An August Wedding in McKinney, TX...

I thought I'd share a few images from a recent wedding I photographed in McKinney, Tx, at The Surrey House and Gardens.

A January wedding...

Another fun wedding with an absolutely adorable couple! I thought I'd share a few of my favorite pics from the evening...

Another winner!!!

I had another photo place in a monthly national wedding image competition! This image got third place, which is pretty good, considering I was competing with photographers from all over the country. Not too bad, I'd say...

Iphone images...

A lot of people have been publishing their iphone (and other brand of camera phone) pictures on the web and in print for a while now. I'm not sure that I've ever shared my iphone pics here before, though I do post them on my facebook page and email them to friends and family.

So, I ran through my phone and picked a few favs from the last year, including one from the Warped Tour concert, a wild looking sky and my oldest boy asleep with his trains...

They shook him, all night long...

This little boy was just as cute as can be! He laughed and played, hugged and joked... he was having a great time at the reception! When the DJ started playing AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", he got on the dance floor and had a blast! The guitar kicked into a solo, and he got down on the floor and spun around as he played air guitar. He looked just like a little rock star...

This week's bridal shoot...

Did you know that the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas and Bass Hall in Ft. Worth both allow you to rent/have access to the building for photo shoots? Yup, and they are both such beautiful buildings, making them perfect for bridal shoots! This week's bridal shoot took place at the Meyerson, and you can see just how amazing the architecture is, giving the bride an amazing backdrop:

Sunday Weddings...

I'm getting my photo gear together and heading to Southlake for a wedding. Sunday weddings are becoming more common these days. So are Friday weddings.

Maybe it has to do with limited availability at a certain venue (there are only so many venues in the Dallas area and tons of brides wanting to book them). Maybe it is the only day that key family members can attend the ceremony (military personnel or out of town guests may have a difficult schedule to work with). Maybe it is a great financial decision, allowing the wedding couple to get more bang for their buck (scheduling on "off days" will save you up to 40% on venue booking fees).

Whatever the reason, I think non-Saturday weddings are just fine. They can be just as fun as a Saturday wedding. It really depends more on the bride and groom. If they seem happy, the day will be happy!

Fun at the bridal shoot...

These are not very traditional bridal portraits, but that's OK.  We shot a lot of conservative images, and it was time to have a little fun.  These two frames just caught my eye, because they have a lot of movement and energy in them.  

Bouquet toss...

I love the bouquet toss.  Usually, there is a mad scramble for it, and the girls get very competitive.  It can make for some action-packed pictures!  You can bet these ladies got a few bumps and bruises by the time it was done...

If you want to see more fun bouquet toss images, keep an eye on www.jasonjanik.com and keep checking this blog.

Great wedding DJ...

I met an amazing wedding DJ this last weekend.  His name is David Allen and he can be found at djdavidallen.com, for those of you in need of some great wedding tunes.  I've shot a LOT of weddings, and the DJ is a place you just don't want to skimp on.  Besides the cake and the venue, the DJ is a "make or break" element for the evening's success.  

I'm not saying that photos aren't important.  However, if you didn't have a photographer at all, the evening would still go fine.  Of course, you wouldn't have any sort of historical record of the big day, but that's not the point.  The point I'm trying to make is that no DJ or a bad DJ could very well make for a dull and/or awkward evening.  A good DJ can keep things moving, keep people excited, and make sure everyone is having fun.  

I've worked with a bunch of good DJ's over the years, and Dallas seems to have some really spectacular ones.  And I've worked with some really bad ones.  I wonder how they even get hired in the first place...

May 2nd wedding pics, set one...

Here is the first section of wedding pics that I glanced through and liked, for one reason or another.  Some pictures are more traditional, and others are just more fun and goofy.  It was such a fun and happy wedding, even though the rain came down in buckets that day.  

Everyone at the wedding had such an energetic and exciting attitude (despite the gloomy weather).  I tried to capture that movement, that emotion in the images by allowing a lot more motion and movement to come through visually.  It's a technique that creates a lot more throw-away images (because sometimes the added motion blur can be distracting, instead of complementary), so it meant I had to shoot a lot more frames that evening.  

I think the extra effort was worth it, though.  many of the images almost feel more like a video, the way they captured the moment in time...

...and remember, this is just the start of the day up until the end of the ceremony.  I still have an entire reception to go through.  I'm guessing I will probably post two more installments of this wedding by the time I work through all the images.