But I quickly realized I needed help navigating through the crazy fun terrain of the wedding industry. I met a few people here and there, many of whom were helpful and kind and welcome, a few that were not. Eventually my heart lead me to several different women individually, and now we are a collective. We call ourselves The Traveling Hearts Society and the 12 other girls who make up this group are pretty much the best thing that have happened to me since I started my company.

Eleven of us spent four days in Big Bear together last month and it was exactly what I needed to recharge and re-ignite my spirit and creativity. I left Big Bear feeling different. Ready to be better. Knowing I had a very strong support group to fall back on if I failed. A group to pull me right back up, dust me off, and push me forward again. Friends like that don’t come along often. For many, they don’t come along at all. Believe me when I say we are all fully aware of how lucky we are to have found one another.

Adrienne, Ala, Amanda, Ashley, Diandra, Gladys, Heather, Jackie, Jordana, Mary, Meg and Megan: Thank you so much. For allowing me to be me. For being you. And for the love, support, laughter, tears and inspiration we’ve shared. You are all so wonderful. Love, love, love, love, love. Looking forward to July like you would not believe!

I’m headed to Big Bear with 11 wonderful girlfriends/photographers for a four-day vacation we’ve been talking about since our last vacation together in July.

I’ll be out of the office until Friday, the 28th and my have limited access to email, so please be patient if I’m slow to respond.

And, just like last time, if you’d like to follow along with us and our crazy vacation antics, head on over to our Tumblr. It’ll be a good time.

Part of the relaxation process has been spent shooting for myself—on film, no less! I bought myself a used 35mm Nikon film camera and for Christmas Chris gave me the Blackbird, a Twin Lens Reflex camera. I’ve been having so much fun with both and because I am an impatient person I had the first roll cheaply processed at a 1-hour photo lab nearby. I had to make sure the used camera was working properly!

I took Nikon out on the one snowy day we’ve had so far. The snow melted almost as quickly as it appeared, so I was glad that my sister-in-law, Megan, and I had the forethought to go out and shoot some photos of it before it was all gone. I’m so loving the way these look and I’ve definitely been bitten by the film bug again. It reminds me of shooting film in high school and college, when I first fell in love with photography.

As I told Chris, I’m definitely going to need a monthly film allowance now.

I’ll tell you about the workshop first. Tanja Lippert is a photographer based in the Bay Area whose work I’ve admired for a while. She shoots film exclusively, which is something I really admire, and she’s got an editorial style to all of her work that is just heavenly. I’ve never been to a photography workshop before, but when I found out Tanja was teaching a workshop on posing (or directing, as she calls it), I jumped at the chance to expand that area of my work by learning from someone I consider a master. The fact that Ala was planning in going to the same workshop only sealed the deal! The workshop is called the T&T Dynamite Art of Directing Workshop and it was awesome.

Tanja’s right-hand woman is Tia Reagan. She is a stylist and photographer and she works with Tanja and her clients to style many of her shoots. Together they are a force to be reckoned with and it was amazing to see both of them in action. As students of the workshop we were able to take advantage of Tia’s amazing skills when we practiced what we learned on a few models. It was a lot of fun!

I’m looking forward to using many of the tricks I learned from Tanja on my upcoming shoots. For now I’ll share a few of the shots I got at the workshop. The point of the workshop was to learn how to better warm our clients up, how to interact with them in a way that relaxes them and make them feel free to let loose a little, and how to get your clients to trust you. Because of that I spent more time interacting with the models than I did shooting them. I don’t think I took more than 15 frames the entire day, but I LOVE what I got, so it didn’t matter!

First up is Sam. He’d never modeled before but he was AWESOME and totally made our jobs easy. I took exactly three frames of him and loved them all.

Annie and Kevin are a real-life couple and also not models. They are wedding client’s of Tanja’s and have only been married a few months! I watched other people direct them in more sultry and intimate ways so when it was my turn I decided that I wanted to go in a different direction. I only had a minute to get them to switch gears and turn on the laughter and they totally nailed it!

And finally we got to work with Sarah, who IS a model. I didn’t get a chance to direct her myself but shot from the sidelines when a few others did, and still adored what I got.

While waiting for my turn I turned the camera on Ala as she practiced her “fire eyes.” Nailed it!

Mary didn’t go to the workshop with us (she just came on the trip to spend my birthday with me because she’s awesome like that) but I had to share these shots from the night before as we were getting ready to go out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. They’re my favorite!

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Today is my 30th birthday and I am decidedly un-fancy, but I think I’m okay with that. I’ve never been a fancy person and I likely never will be, but what my 10-year-old self did not realize is fanciness is in the eye of the beholder. I am immensely proud of my life, and myself, for all of the things I’ve accomplished before my 30th birthday. I’m married to a wonderful man, have an amazing family, the best friends a girl could ask for, and I own my own business doing what I love more than anything. Does it really get any more fancy than that?

Here’s a little advice for 10-year-old Heidi and dreamers of future-fancy: If all else fails, stick a candle in it. Instant fancy!

If you are a current or prospective client and email me between now and Wednesday, you are likely not to get a response from me until I am back in the office on Thursday. If it’s urgent, please give me a call.

If you’d like to follow our vacation shenanigans, head on over to our Palm Springs 2010 Tumblr page where we’ll all be posting photos and such during and after our trip!

Another big change involves the recent addition of two family members! Chris and I decided it was time to adopt another dog. After losing Frasier last year we needed some time to grieve, and we finally felt we were ready to give our hearts to another furry little animal. Neither of us could have expected what would actually happen…

We now have not one, but TWO dogs!

Chris and I are very happy to introduce our snuggly little babies – Funky Frank and Foxy Roxy! They are just about the cutest little animals I’ve ever laid my eyes on and they are amazingly sweet, too! We found them on Petfinder and ended up with both of them because they showed up to their foster home together and they foster mom didn’t want to adopt them out separately. After meeting them both in person there was no way we weren’t going home with the pair, so now we’re a family of four!

Frank (also referred to as Frankie, Frank the Tank, Tank and Franklin) is about 2 years old and is a little ball of energy most of the time. He’s got the most handsome little Pug face that makes me melt a million times a day. He LOVES to give kisses and is so soft and cuddly. Once he gets settled down he makes a great snuggler. He also loves belly rubs (but who doesn’t?). When he’s not smiling he looks a lot like Wilford Brimley and so Chris and I are always asking Frank if he has “diyuhbeetuhs” or if he wants some Quaker Oats.

Thanks to Chris for this shot of Frank and me. I swear he was enjoying the moment, even though he doesn’t look like it. Oh, and please ignore the boxes behind us – we’re still unpacking.

Roxy is about 3 1/2 and is our sweet baby girl. She is interested in nothing besides sitting on or beside you and sleeping. The instant you sit down, she will be on your lap within three seconds, flat. She has a little sticky-outy tongue that is cute, hilarious and endearing. It’s also her mood meter. We know her level of comfort and happiness based on how much her tongue is sticking out. Very convenient!

Frank is usually a lot more smiley but I was interrupting his mid-day nap to get these photos so he wasn’t exactly amused.  But, anyway, these are our kids! We are so in love with them and it’s only been a week! I stare at them all the time and still can’t believe they are my dogs! Yay!

Our differences have proven to be really helpful when it comes to creative projects, too. I know lots about photography, Chris knows a lot about filmmaking. When you put those two talents together, it turns out you can make a pretty cool stop-motion video.

We spent a couple of hours making the video below as an entry into a contest where the winner wins an all-expenses paid trip to a photo workshop in Mexico. I didn’t win, but I like our video anyway. Had we more time to focus on it (we shot it the weekend my grandpa passed away so more pressing things were happening in our life), I know the result would have been even better, and maybe even gotten us a win.

How we did it: I set up my camera to take continuous shots of me walking. I also took a shoot of four Polaroid pictures sitting on a table and Chris keyed the real photo out to use it as a mat for the animation. We shot in four different locations. The concept is I’m prepping myself for Mexico. In the first frame I’m removing a winter hat and scarf, my coat comes off in the second, and I appear in a skirt and flip flops in the third frame and find myself a sombrero. When I walk into the fourth, I’ve got the sombrero on and a camera in hand – ¡Viva Mexico!

Hope you enjoy the video – I just had to share it. I can’t wait to work with my creative partner again!

This is a picture of me and my Grandpa. It was taken after returning home from a baby beauty pageant my mom entered me in. I didn’t win (and with that mouth-agape blank stare, I can’t imagine why not), but I like to think my grandpa thought I was beautiful all the same.

He passed away Sunday morning and my world has been rocked, just a little bit, ever since. He lived a good, long 84 years on this Earth. Sixty-five of those years were spent married to his best friend and soul mate, my Grandma. Knowing that my Grandpa won’t be around to offer me candied orange slices or to give me his trademarked half smile is tough enough, but watching my Grandma come to terms with losing her husband is just about one of the toughest things ever, I think.

My grandpa had a reputation for being tough as nails. But I never knew him as anything but an old softie. He had a great sense of humor about him – and, oh, he was witty. I have never been the type that could remember jokes, but I can still quote a couple of his one-liners to this day. That’s how funny he was. He loved baseball, Westerns, detective shows, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. He once patiently sat at a kitchen table for an entire hour because I insisted on making him breakfast when my Grandma was out of town. I was 10 and I didn’t really know how to cook. He ate every bite. I can list of a lot of things that were great about my Grandpa but I think my favorite part about him is how madly in love he was with my Grandma. Their marriage was beautiful to me and I feel so fortunate to have their example to live by.

My Grandparents are the absolute center of my family. I will miss my Grandpa more than I can express. I am sorry for my Grandma, Mom, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins who are experiencing this loss right along with me. I’m glad we have each other.

Thanks to all of my friends who have sent condolences, good thoughts and prayers towards me and my family. They are so very much appreciated.

Instead of calling this list The 20 Best Christmas Songs Ever, maybe I should call it 10 Great Christmas Songs, Plus 10 More That Are Kind Of About Christmas, but that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. You see, I happen to really love Christmas music. Even the most played out Christmas songs make me giddy with excitement when they come on the radio. There’s a station here in LA that plays ALL CHRISTMAS MUSIC ALL THE TIME for the entire month of December. And I think it’s the greatest thing ever.

Chris, on the other hand, is not a fan. We suspect it’s because he grew up singing in childrens’ chorales and A Capella groups. Thus, he was forced to sing Christmas song after Christmas song over and over again every. single. December. I guess I can see why he’d grow a distaste for the genre, but I can’t see myself ever tiring of the holly, jolly tunes that I love so. Luckily, Chris is a good and patient husband and indulges me for at least 20 minutes when we’re in the car together. He’ll watch me hop and bop around in my seat while I sing along to all of the classics. And he’ll only roll his eyes once or twice.

This year Chris decided we should make a mixtape together. Chris loves making mixtapes. It’s the indie-rock college kid in him that will never die, I guess. We have done what we call “bounce mixes” from time to time where one of us will choose the first song and the other will choose the second song. We go like that until we have a full mix. It’s pretty fun! I chose 10 of my favorite Christmas songs and Chris alternated his “not-really-Christmas-music” Christmas songs. The result? The 20 Best Christmas Songs Ever!

We enjoyed making this mix so much that I wanted to share it with all of you! Have a listen and let me know what you think! It totally succeeded in getting me in the Christmas spirit and I hope it does the same for you! If you want to open a fancy flash version of the playlist in a new window, CLICK HERE. Or, you can just keep this window open and press play below (it’s a large file so it takes a while to start playing).

Here’s the playlist:

Christmas (Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
The Tip of the Iceberg – Owl City
Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney
Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree – The Magnetic Fields
Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
Donde Estas Santa Claus – Augie Rios
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – The Jackson 5
Winter Wooksie – Belle & Sebastian
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
Holiday Road – Matt Pond PA
All I Want For Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Put The Lights On The Tree – Sufjan Stevens
Last Christmas – Wham!
What the Snowman Learned About Love – Stars
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – Bruce Springsteen
Santa’s Beard – They Might Be Giants
Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt
White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Zooey Deschanel & Leon RedBone
Taking Down the Tree – Low

Happy Holidays!