It's not going to rain....

Those were the words I uttered to Nicole and Greg after driving to the OC (Oconomowoc) for their engagement photos. You know Wisconsin weather can be fickle, and despite the looming storm clouds we managed to get a really good session in, including some shots of their incredibly adorable son Tristan. And then...it rained. Holy COW did it rain. When it became apparent that we couldn't do much more in the way of taking pictures Nicole uttered these words to me..."I think we got enough. Wanna go get a beer?" She is so totally now my BFF. Nicole and Greg are just the kind of people you feel like you've known forever the moment you meet them and I cannot wait for their wedding in August!

Leah and Marty, Sneak Peek!
Look for their wedding slide show the week of July 28

Sneak Peek, Elizabeth and John

Look for the wedding slide show by the end of this coming week!

How much do weddings cost?

I often check an online publication called The Wedding Report to help me gauge trends in the wedding industry. With all of the country screaming "recesssion" I think it's important that I keep up on if it seems to be affecting the wedding industry. It's interesting to me, it breaks things down to how much is spent on bridal party gifts on average in Wisconsin and you can even be more specific as to zip code. So in case you are wondering what a wedding costs on average in Wisconsin, here's the report for the Milwaukee area with projections a few years out. Now remember, this is an average so they are taking the back yard BBQ weddings along with the swanky $175 a plate wedding that make Martha Stewart look like a poseur and averaging them in a lump sum.

Total Spending

Year Total Spending
2007 $28,732
2008 $28,704
2009 $29,614
2010 $30,553
2011 $31,522
2012 $32,521
2013 $33,552

Erin and Erik, June 14 2008


Wedding at Grace Lutheran in Waukesha

Reception at The Milwaukee Art Museum

I've heard a lot of really good speeches made at weddings in the past years, but the one that Erin's Dad (Hi Sparky!)gave had me laughing out loud behind my camera. Erin and Erik have dated since high school and her Dad read a note that Erin had left him in the middle of the night warning him that she and Erik had been caught by Erik's parents making out and she was sure he was going to be getting a call about it and she wanted to confess before he got too mad. He had the actual note and his delivery of the "great confession" was a hoot.

I have to give a shout out to my friends Phillip and Sherry at Frogman Video who are always a pleasure to work with. Be sure to hop on over to the frog blog and look at the video posted on their blog of Erin and Erik's wedding.

And one more thanks to the dashing Mr Dann Smith, Erin's cousin and one of Milwaukee's best DJ's for referring me to Erin. (Side note to Dann...that picture of you on your site has got to go. Don't you know a good photographer?)

Here's the slide show from the wedding, I'm digging the embedded thing on the blog, but I'm going to ditch the music. If you're viewing this update in a reader then you'll need to click out of it to see the slide show

Kara and Eric, June 7 2008



Kara and Eric got married in a beautiful tent right on Kara's parents property. For added drama, tornado sirens and a torrential downpour started right before the ceremony, but Kara took it all in her normal good natured stride. This wedding was one of the first of the year working with the uber-talented team of Angela Dupont of Top Shelf Weddings as the coordinator and Lisa Schuetz of Mira Beau Events doing the design work. They make my job easy when every detail is so darn pretty. The reception was at the stunning Overture Center in Madison, one of my favorite venues in that awesome town. And for the record, Kara and I are not sisters (well, maybe sisters of the heart :) ) but I was asked no fewer than a dozen times if we are.

For fun, I'm going to try embedding their slide show on the blog here. But if you want to see it in a bigger format, here's the link

12 years old and a vacation

Joey turned 12 this month, so we took a little vacation to the Carolina's.

Here's the birthday boy himself





A little light reading on the way




Eating the birthday meal, crab legs!




And for dessert, Creme Brulee (are you reading this Brooks? My kid chose Creme Brulee over cake!)




Portrait of Caleb that I love



They were so excited about this...in Kentucky, the birthplace of KFC.

Goodbye Norma Jean

My grandmother, Norma Jean Anderson. 1924-2008



Over the week end my grandmother passed away. This has been met with some incredulity from my peers and friends that at the age of 41 I still have grandparents. I've been lucky, I guess. I can't claim good genes since none of my living grandparents are blood relatives...my family tree is about as splintered as it gets. My grandmother, Norma Jean was actually my father's stepmother...but she was his stepmother before I was born so she's always been my grandmother to me. My remaining grandfather, "General Gramps" in Tucson Arizona is alive and kicking though he was never married to Norma Jean; but his wife was married to her husband. Please, don't even try to figure that out. My ex husband still doesn't get it so why should you?

My grandmother was 84.She had a great life and she will be sorely missed. She was Armenian, so we looked nothing alike. She had a big noisy family. They all just referred to me as "Danny's girl". When she and her sisters were a family gathering they were famous for what my father called "The Armenian Sliver". They would sit with a Kringle in front of them and insist that they didn't want much, they were on a diet, "just a sliver". And within an hour that Kringle would be slivered to nothingness. It was Armenian slivered to death.

She loved jokes, but could never remember the punchline, which made them all the more funny. She was a brunette, but went blond for years, which never rang true for me. She was 5 feet on a good day and worried incessantly about her weight and told my father when he had cancer that he had never looked so good because he had lost so much weight. I was infuriated and told her so and it was the only time I saw her temper flare. Never cross a woman who is losing a child even if you are trying to instructed them on what is PC these days.

Her laugh will never leave me...it was like those canned laughs on sitcoms with a bit of Tinkerbell mixed in, and she laughed often and with gusto. She always called me "Kimmy" and I never minded.

About 6 months ago out of the blue I couldn't shake wanting to go back to my maiden name. It made no sense to me. I've been divorced (very amicably) for nearly 4 years and kept the surname Bednarski because of my kids and the business. But suddenly I found myself researching how to do a legal name change. I asked the kids, they didn't care. It was a giant pain in the ass to be honest...forms filled out in triplicate, paying for a legal publication, three trips to the courthouse, social security, the bank, the mortgage, credit card companies, and about $500 in fees to change everything and a court hearing to change my name legally to Kimberley Bednarski Anderson. Business wise, it changes nothing. But yet, why did I bother? I'm thinking that somehow subliminally I was reaching out to my heritage. The passing of my grandmother and that it could have been the last of the Anderson's in my family does not escape me.

I will miss you Norma Jean :)

May and June 2009. going going......

This is the weirdest business in the world, the wedding biz. Used to be back in "the day" people booked their venues and photographers 12-18 months in advance. That was pretty much the standard, to be honest. With a short "desirable" season here in Wisconsin the 25 Saturdays available between May and October booked out crazy amounts of time in advance. Friends and family learned not to schedule a cook out in those months on a Saturday if they wanted me there.

Suddenly, about 2 ish years ago the tide turned. I have no idea why...(I'd like to blame it on George W Bush like I blame everything...whoops, did I type that out loud?)and suddenly 6-9 months became the standard. As far as I can tell it could just be more venues available, more people who are willing to have a wedding on a Friday or a Sunday..I'm really not sure. So I am no longer surprised that I am still booking out random dates for this fall when years ago that would have been unthinkable. A few years ago if in July I didn't have October booked out then I could pretty much plan on a nice month off...not the case anymore. Just when I think I have a week end off I'll get an email and book a wedding on Tuesday for the same Saturday. I'm not complaining, mind you...it's just that in my 12 years of doing this it's been an odd turn of events.

So imagine my surprise when suddenly May and June of 2009 are now the hot dates and daily my inbox is filled with inquiries for those dates and client meetings and holy hell why does EVERYONE want to get married May 12??? Did I miss a karmic memo about that date?

Just when I think I have it all figured out, again....I don't. And talking to other local photographers they all report the same thing. So fair warning gentle reader; if your wedding date is in the spring of next year then don't delay. Dates are filling up fast and furious. It's not unusual for me to get 10-15 inquires a day for the spring of 2009.

And of course, if I am booked for you day don't despair, I'll refer you to some most awesomest photographers in the area. Because that is just how I roll :)

This is SO MUCH FUN

Just another fun thing on the internet...plug in your name or a friends. My oldest sure got a kick out of it!