New Blog! (and Website!)

Everyone!

We have a brand new website and blog courtesy of Three Remain Productions!

This will be the last post on this blog, so check us out on the new one at:

www.aviaphotography.com/wordpress

And don't forget to check out the new website too!

www.aviaphotography.com

See you there!

.:Boom! Secret Ingredient to an Amazing Reception:.

Many of you may not know, but I (Brian) consider myself a musician first and photographer second. I've been playing and composing music for as long as I can remember. Recently I've been able to set up a rockin' home studio, and hope to get that business going just as soon as our crazy busy wedding season concludes this year. Mallory has been pleasantly insisting I write a blog post about my new venture. This is NOT that blog post.

I mention all of this just to say: the single part of a wedding that I am most critical of is the music. A bad DJ will have me complaining for days about how he couldn't blend one song into the next, or how his EQ was off, or how his speaker's treble sounded to tinny. And then of course the DJ has to be a good emcee. A good DJ can keep the party rockin'. A bad DJ can ruin the entire day. We've encountered a handful of really good DJs, and a ton of really bad ones.

Before I started shooting weddings with Mallory, I had only attended two weddings. My entire perception of weddings came from the movies. Have you ever noticed in the movies, weddings almost always have live bands and not DJs? (see Adam Sandler's "The Wedding Singer") When we started shooting weddings, I remember thinking to myself, where are the wedding bands? What's with the DJ? While I've grown accustomed to DJs, I still find myself longing for a real wedding band. Saturday, I got my wish.

From the first few notes the bass player played warming up, I knew I was in love. The band is called Boom (you can find them at boomstl.com), and they, without a doubt, had the party jumpin'. There was many a time Mallory would look over at me and catch me grinning ear to ear, nodding my head in auditory enjoyment. I couldn't help myself. The drums were tight and driving, the guitar solos were soaring, the vocals were full of energy and emotion, the keys were rounding it out, and the bass..... oh that bass. I have a soft spot for the bass guitar (it is my instrument of choice), and let me tell you, if you like to groove, you'll love Boom. That's really the only way to describe them:

Pure Groove, Pure Fun.

They were playing covers of popular songs like "Soul Man" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", and of course doing a fantastic job. But what was even better, they were injecting their unique personalities into the songs and making them their own. On "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", which is a straight rock song, the bass player was filling it in with these deliciously funky Detroit Mo-Town licks that had me laughing out loud they were so good. These guys went way beyond just learning the songs. They took the time to make them their own, while still maintaining the original work. The end result: an amazing performance that I think they enjoyed playing just as much as I enjoyed listening to.

That's all fine and good, but what does it have to do with you?, I'm imagining you're asking. Well, I have never been to a reception with this much of a party atmosphere. I've never been to a reception where this large of a percentage of the guests were dancing. I've never been to a reception where people had more fun than they did tonight.

I know I'm at risk of gushing endlessly and becoming long winded, so I'll sum it up:

If you want to have the most fun possible at your reception, hire a real, live wedding band. If you want to know the best one I know, it's Boom. And that's saying a lot.





































Keep on rockin' in the free world,

Brian

.:sarah + travis:.

We met Sarah and Travis many months ago. We met and talked about all the people we knew in common. (I don't know what other photographers normally talk about when they meet with clients but we somehow end up on a lot of tangents on ours!) We talked a bit about the Forasteros (who are a rocking cool couple that I adore--think multi colored converse sneakers for their entire bridal party in addition to who knows how many tattoos on both of them and then add it to itinerant preachers/youth leaders and you've got the Forasteros pegged!). I went to the same campus ministry as both Amanda and JR Forasteros for awhile in addition to struggling my way through Spanish side by side with Amanda in school. But I digress! (This must be a pattern.) Not surprisingly, the Forasteros, J.R. especially, have been pivotal in Sarah & Travis' lives (seriously, if you knew them you'd instantly know why). Like many others here in Columbia, the Forasteros opened up Sarah & Travis to new life, new passion, and new love for people and Jesus in a whole new way. The Forasteros moved away from Columbia right after they got hitched a few summers ago but they've left a wave of good feeling and are (awesomely!) returning to CoMo to marry Sarah and Travis in August. We had many mutual friends and before we knew it Sarah, Travis, Brian and I had been talking for over an hour and we'd hardly gotten any photography stuff talked about! As our time progressed I suddenly had to remind myself that Sarah had told me they were looking at several area photographers and that is was possible that we wouldn't be theirs. "Bummer,' I thought, 'I really like these folks and these are the types of couples we love to shoot for." Wasn't I surprised when our meeting was drawing to a close (and we'd finally touched the photography business side that we meant to talk about in the first place!) that Sarah said we'd confirmed their suspicions that we were the right choice for them! Fireworks and Reese's Pieces! Yay!

Sarah and Travis both went to MU and grew up in the same youth group. They are that couple who figures out early on that they are a perfect match but has the patience to wait to marry until their schooling is done and careers secured. Smart cats. (Note: Brian and I were *not* that patient. We got engaged in April, booked our photographer in June, and got married in August! Though I am absolutely positively not sad or disappointed that we got married so quickly, I do wish we had at least hired a wedding planner to figure out all of our details!) Sarah got a job in KC (where we will be moving in a few months--but no worries, we'll still be shooting St. Louis/Columbia/KC weddings all of 2012) and so, since we're headed that way eventually, anyway, we all decided to do their shoot in KC.

One of the things I enjoy about Sarah is her mind. She is a thinker, and a great one at that! Along with Sarah comes her exceptional organizational qualities and her ability to get things done ahead of time. WAY ahead of time. (I'm hoping that she will rub off on me!) Regardless, Sarah polled friends on her facebook for perfect spots to shoot in KC (since she and Travis are originally from Columbia, too!) and sent me a list several weeks in advance. We ended up amidst the fantastic West Bottoms and ended across from Crown Center.

[[Having never visited the West Bottoms before, Brian and I fell madly in love and, needless to say, on our way home Brian was brainstorming finding enough capitol to purchase one of the old buildings. My questions of "And where would we get the money and then what the heck would we do with it?" hardly seemed to slow his mind down.]]

I think we may be in love with KC And, of course, Sarah & Travis. Happy Friday! We're off for a date afternoon/evening followed by a two wedding weekend!






So cute!




Optical illusion. The world turned upside down. = )




Isn't Sarah breathtaking?


They are so sweet!




It started to lightly drizzle, which was an excellent time to pull out Sarah's fun and funky umbrella.


Seriously, I felt like we were on the set for Jumanji. Anyone else remember that movie with Robin Williams?


I *love* this one!


I wish I had the vision and imagination for this kind of graffiti.






Nice message but what's wrong with this picture?


I need this in my living room.


Who turns their parking garage into a wall of books? Why Kansas City's library, of course!


Sarah picked out such great tops with pizazz and color.


When it started to drizzle a little harder our options were: 1. Quit. 2. Get creative. We chose the latter. LOVE it!




Imagined subtext: "I'll save you, Sarah!" (We were not in danger of being run over, despite being in the center of a 5 lane street in KC).


Gah! Beautiful!


This one makes me smile. If you were only there...




I LOVE that this is Travis' "serious face". We are SO using that come August.




Awwwwww...


After all that light drizzle, may I ask how Sarah's hair still stayed so perfect. Jealous. Yup, I said it.


I don't know what makes me like this shot so much!


If you want to know a little more about Sarah & Travis, you have to look at their shoes. Some of you may recognize these Tom's. Every pair you purchase Tom's will give a pair to a child in need. No joke. Check out their website here. It's totally legit and totally awesome and I am totally getting a pair.

Go out and save the world, people!

Mallory (& Brian)