A couple of weeks ago I shot the wedding of Lauren & Dustin.  It was a dark and gloomy day, but that didn’t stop us from having a great time and getting some great photos!  Their wedding reception was at the downtown Marriot in Des Moines.  It was full of win, even with smoke on the dance floor!  Loved it!   I will be double posting today because I am trying to catch up on editing and blogging before I leave for my Jamaica wedding in a week.  I will have one more wedding to blog later this week before I go!

Wedding season has begun in full swing and it started with a bang!  The first wedding of the season was absolutely STUNNING.  Not only that, it was so much fun.  I feel like I know this family very well because I have shot 3 of the 4 girls’ weddings and the 4th was already married when they met me.  So, it was bittersweet as they have no more daughter’s to marry off!  But, now I get to begin the pregnancies and babies I know they will have!  They held their reception at The Des Moines Renaissance Savery hotel downtown.   It couldn’t have been a more beautiful way for me to start off my 2012 wedding season.  Congrats again Andrea & Justin, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day!

This post is sectioned by the different types of photos I took.  Some of the things are pretty random that I just felt like trying out on her (ie: lace shadows, flour, fog).  We were very limited in time (45 minutes for the whole shoot!) but we were able to get it all done.  She was super excited about my ideas and I think they turned out pretty neat.  Some of you may wonder WHAT is the white stuff all over her in some of the photos?  Well, one idea I had was to cover her in flour and have her dance it off creating what looks like a big cloud puffing up around her.  It looked really neat.  I should have probably separated this blog post into a few so it wasn’t so long, but I want to get to blogging some engagement sessions before my wedding season hits (next weekend!)  I have a super busy year coming up with weddings all around Iowa and even in Jamaica next month.  So pretty soon here the blog will be full of all of the amazing weddings again!

I need to give some credit and thanks where it is due!

Hair and Makeup was done by the amazingly talented Allison Kidney (makeup) and Jenny Raasch (hair) of Estilo Salon & Day Spa. (They also do wedding hair/makeup!)

I also want to thank Kaytie for allowing me to use her as my guinea pig and dump flour all over her! Also our other cousin Anthony who helped me out with the shoot and had the pleasure of actually dumping the flour all over her.  Something I’m sure he has been contemplating doing since we were kids!

I wanted to take a moment and announce that for the third year in a row I have won the Bride’s Choice Award from Weddingwire.com.  This is only thanks to all of my wonderful couples!  I couldn’t have done it without you all.  Thank you all SO much!

{Des Moines,IA} – January 30, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Amanda Basteen Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Photography!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization,Amanda Basteen Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Amanda Basteen Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Amanda Basteen Photography for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Amanda Basteen Photography is one of the very best Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/amanda-basteen-photography-des-moines/76ac665622f1afd6.html.

To learn more about the Bride’s Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire™, the nation’s leading marketplace serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 reviewed wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers. WeddingWire also offers a comprehensive suite of online planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire is the only all-in-one marketing platform for businesses online and on-the-go. WeddingWire offers one simple solution to build a professional network, improve search visibility, manage social media and reach mobile consumers. Businesses that advertise with WeddingWire appear on WeddingWire.com, ProjectWedding.com and other leading sites, including MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), Brides.com and Weddingbee.com.

Last weekend I had the honor of photographing Margeaux & Denver’s wedding.  Although he is not in uniform for the wedding, Denver serves in the navy as a pilot.  He just got back from deployment about a month ago.  What is even more amazing is that 2 of his 3 brothers (all the groomsmen are his brothers) also do the same for the navy.  They all have wives and families and yet they feel the need to serve and protect our country.  So firstly, I want to thank them for EVERYTHING they do.  Also a big thank you to Margeaux and all other military wives/families for sharing their families for our freedom.

Their wedding was at St. Ambrose cathedral downtown and reception was located in the AMAZINGLY beautiful Embassy Club in the Ruan Center.  It was a cold winter day, but they braved the weather for photos and I think it paid off!  Margeaux and Denver, thank you again for letting me share in your special day.  It truly was beautiful!