Monthly Archives: December 2009

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End of the Year! 2009 RECAP!

December 31, 2009 – 10:10 am

Hi everybody!  I wanted to post a little recap of the year for us here in 2009… We had such an amazing year with even more amazing and wonderful clients! We feel so blessed to have worked with so many special and loving people throughout the year and 2010 looks just as awesome with some really amazing clients and cool weddings on the way..

One of the most amazing things that we feel so blessed to be apart of was the overwhelming support of our new philanthropic campaign. Earlier this last year we launched a new campaign where we donate a portion of each wedding package on behalf of our clients back to a charity of their choice that they felt particularly close to.

Our vision was to give 10% of every package we book back to people in need and the turn out was so amazing that we actually superseded that !! Here is a list of the charities we worked with and supported throughout the year..

Living Water International -World Vision-Toms Shoes – Compassion International -Operation Smile – Hill of Hope

We thank God so much for providing all our clients who made this dream and vision become a reality. By the grace of God we accomplished some pretty awesome things and made the world just a little bit better for a few more people.. Here is a little recap of the gifts and blessings given to other people throughout the year:

We sponsored 7 kids in 3rd world countries to receive surgery for fixing cleft palates and cleft lip and gave them new smiles and happy faces (Operation Smile)

Education for 15 children for 1 year (World Vision)

$1350 for the Horn of Africa food crisis, providing the basic necessities of life (WV and Compassion)

8 chickens – Chickens are easy to raise, and will naturally multiply to impact generations of children. Each family that receives chickens is asked to give back hatched chicks to help another family in need. Chicks require little money, space, or food to thrive and grow — making them an ideal business venture for a single mom or vulnerable family. (WV)

4 goats -Goats nourish hungry children and families with healthy milk, cheese, and yogurt. Goats also give a much-needed income boost by providing offspring and extra dairy products for sale at the market. (WV)

$1900 worth of clothing for kids who are without proper clothing, providing warm jackets for kids in high altitudes and cold climates.. (WV)

$500 to help reach young at risk teens in orange county, ca and provide them with a loving, safe environment to grow up in. (Hill of Hope)

1 dairy cow-  provides some 120,000 glasses of milk in its lifetime to one village,  and extra dairy products for sale at the local market. (WV)

safety/protection and hope for  sexually exploited girls in 3rd world nations. (WV)

2 sheep for wool and money provided by local markets by selling of products. (WV)

providing shoes to kids who are without to prevent soil borne parasites from entering the body (TOMS)

Sponsored 4 kids through world vision for one year providing them with shelter, food, clothing, security and education:

Collins Limua, Nairobi, Kenya age 4,   Elisee Kainda Manyonga: Dem Republic of Congo  Age 4,   Mesay Mamo : Ethiopia, Age 6,   Etania Richard: Haiti, Age 5

And to top off all this wonderful stuff..We had enough of our clients to donate their portion to Living Water Int that we raised enough money to sponsor the construction of a brand new water well in Honduras providing clean drinking water to hundreds if not thousands of people who were previously without before!!!!  We are so excited because Kristin and I are actually getting to participate in this trip next March to see the well be brought to life. We are thrilled because we will be able to document the actual people benefited by  all the contributions and bring back all the photos for you to enjoy! I went to Honduras twice earlier in the year so if your curious to see the photos and what the process is like please feel free to check out those blog posts.. Honduras trip 1 Honduras trip 2

We are just so over whelmed by all the love  and the events fof this year and are so excited to see what God has in store for us next year! So again a HUGE special thanks to all of our clients for helping make this dream come to life and we cant wait to see how to impact the world with all your help in 2010!!  Heres to a great 2009 and an even greater 2010!! We love you all and God Bless!!

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Personal, Philanthropic, Uncategorized, Wedding | Comments (6)

Josh and Leah {Smog Shoppe}

December 29, 2009 – 12:27 am

OK so I wanted to make the last wedding post of the year a good one.. neigh.. a GREAT one!  Meet Josh and Leah.. Leah is a wedding planning extraordinaire from Sweet Pear Events.  You will quickly see why she earned and deserves the title in a few seconds. Ever since the engagement shoot out in Palm Springs at the Viceroy where they got engaged I knew the wedding was going to be a good one.. Fun, hip, stylish and super photogenic. We were going to have a great day! Not to mention we had an all star line up of vendors that day… but what else is to be expected having a coordinator plan her own wedding. The wedding was held at the Smog Shoppe in Culver City. I was so pumped! I have always wanted to shoot there. Its so awesome with tons and tons of fun places to shoot and A M A Z I N G decor.. A hip little venue snuggled in a urban downtown setting. A perfect recipe for amazing photos.. Also I wanted to give a huge shout out to Amanda and Alicia from In The Now Weddings for completely rocking the day. The place was covered from head to toe with incredible design and decor and all the events flowed seamlessly throughout the entire day. They also stayed all the way until the very end and saw to it that every last detail was not overlooked! Truly dedicated and fantastic wedding coordinators..

Ok now for the fun stuff..  the photos.. Honestly.. I was so excited about these photos that I already made a sample album out of them.. haha even before I blogged about it.. but I guess thats not a surprise considering how bad I am at blogging.. ok seriously.. now the photos :) Check out the cool invites and flowers..

I had to blog these two.. these are Josh and Leah’s moms.. they are two of the nicest most hospitable people we have ever encountered at a wedding.. their love and hospitality didnt end on the wedding day and continued to Hawaii where we shot Josh and Leah’s wedding reception the following week.. sneek peeked it but will fully blog it soon.. too many good shoots :) Josh’s mom was having a hard time trying to figure out how to get dressed.. I just thought it was a really sweet moment :)

loved the light in the hotel room..

the first look..

then off to the Smog Shoppe

I LOVE this venue!! check out all the details..

The whole ceremony was done in Korean… being completely non fluent in Korean posed a little difficulty trying to figure out when all the next events were going to take place. So we used our background and familiarity in wedding ceremonies to blindly navigate and position ourselves accordingly to get all the shots.. it was really refreshing and kind of fun actually by keeping us on our toes the entire time :)

I love the portrait session!

check out some more details…

It was an amazing day with lots of fun and awesome photos! Thanks Josh and Leah for making us such a special part of your big day!!

Amazing vendors from the day:

Coordinator:  In The Now Weddings : Alicia and Amanda rocked it!!
Ceremony/reception : Smog Shoppe
Videographer: Weddings by SML
Caterer: Contemporary Catering
Florist: Flower Allie
Hair/Makeup: Kelly Zhang Makeup
Guitarist:  Jason Sulkin

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Wedding | Comments (21)

Tree Trunk Photo Wall

December 17, 2009 – 6:25 pm

I wanted to post another little sneak peak of our wedding.. Here is the behind the scenes of the construction process of our photo wall.. We are going to use this as the background of our photo booth !    I AM SO O O O Excited!!

When we thought of this idea we had no IDEA the amount of work that lied ahead or what it was going to take to bring this bad boy to life.. after careful planning.. strolling the huge halls of the local Home Depot we collaborated and strategized.. actually… we just bought a bunch of stuff and started playing.. First off I have to give a big thank you to the guys over at Richfield Tree Farm in Yorba Linda for all their help in finding and cutting the wood.. Super awesome guys and they have a great big cut-it-yourself tree farm with over 60 acres!!… My dinkey chainsaw was nothing compared to their MONGO one and got the job done so much faster! if it wasnt for them I think I would still be cutting. Here is what we started with!

a little Gorilla, porter cable, some mdf board, 2×2’s and we were off..

we wanted to make sure that all the trees were different shapes and sizes so we could create a unique and diverse mosaic.

only 4 more consecutive trips to home depot,  2 more trips to the lumber yard and 3 solid days or manual labor later!!! WHaalloaaa!! Photo Wall.. good thing Kristin already agreed we can put it up as our headboard in our new place!! I cant wait to move in together after we are married! its going to be so exciting!

the first photos from our booth..

I think it came out exactly how I imagined.. however long story short… I wouldn’t recommend this project to anyone :) After Kristin saw it she said “ohhh its soo awesome!! do you think you could make another one behind the cake table too…?” and I replied.. “……cricket…….cricket…….” :)

A HUGE thanks for a HUGE investment of time Mr. Matt Gartner with Gartner Photography. One of my good friends, groomsmen/workhorse and other mastermind behind this creation..if it wanst for him I dont think I would have been able to move the several hundred pound wall by my self… literally i think its about 300 lbs total… yikes :)

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Uncategorized, Wedding | Comments (23)

Jason and June Engagement

December 14, 2009 – 10:52 am

Last week I had so much fun shooting Jason and June’s engagement photos.. It was such a beautiful day and the light was perfect. These two live out in Texas and wanted a little country feel with some open fields and I knew just the place here in Cali..  Right from the beginning I knew it was going to be such a great day.. these two were so photogenic!

I love their chemistry with each other..

Some of my favorite shots all day..

Thanks June and Jason for an awesome shoot.. I had so much fun and I cant wait for the wedding in Carlsbad! Its going to be great!!

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Engagement | Comments (4)

OUR WEDDING INVITATIONS!!!

December 9, 2009 – 3:49 pm

I am sooOOOO excited to post these.. it took a lot of hard work and the D*LSH girls did a fabulous job designing along with my beautiful bride to be with all the little details and assembly! What a project!

I think my favorite is the burlap and cotton since we are going to have these incorporated into our wedding.. these invites give a perfect insight to how we envision our big day to look.. WOW this makes it so real and I am SOOO excited for this day to come! Also thanks to paperwink for our sweet return stamp!

Here are our invites.. take a look and leave a comment if you like them!!

invite10

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Personal, Uncategorized, Wedding | Comments (20)

Thanksgiving Feast!

December 1, 2009 – 12:46 pm

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend.. One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is taking photos of all the chaos on Cypress street in Placencia. We shut the street down, clear out all the cars and set up for one MASSIVE Thanksgiving feast and party!! Kristin and I have been helping volunteer on Cypress street the last 2 years.. We help lead a little bible study for all the children on Tuesday nights while the parents go to the adult bible study.. However since the attention span of most of the kids is about 5 seconds we end up running around and playing a ton of games.. I def get my workout every week from it! Most of the families on Cypress are pretty large and all have several kids. When we first started going you could really see the craving for attention in their actions.. So it has been our joy to be able to just love on all these little guys and give them the attention they deserve. Its so cool to be able to see the transformation that has taken place and is continuing to take place in the community over the past 2 years. Just incredible!

Last year I think we served almost 700 meals.. this year we wanted to go even bigger.. It was going to take a lot of coordinating and planning but Letty and Savana from Lot 318 were up for the challenge.  Here is Letty laying down the rules for the day..

The girls of Lot 318..

There is always a bunch of fun activities for the kids, face painting, crafts, bounce house, foosball, pop corn machine.. all kinds of fun things to keep them entertained..

Part of the festivities include a free clothing drive where all the attendees are able to take home clothes for themselves and their family..

This is my favorite part of the day.. seeing the joy and excitement in all these little faces.. its such a blessing to witness..

The food prep..

Even the little guys got dressed for the occasion :)

We had a great turnout! In fact we beat last years mark!! we served over 1100 meals that day!! Praise God! Soo awesome! A HUGE speacial thanks to Greg Welburn with Summit Event Catering who donated all the meals that day! What a gift!

Another truly incredible thing to witness was seeing all the little ones serve.. understanding to help out others in need at such a young age truly warms my heart.

check out the turnout!! WOW!

Another cool thing was that we got 1000 boxes of love.. which have just some basic necessities as well as some staple food such as rice, beans and some other home products..

cypress14It was just such an awesome event and was so thankful to be apart of it again this year.. I already cant wait for it next year.. but atleast I get to see all of these little guys every Tuesday! I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving weekend as well!

By Brandon Kidd | Posted in Philanthropic | Comments (7)