Dish with Trish

We were just saying the other day that we are feeling so lucky to have all of these great clients who really value and appreciate the photography for their wedding. It's not the most important thing to all couples, but of course we think it's the most important thing...why?

The obvious reason is that after spending so much time and money on your day you should have a fabulous set of photos to remember it all by! We believe in it and are passionate about it, luckily we can have a career doing it!

But the other reason is that your wedding album becomes a family heirloom. The photo paper that the images are printed on in the album are guaranteed for 200+ years, and it probably gets longer as they improve paper and technology every year! So this 'snapshot' of you and your family at this time becomes part of the family history to be appreciated by all who follow you.

I am lucky enough to have photos of my great, grandparents, grandparents and parents of their wedding days and I thought it would be fun to share here...



This is Sarah and Francesco, my maternal grandfather's parents. She immigrated from England and he from Italy, they had 6 children, one of which was my grandfather.

These are my maternal grandmother's parents, Bernice and Orva-Austin (O.A.), don't you love his hair! They lived on a farm in Pennington New Jersey and my grandmother was the oldest of 9!

These are my mom's parents, Bob and Paula...the best grandparents ever! They were married August 16th and my grandmother loved to tell the story of their wedding day, which was supposed to be the 17th, but they realized that the announcements they sent out said the 16th! So they called the Justice of the Peace and went to his house and were married that afternoon, just the mothers were present. Apparently it was an extremely hot day in St. Louis.

So here are my parents, aren't they adorable?! They were married in June at my grandparents house in Hull, MA. My uncle Frank was the official photographer and like me he snapped a gazillion photos, although there are not really any 'formal' shots. But I love this one which has both sets of my grandparents and my aunt and uncle who were the best man and maid of honor.

My most favorite thing about this photo really is that my Dad is smiling and exposing the fact that he was missing on of his front teeth which was knocked out during a hockey game. He had a serious dentist phobia so I'm guessing that's why he didn't get it fixed before the wedding, I'd love to know what my grandparents were thinking!

Who are these young and fresh looking people??? Oh, it's me and my honey Jim, barely recognizable, Jim looks particularly young! I have given him quite a bit of gray hair over the last 12 years, although now he finally looks older than 15!!! We were married at my mother's house on Cape Cod also on August 16th like my grandparents and it was also a sweltering hot day.

I spent most of my (small) budget on photography, of course! I love to look through my album periodically and now my son enjoys looking at it too, it's fun to show him all of the people that are not with us any longer and for him to see what we all looked like then. He wants to know where he was that day...

I hope you enjoyed my family photos and I look forward to being a part of creating yours!

The Dish with Trish...No.2

I LOVE SCRAPBOOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So that pretty much sums it up, but for my dish today, I will elaborate on that a bit...

I have always loved doing crafty things and I come it very honestly as my mother has always been a crafty lady and was always making things while I was growing up. She made my clothes, dolls, stuffed animals, about a million and one slip covers, curtains, foot stools out of coffee cans, leather bags and belts, macrame, the list goes on.

I actually had never done any kind of scrapbooking until just a few years ago while we were waiting to adopt a baby and all I had to do was sit and wait. It was making me insane and I had to DO something. So I figured I would make a book about my husband and I that said baby would enjoy having in the future. So I started with our baby photos and continued through the time we met, got married, bought a house and now were waiting to become parents. It was a wonderful way to occupy my time and I spent countless hours at the dining room table cutting and pasting like crazy.
From there I made a book for our unknown baby with photos of the nursery and the phone(because I wanted it to ring so badly!) and our house. But then I came to a point where I was done and did all I could do until that point, so I had to wait some more. But the good news is that the phone finally did ring and Isaac came into our lives! Even better news, I would never be without something to scrapbook, although now I would be without all of that time to scrapbook.
Mariah and Melissa thought I should share some of my latest pages with you, so here they are...





I originally used only the tradiational 12x12 double layout system and always scrapped chronologically. But then I was introduced to the D ring binder and everything changed... now I could scrap just a single page and go out of order and still have one year all together! It was revolutionary! But mainly it opened up my creative juices and made it much more doable.

Isaac's first two years don't have a ton of pages because I was locked into the 12x12 layout and it took forever! But now I get so much more done in a lot less time. Although, I can easily spend 2 hours or more on a page. I tend to agonize over every little detail. But it's fun for me, and it's like therapy!

I like to scrap single or double photos and work more on the design elements. I also enjoy just a random event or great photo. I do birthday and Christmas every year, but I don't feel obligated to do every holiday.

I have a terrible memory, so I know that I will be happy to have all of this in the future, to help me remember how Isaac was at different ages. People always say that kids grow up fast, but this is ridiculous!

I like to use my own hand writing instead of printing from the computer so that it keeps that home spun look to it. Also, Isaac will know that I wrote those words for him. This layout was about how rough the 3's were, scrapping doesn't always have to be fun stuff, the point is to remember and document life, warts and all.

This photos was taken last summer and all three of the kids are already so much older looking, these are Mariah's cherubs with Isaac in case you didn't recognize them...

Even something as simple as a new pair of shoes was fun to do because it symbolizes his growing and I always remember the awesomeness of a fresh pair of sneaks. My fist pair of Nike were tan with a blue stripe (1979?)and I remember them like it was yesterday, if I had a photo I'd be so excited!

I have lots of these kind of photos, but putting them all together like this really brought the whole feel of Isaac's personality together, he's a riot!

This little swirl was stiched on there, such a fun element. Doing it was probably way more fun that it even looks!

Such a classic moment that was emblazoned in my mind anyway, but now he will get to enjoy it too!

So thanks for sharing in my other passion, although it includes photography which is the ultimate bonus!
I will give you my must have list in another 'Dish' post as to what tools and products I like to use as well as some great resources if you are looking to get inspired and scrap-it!