So, I am excited to share with you that I am actually in Las Vegas! I am at WPPI, which is one of the most awesome conferences/tradeshows in my industry. So…. I am here literally basking in awesome information… and will be back on Friday!

I am especially excited for a couple of things…

1. To room with one of my favorite people ever, Jan Schill. And, I get to see friends from the industry from across the country!

2. To do a fun photoshoot in the dessert with Thirst Relief. An organization that I love. And if you didn’t know… in 2012, we decided that 10% of what you spend here at m.e. photography goes to Thirst Relief. So you are saving lives by providing clean water!

3. Airplanes and Blazers. Can’t wait! My dancing shoes were the first thing in my suitcase.

4. New products and seeing my vendors in person. So fun to meet the people who take care of albums, prints, etc. WPPI has an awesome tradeshow.

5. Lots of learning. I am a nerd like that. I LOVE listening to speakers… Can’t wait to learn some new things!

So.. here’s Vegas 2 years ago… Think this was from Casey’s point and shoot. This year I go sans Josh. Sorry Josh…

Jan, myself, and Casey…

Be Back Friday…. but keep checking the blog! I have posts scheduled to keep you reading while I am away, and maybe, just maybe, I will post some fun from afar!

.e.

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So, moving along on our tour… I am going to share my office with you today. Last week, you caught a little glimpse of it, so I might as well share it!

The office is right off of our living room/client meeting space…..Perfect! Love my built in’s.. I think I rearrange them at least once a week. It’s hard to find a balance of making them pretty to look at but also functional….. but not too busy, etc. So, I am never satisfied… and if you stopped by next week… they would probably look different!

Ps…. I had some folks email and ask about my curtain fabric… it is from Crate and Barrel, and I got it about 2 years ago… I do not believe that they carry it anymore.

View from the folding doors…

And from the other side of the room…

So this space over here is where I plan to have a mini newborn studio… Just waiting until my web guy gets my site launched…. It is driving me crazy.

It’s the perfect little space… and there is a great closet holding all of my newborn props… Just on the lookout for a nice chair for nursing mothers and we will be all set!

Some close ups of the built ins… The people who lived in this house before us used this room as their bedroom…

Love my camera collection. My dad just recently sent me some new cameras…. He loves antiques and was out at some antique shops… and sent me 2 awesome care packages of some new cameras!

Thanks for stopping by….

m.e.

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So on the lines of my recent marriage/relationship posts… I just wanted to share another little something, something with you.

Josh and I really love the ministry FamilyLife, and some friends that we know who serve on their staff, had sent us some really awesome materials to check out, listen to, pass on, etc. And one of our very favorites (I can speak for Josh here…know he agrees) is a DVD called Love and Respect. We would put the DVD in sometimes when we were taking a road trip somewhere… and we would find ourselves… laughing and saying…. that is totally us. Itt is real life, real people, real circumstances. Real Marriages.

You might be reading this and thinking how silly it is that we sometimes listen to stuff like that… but if you are married… or getting married….or have been in a relationship for a long time, you know that relationships are hard work. Marriages are crazy hard work.  People are messy…. and so without working at our relationships…. we can find ourselves in pretty crummy places.

I  don’t think any of us ever get married with the intention of letting our marriages go… I think that often times it gradually just happens… Bit by bit the distractions of everyday life and our selfishness build  barriers… and sometimes the road to get back on track seems too long, too hard……and you know the ending of so many stories.

So here are a few links that I wanted to share with you on some things that have really helped us… and just an fyi, our marriage isn’t awesome… I mean, it’s awesome, but it’s not awesome… ha ha.. You know what I mean? It’s really hard a lot of times, but we love each other and we are always working at it.  :) So, I am just sharing resources that we have loved or have found helpful along the way.

So, one of the big things in the Love and Respect series is that we end up in the Crazy Cycle…. oh, how much time Josh and I spend in the crazy cycle…

Here is a little explanation taken straight from here:

Research reveals that during marital conflict a husband most often reacts when feeling disrespected and a wife reacts when feeling unloved.  We asked 7,000 people this question:  When you are in conflict with your spouse or significant other, do you feel unloved or disrespected?  83% of the men said “disrespected.”  72% of the women said “unloved.”

Though we all need love and respect equally, the felt need differs during conflict.  For example, when a woman feels unloved during conflict, her natural reaction is to respond disrespectfully.  And when a husband feels disrespected during conflict, his reaction is to respond unlovingly.  We call this the Crazy Cycle:  “Without love a wife reacts without respect, and without respect a husband reacts without love.”

The message the wife is trying to send in her negative reaction (criticism/contempt) is, “I don’t feel loved by you right now.” The message the husband hears is, “I don’t respect you, buster, unless you change immediately.” When he reacts either in anger or by stonewalling, the message the wife hears again is, “I don’t love you.”

Things get crazy because this feeds itself. Her disrespect feeds his lack of love. His unloving reactions feed her disrespect. Round and round it goes.

So, here is a link for you. If you click here, you can actually listen to this series… I tried to embed them, but they are too large to do so. Sorry! I wanted to be able to make it easy for you, but looks like this is the best I can do.

So when you click on the link, you are taken to a search page. From there, choose Love and Respect from the series list, and you will be taken to the series of interviews with Dr. Emerson Eggrich… We have listened to the series that say 2008. I am sure that the others are amazing as well though.. And an awesome thing is that you can download them, so you can listen to them on your computer, your ipod, in your car, etc.

So happy listening!

And because every post is better with a photo… Here is a recent from a foggy am sunrise while on the road…..

m.e.

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Happy Friday!

I hope that you had a fabulous week… that you got a lot accomplished… that you made great memories with loved ones….

Had to share a few images from a super quick session that I did with Ainsley this past December just before Christmas…. LOVE, LOVE all of her little expressions…

She is my trusty little assistant over here in Pittsburgh….and she lights up my life. She keeps me on my toes and I love her more than anything.

Can’t believe she will be 18th months in just over a week. Not sure where the time has gone….but we’ve enjoyed it!

We are planning a fun little session for the 18 month milestone….so you should see those on the blog soon. One of my new years GOALS (more of a goal girl than a resolution girl) is to share some more photos of our peanut…. So, here is a little start!

Have an amazing weekend! And we’ll see you Monday!

m.e.

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Hey all!

So here is the next part of our house tour!If you missed the first part, click here. (You haven’t missed much!)

Welcome to our living room! This is also our client meeting space…. Hence why most of the photos on display are not personal.. The  yellow room on the left that you are getting a teeny peek into is my office…. which is next on the tour!

We LOVE having a fireplace!!! We didn’t have one in MD and really wanted one…

It has been so nice outside this winter that sadly, we haven’t used it yet… And actually… we don’t even have tools… ha

Maybe next year….

A view from the other corner….

Our little corner display. This display is actually personal… They are our maternity photos done by one of my favorite photogs, Maria Vincencio…. and a few that we took of Ainsley…

And a view from the other corner…

So whether you are a friend or a bride, when you come in we want you to kick back, put your feet up, and feel like you are at home.

Thanks for stopping by….

m.e.

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So if you follow us on Facebook, you might have seen this pic last week….

Gotta love getting packages in the mail!!! I was so excited to order some prints for display in our meeting room…. We have more wall space here, and my old photos needed some refreshing…

So here you go… One of our new displays! LOVE, LOVE canvases… and they look so amazing on the wall!  The horizontal and vertical canvases are 10×20. The large squares are 20×20, and the small square is 10×10….  I know when clients start thinking about canvases or wall prints, 20×20 can seem so big, but when you hang larger prints on the wall like that, they look amazing! Little prints get lost on walls…

And our mantel display… The large verticals are 16×20, and then the squares are 12×12, 8×8, and 5×5….

And our old window…. filled it with a few pics of our little lady. Love that child.

Happy Tuesday! More of the house tour coming tomorrow!

m.e.

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I just wanted to give a little shout out and congrats to one of my couples Kristi and Jason! A photo from their wedding was in the latest issue of Baltimore Bride… Just because!

So excited when my awesome clients get their photos published! It is exciting for us of course… but how cool is it for them!?!? So much better! If I were  a bride and I was in a magazine.. I would be totally stoked!

Want to see their awesome wedding at the Grand Lodge? Click here.

Happy Thursday!

m.e.

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I am so at a loss for words at what to post. Not because I don’t have any words, but mostly because I am emotionally drained…. There are actually so many thoughts running through my heart/mind that I couldn’t even begin to share them… and you most likely wouldn’t even want to hear them.  :)

I’ll keep this brief… and by brief, I am hoping to keep it to a paragraph-ish.

If you follow the blog, you might know that I am a Penn State Alumni… a VERY Proud Penn State Alumni. You can read a little bit here about my post in the midst of the recent mess at PSU. I still stand behind JoePa, and will support him… He has touched my life and SO MANY lives… and he truly made Penn State what it is today. He is soooo much more than football… and I would highly, highly encourage you to watch the memorial service that was held. He is an amazing man and he has done more good in his lifetime than you or I will ever do. There is so much more on my heart, but I am not here to provoke arguments, etc. All I know, is that Joe Paterno is a legend… that legends never die… that he inspired THOUSANDS…. and he knew that there was a greater purpose and calling in life. Some say that he died of a broken heart… I believe it…

Soo….I couldn’t not head to Penn State to say goodbye to JoePa. Was chatting with a great friend on Tuesday about going up to Penn State…. we talked about leaving super early on Wed am to make the last public viewing from 8am-12… and so at about 4pm on Tuesday we decided we should just go up that night… So, 3 hours later, Ainsley and I were packed and in the car and on our way to PSU. I am so incredibly thankful that we went…. It was truly amazing. So I wanted to share some pics from our trip up.

I will say…  at the same time that it was so amazing that I could take Ainsley there to see Penn State and to be there for such an amazing event… it was also very hard b/c the photographer in me wanted to document everything…. and capture all of the events and emotion on campus… but I couldn’t. I could barely even change my lenses…. I was either shooting over her head while she rode in the Bjorn… or I had the camera around my neck and was holding her hand as she toddled around….  I really wrestled with this…because I wanted to take all of these amazing pictures…. and I didn’t/couldn’t. But I will share what I was able to capture….

On to the adventure after my not-so-much-a-paragraph-ish-paragraph…..

We got to PSU around 10pm… and I HAD to go to the JoePa statue at the stadium… So Ainsley and I headed over there… and I was greeted by this cute face when I opened the car door to get her all bundled up! A Penn Stater at heart. She was so excited!!

Amazing…. I could have spent HOURS here…. HOURS…. It was just amazing… but I had a sweet little girl that I had to keep warm and it was waaaay past her bedtime.

This picture is in honor of actually using my degree! That is the Visual Arts building behind me…. where I spent many hours… and nights….

SBS (Student Book Store)

Heading towards Beaver Stadium for the processional…. Here’s the sign at the BJC

Beaver Stadium…..

Everyone lining up along the street for the processional…

Keeping Ainsley occupied as we waited for the processional to begin…

Adore her.

This is totally amazing. There was a rainbow straight down the street… right over the chapel where JoePa’s funeral was… This was right before the processional began. It was super faint….. but so cool….

One last stop before Ainsley and I headed home… the Nittany Lion Shrine for A’s first (of many!!) pic there! She just kept looking at him… and she made the lion sound! ha ha

WThank you JoePa. You inspire us… and We truly Are, because You Were.

And below is a slideshow of more of our day.. and please, please take some time to watch the memorial. I promise that your heart will be touched.

Slideshow: http://meaghanelliott.myshowit.com/paterno_

We Are…

m.e.

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Yesterday I asked you to pardon my scans…. and today I REALLY mean it! This magazine is big, and thick… and the pages were hard to scan…. but here you go! We were featured in another wedding magazine!

This time you can see our work in Wedding of the United Kingdom! Pretty fun, yeah? They saw one of our weddings on Style Me Pretty and asked if they could feature it… So we said yes!

So onto the feature… Let’s start by saying that Erica and Paul are an AWESOME couple! I absolutely LOVED working with them, and to be honest, this wedding is featured b/c Erica has an amazing attention to detail… and had a beautiful wedding! All we did was document it! So, a special thank you to Erica…  You have great taste, and your beautiful wedding deserves to be published b/c it was a fabulous event and you are a fabulous person!

Their engagement session was shot in San Francisco, Ca…a little taste for you below:

Their wedding blog post here….

A copy of the wedding album here…

And…now onto their 4 page real wedding feature! (and my crummy scanning job…)

Lots of credit to give out on this wedding!

Venue: Grey Rock Mansion

Catering: Simply Elegant Catering

Wedding Invitation and Stationary: Vincent Lee

Wedding dress: Melissa Sweet

Favors: Mouth Party Caramels

Photobooth: Party Booths

Wedding Cake: Artistic Desserts

Bridal Bouquet: Crimson and Clover Floral Design

Happy Friday!!!!

m.e.

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First of all, please pardon my scans… ha ha…

But, we had something fun to share with you!  Last week, I found an envelope in the mail full of goodies! It was a stack of Baltimore Bride Magazines…

and inside was this awesome flower feature that we photographed! Love, love, loved doing this shoot with Staci and the ladies at Baltimore Bride.. and have to say that I am kind of sad that I probably won’t really have this opportunity anymore since we have relocated… but hopefully we will pair up with some new folks in Pittsburgh to do some editorial features here and there….

So without further ado… some B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. bouquets!!!

Bouquet Above by Crimson and Clover Floral Design… Seersucker dress from Garnish Boutique…

Bouquets below:

Top left: Fleur de Lis Top right: Wicked Willow

Bottom left: Radebaugh Florist and Greenhouse Bottom Right: Local Color Flowers

Another beautiful bouquet from Radebaugh Florist and Greenhouse…

Next up….bouquet from Fleur de Lis… One of my favorites!

And the last set…

Top left: Design by Nature Top right: Local Color Flowers

Bottom left: Wicked Willow Bottom right: Crimson and Clover Floral Design

Seriously some stunning work by these local florists… if you are a Baltimore area Bride, you have to check them out!

m.e.

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