is still up to us and we’re looking for creativity! The votes will just weigh in percentage wise and help boost your score a little bit!
Alright gang! Hopefully you have had your fingers crossed all yesterday after you left the fair, during the night in your dreams, and all of today waiting on Round One Winners!!!!
Here they are:
Kristin Kaiser- has submitted her story
Whitney Adams
Sarah Stinnett
Jinny Pattison- has submitted her story
Alyssa Kilgore- has submitted her story
Kellie Kirby - has submitted her story
Allison Hauck
Britten Gray- has submitted her story
Erica Bailey - has submitted her story
Allison Bentley- has submitted her story
Congratulations girls (and your guys)!!! Now the next step is simple….. you all have 3 days from today so Thursday Oct 1st before midnight (11:59pm) to get in your best story. Your story can be how you first met, how much you really need or deserve this FREE wedding photography package, how he proposed, your first date, etc. Be creative! We love creativity over here! From there we will be posting your story and have votes for the best and we’ll make our votes as well for the next 5 winners.
I can’t make this too easy it’s a FREE wedding photography package valued at $1750!!!!
So if you are reading this and you know some of these girls if you wanna stay friends with them I would let them know they won (that is if they don’t already know!)
Best wishes to you all and I’m excited to see your stories!
You two were so wonderful! I enjoyed spending the day with you two!
