rachael + will

I LOVED tonight.

I had a great couple to photograph and it had been FOREVER since I had photographed and engagement.

I had rain. YEAH! Something new to work with.

I had a road trip to Midland and instead of listening to "books on tape" I had company for the drive.

If it hadn't been for the speeding ticket on the way home, it would have been perfect. :)

Thanks Will and Rachael for a great session tonight. You two were AWESOME!

a day off

Today, my baby turns 12.

I'm taking the day off.

:)

mammoth men

I have to give a "shout out" to the dudes that inspire. Yes. Total goof balls, but they take good pictures. :)

Check them out.

CLICK HERE

I LOVE THIS!

jared + katie

Babies are the CUTEST! And they were everywhere this past weekend. :) Jared and Katie were married Saturday at St. Elizabeth's Church. It was so much fun! I met them last summer at Melanie and Joseph's wedding and was so glad I got the chance to photograph theirs. Many familiar faces and a few brawn new body parts as well. LOL

Linda was along to help and a few of these shots are her's. She's my intern for the summer and is doing GREAT!



Katie and her maids worked on the flowers the day before. They were stored in a fridge to keep until the wedding. Something about tulips being very fragile.


They had these cute invitations made up for the rehearsal and I couldn't resist.


Katie's hair had a TON of curls! Looked Fabulous!

And her shoes were adorable. She couldn't find anything she liked in the adult section and instead tried shopping in the girl's department. Success!


The gorgeous dress!





Jared and Katie wanted to take as many photographs as possible BEFORE the wedding, including each other, so we arranged for them to have a moment alone. It was great! Katie RAN folks, she ran in her gown and bear hugged him! I haven't seen Linda's images yet, but maybe I can talk her into blogging the other side of this shot. I'm sure it's adorable. :)





Beautiful!

I LOVE St. Elizabeth's for weddings. The doors of the church face East and make for a fantastic area of formals. You can see all the lights from the sanctuary and the stained glass, yet stay cool on a HOT day. I'm sure the church staff appreciates this immensely. LOL Doors propped open and all. :)




This was taken during a discussion about Jack Daniel's and mints.


And this was right when Katie was coming down the aisle!




Father made some sort of reference to "13 kids" and Jared pumped his fist. So funny!



The new couple!



I don't normally post family formals, but how's this for a BIG group?


The groom's cake. :)



All kinds of emotion going on in this first dance. :)


Katie and her dad.


Great moment during the toasts.


Ah...the rings!





This is Andy and Abby. I 2nd shot for their wedding last year.


And this is Melanie and Joseph. :)


Linda and I enjoying the reception!


This is what's great about 2nd shooters. She gets this shot, while mine is the next.



One last dance before the exit. :)






Thanks you two! I had a great time! As always, MORE HERE.

Ceremony: St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church
Reception: 4 bar k
DJ: Chuck Colbert
officiant: Fr. Jim O'Connor
video: Dreamkeeper Video

friends

Snapped a few shots of the girl's the other day. They are having such a great summer!

swim kids

Julie's is my favorite place to go each week. I LOVE swim days. And her kids are my absolute FAVORITE kids to see and hang out with. They are so wild and crazy and imaginative and listening to Julie tell all the wild things they do and say, it's just so cool. I was talking to a 6th grade teacher today and told her all about the McGehee bunch and how they will INVADE Junior High in the next 1/2 decade. :)

This week we had 3 extra kids just lying around and I just happened to have my camera, thanks to Julie. :) ADORABLE.

I've been seeing this veiw a BUNCH lately. And not that I'm complaining, but it's hard to be gone from your family over and over again. But I will always have WASHINGTON. Yep. Me and Kalyn Marie went to Washington, DC with her 8th grade class. So MUCH fun! And so exhausting!

I'll share a few here, mainly because the kids are wanting to tag themselves on FACEBOOK But it's fun to look back on my blog and see a personal diary perhaps of "what I've done". And this is a definte addition to some cool stuff.

Washington is all about the monuments. They are AWESOME! They are huge and amazing and so cool to go and see. And I'm not a big monument person, but I enjoyed them. I think I enjoyed the design and lighting and the words involved. We had a tour guide with us some of the time, but not always and we walked ALOT. But we also had a way cool bus driver named Charlie and it was great to have an anirconditioned seat to get to into between tours.

This shot below is of Bush Gardens which we hit Day 2 on our trip. SO much fun! And one of the prettiest parks I've ever been too. My favorite roller coaster there was by far the Griffin. Funny story. I hung out most of the day with Kalyn, Rebekah, Danielle and Eric. Of course they ditched me for a bit, but hey, I don't blame them. I'm a "mom" and I'm sure was cramping their "boy chasing style", but when we did ride, we rode the Griffin first. We rate all coasters on a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the best in dips, speed, smoothness, and SCARE factor. Well, in line waiting to ride the Griffin, our first coaster of the day, Danielle is excited and tells me this is her first roller coaster ride. EVER. My jaw drops and I think, OM Golly! Talk about raising the coaster bar high? And what if she gets scared and won't ride the rest of the day? What then? WEll, I'm happy to report she did GREAT! You'll see a pic below. :)

But first, like I said, beautiful park! I took this shot while walking around looking for the kids that ditched it.




Danielle, after her first coaster ride! Way to go Danielle!


Here's my coaster pals. :)



Okay, I'm getting a bit out of order here. We went to the zoo one day and I have a vivid memory of this young lady. She was totally showing off for the boys on the other side of the glass. Totally flirting and begging them to take her pictures. What a flirt!


Beautiful designs in Washington. This is the Treasury Department building.


Our flirt again.


Where the Pres works. :)















This last picture is of the Air Force Memorial. It is such a HUGE memorial in that it's hard to get a shot of the entire image. We kept seeing it off in the distance, but didn't see it until the last day. Up close it's quite breathtaking.

I will post many more online and if you were a person on this trip, give me a call and I'll gladly burn you a disc. AND if you have the chance to go with World Strides on a Class Trip, I highly recommend it. Such a great (exhausting) time. :)

kayla + matt

I have so much to share and blog and do. As other's are pouring out their hearts and minds on their blogs, I can think of nothing else but summer time and movies and editing. It's what I live and breathe this week.

I'm dying to share Washington DC photos, AND add more images to facebook so all my clients that facebook can "tag themselves", but time just seems to slip away and there's never enough of it. I hate that, but relish in the fact that I'm home with my kids and involved in their lives, and making memories. We are "fixing to" watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, a great movie that I think they are ready for, plus I'm dying to see the new one.

So, I share with you today, Matt and Kayla. I found Kayla through my GREAT nephew Jack. He's been crusing on her for as long as I can remember, and when Kayla got engaged, she asked her "boyfriend" to be her ring bearer, and he happily said yes. Through Jack, Kayla's mom found me. And I'm so glad she did. We had a great family weekend all the way around and it was such a pleasure to witness the closeness of this family and get a bit of a glimpse at how my day might be as a "Mom of the Bride". Lots of laughs and tears, I'm sure.

So, enjoy the sneak peek and don't forget about the rest on their gallery. Just click the link below.

CLICK HERE

Matt is an AIRMAN, so when I parked behind Kayla's ride, what esle but this on the back glass.


Lots of hugs this day. :) We started at Kayla's house with the bridesmaid pigging out on some chick-fila. YUM!



This shot below is of Rachel, Kayla's baby sister. Her and my neice, Brooke play on the same soccer team. Go SPIRIT! She had beautiful, long chestnut colored hair that just curled and curled and curled. LOVELY!



This is Matt's sister with the "poodle do". I finally found a girl that embrasses and LOVES her curly hair! Kayla and her mom were having a "teary" moment when she popped around the corner to show off the "poodle do". :)



The 3 sisters together one last time!

Matt, taking a moment alone before the choas of the evening.


None other than JACK ATTACK! I love this dude! So much energy and heat wrapped up into a cool little dude. You just wanna squeeze those cheeks!


How many girls does it take to get a bride dressed?


Susan, Kayla's mom seeing her in her dress, ready for her walk down the aisle. I LOVE how she's taking it all in. :)

A beautiful bride!

And several lovely maids!


They kept the center aisle free from guests, just waiting for the bridal party.


Maids discussing what to do.



Kayla and her dad on the walk down the aisle! Just look at that face!









Beautiful YUMMY Cake!




me and FLASH BOY! Watch out Stephanie! He's pretty good. Or at least until the DJ played Soldier Boy, then I lost him. sigh







What a day! So much fun!

laura + jason (the wedding)

Laura has waited long enough. Immediately after flying home from their AWESOME Austin wedding, I flew on a plane with my oldest daughter and her 8th grade class to Washington, DC. I seriously thought that I would have had plenty of time to get these on the blog for everyone to see, but we didn't have internet at our hotel, nor did I find a hot spot or the time to blog! WOW! We were busy! But more on that later. First, the wedding! Of course, like always, more on their SNEAK PEEK GALLERY.

CLICK HERE.







I loved the soft look of Laura's "up do". She looked FABULOUS!

laura + jason (the rehearsal)

I LOVE old churches. And by old, I don't mean "falling down" so I guess I should say I LOVE old, LOVED churches. And Central Christian Downtown Austin, is a loved church, and absolutely beautiful! We started Friday afternoon out there and then moved the group to The Headliner's Club, followed by a "Twilight Toast" at The Belmont.

Great way to spend an Friday in Austin. :)

I'm leaving today for Washington, DC. It's the 7-8th Grade Trip and I'm part of it with my daughter Kalyn. So, try as I might, I might not get to blog much in the next 4 days. But I promise to share much with you when I get back home.

Stay tuned for the wedding "sneak peek". :)

laura + jason (the luncheon)

I had the best wedding weekend. I really did. It was hot and humid, but the company was good and despite the alarms going off in the hotel room, it was wonderful. :) I flew in Friday early for the bridesmaid luncheon and just spent the afternoon enjoying the views of the lake . The food was cooked up fab style by a duo with a company called Enjoy . I couldn't locate their website but if I find it later, I'll pass it along.

Everything was perfect! A great way to kick off the wedding weekend!

traveling

I've been traveling for weddings since my first season of shooting.  I think it was Steve and Erin's in the great city of Austin, which is where I'm at this weekend.  And in all those years I've never woken up the way I did today.

fire alarm in hotel room goes off @ 6:30 AM

WOW!  

life in the fastlane

When you work weekends and have children, you do NOT get a day off like you used to get in college.  Remember those days?  You were tired on Sunday so you laid on the couch in your underwear or robe and basically did all the beauty things you didn't have time to during the week.  You deep conditioned your hair, or you gave yourself a pedicure because your broke booty couldn't afford the real deal back then.  You may have even shaved your legs or read a book.  OR laid around the apartment with your girlfriends and watched "Dirty Dancing" on HBO for the 36th time.  Whatever, the point is you had time.  

Here's what I did today.  I thought it would be fun to share. 

• wake up after only 3 hours of sleep and manage to run brush through hair AND throw down one cup of coffee.
• load loaner car with sample albums and info for client meeting that you are having in 30 minutes.
• realize that you don't have KISS sample album and think you may have left it at video store.
• load up two great kids that are tired and sleepy and already fighting with each other over who was supposed to close the door.
• drive said kids to bb camp down the road.
• head in opposite direction once you realize you don't have keys to get into video store because you've only had one cup of coffee and the fog hasn't lifted from your brain.
• stop at car dealership that has your wonderful ride you've grown addicted to and grab keys off of key chain and then drive like mad to store to find sample album.
• discover sample album is not there.
• slap self in the face for not realizing I could have tracked fed ex shipment on line.  
• drive to meet client and in loaner car from dealership, realize the 20$ I put in the Aztec is running low and must get gas.
• meet with amazing client who clicks with me instantly.  I wanna photograph this girl!
• leave and go by photog friend Toni's to pick up loaner lenses.  Two of mine are at Canon being fine tuned.
• pick up girls at Cooper BB Camp.
• grab some lunch and then run out of gas on the way to hair cut apointments.  OMG!
• manage to coast car into gas station that has ALL PUMPS OUT OF ORDER.  geez...
• slap self in face one more time
• call devin, stephanie and any one else I can think of to come save my bootie AND keep me on my schedule
• get ahold of my angel JULIE who saves me with 5 kids in her car.  We drop off the girls and then head back to her place to get gas can.
• open back hatch of her car and ALL HER MAIL goes blowing around the yard.  5 McGehee's chase it down along with over weight photographer and we get it in the house.
• leave with empty can and stop and fill up can with gas so I can then get my loaner started
• say goodbye to julie and go and get girl's from Cathy's Clippers
• Rush to Norma's dress shop so oldest can be measured for Quincera gown.  YIPES!  She looks so old in a cocktail dress!
• leave and go by law office to pick up sample album
• race to Cardinal's and buy ankle brace for cocktail dress wearing girl who strained her ankle at bb camp and has bb game in Frenship.
• RACE home and pack cooler for 4 games
• drive to Terra Vista and drop off one kid.  Race down 19th, put MORE gas in car and then drop off next child at voice lessons.
• realize you've put $75 into loaner car that gets worse gas mileage than yours.  OMG!
• Leave voice and drive to Soup or Salad and feed child and then go kill 20 minutes in Barnes and Nobel
• buy the new PDN magazine for plane ride next day
• drive to frenship to watch bb game
• do the clock for game and make several mistakes
• run all kids to next softball game and after sitting there freezing forever, watch coach of Bumblebees get pissed at officials because the ass kicking our girls were giving her got stopped 15 minutes early and she seriously thought she could make up the gap
• drive home, drop off kids and then head to video store to do schedule, which afterwards has to be redone 3 times in the next 24 hours due to me not reading notes
• head home to pack for wedding in austin and do 2 loads of laundry before bed
• sleep for 3 hours before waking up late for ride to airport at 6 AM
• I LOVE MY JOB!
  

Care to share yours?

ical

LIfe is so much better organized!

I'm constantly on the look out for ways to improve my day, my week, my life. And I've had a calendar on my website as well as my main calendar iCal that is synchronized with my iphone. Well, I just published my Kristin Bednarz Photography calendar online so you can always keep up with where I am and what I'm doing. :)

Enjoy!

CLICK HERE

chris + rob

Busy, busy week!  With the online galleries causing me grief (and those looking for their photographs), I waited to showcase Chris and Robert's wedding.  My intern came today to "clock some hours" and I had her upload the files, so now I can show you what a wonderful day they had.  :)  

By the way, the online galleries are back up and running and the intern?  She's up and running too as well.

And a huge "I'm sorry" for having Robert married to "Laura" for a day or so.  I do this all the time, call Chris her sister.  Darn it.  Also, if you want to see more, just click the link below to see the rest of their "sneak peek".  These two sure now how to throw a GREAT dance!

MORE PHOTOS

online gallery trouble

Hi, everyone. If you are trying to view your photographs, you may get the following error message.

Warning: require_once(/kart/smarty/Smarty.class.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/kristin/public_html/config.php on line 29

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required '/kart/smarty/Smarty.class.php' (include_path='.:./include/PEAR') in /home/kristin/public_html/config.php on line 29


I've submitted a support ticket and hopefully this can be resolved soon.

Thanks!