I got the most wonderful email tonight from Ashley and David.  I shot their wedding this past November at All Saints Catholic Church on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  I remember the first meeting I had with Ashley, she had been referred to me by a couple who’s wedding I shot in October of 2008.  When Ashely first started talking with me she was not sure if she wanted to even have a video done.  When I asked her why, she said that she just didn’t think that a video would be that important to her. Well, as you can see by her quote, I think she was glad she changed her mind:

“Don, you did a phenomenal job from start to finish with our wedding video. You and your staff are so pleasant to work with and you had us excited about our video from day one. We knew you would make it special and create a wedding keepsake like no other. Hesitant about having a videographer at first, we are very glad that we choose you to capture one of the happiest days of our lives. The trailer was a great ’sneak peek’ at what was to come for our wedding video. Seeing our trailer left us anxious to see the finished product. Upon receiving our videos, we had a wedding viewing party with our parents. It was unanimous– the video is priceless. We will treasure it forever. The first thing both our parents said was ‘ We wish we had a video like this of our wedding’. Thank You Don for capturing the first day of the rest of our lives as husband and wife! ”
-Ashley & David

Thank you Ashley and David, you guys were so much fun to work with.  I wish you nothing but the best in your future.

Here is their trailer:

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I want to invite you to the Mia Photography’s first annual “With This Ring Bridal Day” for a one of a kind bridal show.  Most bridal shows you attend are very large with so many vendors, most brides tend to get overloaded with information or lost in the shuffle.  These bridal shows are also loud and crowded which gives you little to no time with the vendors.

“With This Ring Bridal Day” will be completely different. First off there will only be a few vendors present.  Mia Photography has picked the very best to be part of this show.  I have worked with most of these vendors before and can tell you, they are the best of the best in Knoxville.

The show will not be in a huge convention center with a fashion show going on in the background. The show will be in the Mia Photography’s studios on Peters Road near the Panera Bread.   This is going to be a very intimate setting where you can actually spend some one on one time with each vendor.

I am happy to announce that I will be a part of this show and would love to meet as many of the area brides as possible.  If you go to the web site and register now you will get a free wedding planner with over $1000 in discounts and giveaways from the participating professionals and an entry for a free engagement session and custom guestbook from Mia Photography.  Space is limited so please register soon.  The show will be on Sunday February 21st from 1 – 5pm.

I will be having a giveaway at the show that day.  If you register with me at the show, you have a chance to win the CD “7 Steps to a Stress-Free Wedding”.

This CD is produced by one of the leading wedding insider, Rick Brewer.  Rick Brewer is no stranger to the Wedding Industry. Rick has been in the wedding industry since 1992 and has accomplished the following:

Growing up in the 70’s, you typically had three ways to communicate with someone.  You could travel to their house, if they lived close enough.  You could make a long distance phone call (remember, unlimited long distance calling didn’t exist until a couple years ago) or you could write a letter, mail it and wait a week or two to get a response. The cheapest was to use the mail, but it also took the longest.

Today, we live in a society where we have cell phones and landline phones with free long distance, email, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook and video chats.  You can now get in touch with anyone in a moments notice.  We live in a media savvy culture where we get news in a 24 hour cycle with video being shot by everyone who has a cell phone.  We no longer want to hear about the news or events, we want to see it.

This goes along with an article I saw the other day from The Knot that listed the top 10 trends in weddings this year. One of those trends is something brand new for brides and just getting noticed.

Video-Save-The-Date

When you really think about it, it goes along with what we all want in today’s culture – something visual.

The Video-Save-The-Date really opens the door to brides for them to be as creative as they want.  This gives them the ability to do something that many of their friends didn’t have the option to do.

You want your wedding to stand out, to be different, to be one that your guests will remember for years.  Then start that as early as possible with a Video-Save-The-Date DVD that you can send to your friends and family and post online.

So, what does this look like?  It can look any way you want it to look.  It can have a simple, classic look, like this

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Or you can get a little creative and do something like this:

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But, if you really want to get their attention, you can go all out and do something like this:

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Can you just imagine your guest getting one of these in the mail?  Or having a great website with this video being the feature to kick off your wedding planning.  How excited would everyone be for your wedding?

We can do Video-Save-The-Date DVDs and Videos for any bride.  Not only can we do the video part but we can also put it all together for you with full color photo labels on the disk.  We would place it in a wonderful jewel case ready for you to mail out.  Just think how excited you would be to get a DVD in the mail and see this from one of your closest friends.

Contact us today for a free consultation for your Video-Save-The-Date.

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I have joined Wes and Danielle Hope of Hope Photography in their “Perfect Ten: 10/10/10: The Coolest Contest Ever”!!  I am so excited about this.  I have worked with Wes and Danielle before and can tell you that they are great photographers and a wonderful team.  I love their style and the way they capture all the beauty and precious moments, but they also always seem to get the absolute best from the bride.  Oh, and they have a really great sense of humor that you can’t help but laugh.

They are celebrating their 10th anniversary of marriage and 10 years as wedding photographers.  And as a way to celebrate they are having a contest to giveaway a wedding package for a wedding on 10/10/10.  You can go to their website for all the details and rules.  As part of the giveaway, I am giving away the video of the ceremony for the lucky couple who wins.  There are some other great wedding vendors contributing services for this contest like One Enchanted Evening and Lisa Foster.  So, visit their site now and sign up today.  You could win.

Be sure and check my blog in a few weeks as I am going to be having a special promotion myself during the month of February.  I will be sharing those details in the coming days.  Also, there are some new things I am doing that I will be sharing with you in some future blogs to come out soon.

It has been a long dry spell for my blog posting as of late. I could give a lot of excuses for not posting; Christmas holidays, family committments, year end work, floods, new additions to the family… the list could go on for days but the fact of the matter is I have just not had time to get in the postings I need to.  So let me take a few moments to catch you up on what has been going on with Midnight Magic Studios.

I had two great weddings to wrap up 2009 and they were connected in a really wonderful way.  I had booked a wedding for November 28th, with Ashley in the late summer.  She was just so excited about her wedding when we first met that I knew her wedding and reception was going to be just off the wall.  And it was.  Then, three weeks before her wedding, I got a call from a mother of the bride for a November 21st wedding.  I had the date open and was more than happy to help capture the day for her daughter Sarah.  As I was doing my planning I got a call from Ashley who asked me if I was doing a wedding on the 21st.  I told her I was and much to my surprise, Sarah is a friend of hers.  Not only that, but I was going to be working with the same photographer on both weddings, Kristen Overbay. I have worked with Kristen before and I know what a great job she does. Both weddings were great and I have just finished up both of their videos.  I still have some clean up work to do on both of them and they should be going out soon.

The Christmas holidays were great, but we had some huge changes here at home.  First, we had a new addition to the family: Boomer, who is a Snorkie.  I know you are asking… what is a Snorkie?  Well, he is a mix between a Yorkie and a ShiTzu, thus a Snorkie.  Boomer is a great addition and has added quite a lot of laughter to the house. The two other dogs are not laughing so much, but the adjustments are being made well.  Then, right before Christmas my wife’s car bit the dust.  It didn’t break down, it just got to the point where it was not safe to drive anymore… “frame fatique”.   So, the week of Christmas, we went car shopping which resulted in us a great Honda Accord that my wife is very happy with.

I hope 2010 is off to a great start for everyone.