Dear Drew Brees: While you were waking up to start your pre-game morning rituals, I was waking up to bake muffuletta bread. I’m glad both of us were on top of our games. Please stop by sometime so I can make you one. Thx, mgmt.

I just spent $72 on groceries to prep for our annual Muffuletta massacre. We don’t get to head down to Mardi Gras as often as we’d like (boo!), so we celebrate in the next best way: food. And since the Saints are in the Super Bowl this weekend, we moved our food fiesta up a couple weeks. I’ve gotta brave the weather and shoot a wedding all-day tomorrow, but my heart and mind will be swimming in olive salad.

Tai Shan leaves the zoo for China

Tai Shan, the adolescent giant panda who has been a beloved symbol of Washington for the past four years, left town Thursday morning for China after a week of farewells and tearful goodbyes. (via WaPo)

Bye Tai! :( Here’s hoping you always have a honey-coated crate to enjoy at your leisure.

Now playing: The Wedding Booth

Wedding photo booths are all the rage these days. They’re a great way to document wedding guests. The main problem with most of them, however, is that they’re often just gimmicky, low-quality setups offered by companies trying to make a quick buck. Usually they fail pretty miserably at creating decent images of your guests. (Which sucks because that’s kinda the whole point, amiright?)

So for the past 5 years or so, I’ve been offering my clients an upscale alternative to their photo booth needs. It’s not technically a “booth” — more of a portable portrait studio, where my assistant spends the night taking high quality, professionally lit images. It’s easily the most popular part of the reception.

In the past, I’ve only offered it to my own wedding couples. This disappointed a lot of folks who wanted to hire it for dates I was already booked. So last week I spun it off into its own separate business. The Wedding Booth is now available for pretty much any event, regardless of my wedding availability.

(Of course, I should’ve named it anything other than the Wedding Booth, since it’s not a booth and it’s not limited to just weddings. But, well, you go with whatever domain name is available these days. And stuff.)

There’s a specific packaging used by publishing houses to ship bundles of magazines, and I want to kiss my mailman whenever he delivers one to my doorstep. Most likely, it means a magazine has featured one of my weddings, and the publishers have shipped me a bunch of copies to try and quench my mom’s insatiable need to hand them out to everyone she knows.

Such was the case today, as I discovered The Knot Magazine featured one of my favourite weddings from last year in their upcoming Spring/Summer 2009 edition. Huzzah! Check out more photos from Lisa and Chris’s wedding in Norfolk, VA, and their engagement session up in Brooklyn, NY.

And for god’s sake, please get engaged already so I can photograph your wedding. (Yes, I’m talking to you.)

From a recent trip to Iowa with my girlfriend (and our traveling buddy :)

Becca & Sean, from a chilly holiday engagement session in Colonial Williamsburg.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

My power was out all day and I was annoyed with pretty much everyone, so I went for a drive through the country. The best part about driving through the country around here is there’s eventually water on the other side. This is my favorite, relatively unknown spot in Virginia Beach.

Another shot from my girlfriend’s grandfather’s funeral up in Deep River, Iowa a few weeks ago. I just finished uploading the whole set to Flickr.

From last night’s roller derby bout in Virginia Beach. It was the last bout of the year, and the Dominion Derby Girls won it over Knoxville’s Hard Knox Roller Girls. Nice work, ladies.