Pittsburgh Wedding, Boudoir, Senior Photographer

February Wedding Album Discount

During the month of February 2015, we are offering a fantastic album discount for our past wedding clients! We are giving a 20% discount off the base price of a 20-page wedding album!

This discount is perfect for our wedding couples who had all intentions of creating their own wedding album, but never got around to it, (don’t be ashamed- time slips away from all of us!), or our wedding couples that got around to creating their own album and still want a high-end one to show off their wedding day images.

Since these albums will be created during our wedding photography off-season, only past Lavender Leigh Photography wedding clients with a wedding date prior to 1/31/15 are eligible for this discount.

A little bit about our wedding albums…
Our sophisticated albums feature flush-mounted images and a lay-flat design. The design helps to seamlessly present a full spread without a cut down the middle. Album images are printed on the finest photographic Fuji Crystal Archival paper. Covers come in a variety of beautiful and modern materials and colors to provide the right match for your needs.

Please contact us today if you are interested in taking advantage of this offer!

Our New Client Meeting Room!

We live in an old house (circa 1910) and each year, we like to take on at least one home renovation project. This helps us check off one of the million updates old houses need to keep up with the times. Last year, we decided to strip the paint off of our hardwood floors to get them back to their original state. Little did we know, there were at least 5 stubborn layers of paint on these floors, and at least one of them contained lead. So, what started as a project to restore the hardwood floors, ended up with new hardwood being laid over top of the old, and the creation of our Client Meeting Room.

We don’t have a decent “before” picture of this room (it was really too ugly to get a picture of) but imagine a small rectangular room with tan painted hardwood floors, paint peeling off of the floor, robin’s egg blue walls, and shabby wood paneling on one side wall.

Initially, we had no idea what we were going to do with this room, but that was the fun part… we could make it whatever we wanted! With the help of our fathers, Barry finished laying the hardwood. I became inspired with the direction of the room once I saw what the floors looked like. Using furniture that we already had, and pieces from Etsy and Pier One, we decided to create an elegant and chic meeting room- a comfortable and fun space to meet with and get to know our wedding clients.

Voilà! Below are pictures of the finished room, which also couples as a storage space for my LLP marketing materials…

And, if anyone knows where we can find espresso colored stain, please let us know! We still need to stain the window encasements, and have already tried Sherwin-Williams, Lowe’s, and Home Depot. None of these locations could give us a brown stain darker than walnut.

Finishing off with a little chandelier bling… just because I love sparkles…

Workshops, Waterfalls, and Wineries: Our Trip to Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon. A city known for its phenomenal coffee, craft beer, food carts, and bridges. A city surrounded by picturesque waterfalls, rivers, and the rolling hills of wine country. So naturally, when I learned that the Mystic Seminars 2015 were going to be held in this amazing city, I had multiple exciting reasons to visit!

While I don’t have a ton of pictures of my time spent during the Mystic Seminars, (I was too busy taking notes and chugging coffee), pictures wouldn’t have captured my wonderful experience at this conference. Flying across the country solo without knowing a sole person that was attending the seminars, I was able to network with people from across the globe and hear amazing speakers such as Susan Stripling, Sergio, and Dan O’Day, to name a few. Each of the three days was spent at full steam, starting at 8:30AM and ending at 9:30PM. And, if we still had energy, we could attend social activities such as bowling and karaoke until the wee hours of the morning. Special thanks to Walter van Dusen for creating and organizing The Mystic Seminars!

Just a few of the speakers in action…

After three full days of note taking and networking, I met up with Barry, who flew out to Portland so we could explore the city and surrounding wine country together.

A few touristy pictures: me in front of the downtown Portland food carts and Barry eating his first Voodoo Doughnut!

We visited a few craft breweries: Deschutes, Rogue, and Burnside. While we loved all of them, the Sweet Heat apricot/jalapeño beer at Burnside was our favorite of the trip.

Based on a local’s recommendation, we traveled to EaT Oyster Bar. This restaurant has a lot of character, and the oysters were second to none! Totally worth the drive across the river.

Our oysters being shucked…

A random vintage Land Rover right in downtown Portland… he was so excited to get a picture with it!

A spur-of-the-moment trip to Multnomah Falls. And yes, clad in my suede boots, sweater tights, and skirt, I hiked a 1.5 mile trail with 11 switch backs to the top!

I’m not a fan of heights, but made it to the top of the falls and clutched my camera for dear life as I bent over the side railing to take pictures to show the height of the falls. It was a beautiful view, though!

On to the Willamette Valley wineries! We stayed at Youngberg Hill Bed and Breakfast, a lovely B&B that sat atop the hills of their vineyard. The views from their hilltop were absolutely stunning. We received a special Welcome wine tasting and immediately following, we fed the local residents of the B&B.

Naturally, we had to get portraits of the B&B’s residents…

A few parting shots as we wine tasted and ate our way around the Willamette Valley. Pictures below are at Thistle, a restaurant in McMinnville (amazing pre-prohibition drinks, and a menu themed to match.)

We visited a lot of wineries, but some of our favorites were Youngberg Hill, Saffron Fields, WillaKenzie, Elk Cove, and Colene Clemens– all of which are pictured below.

2014: Our Accomplishments

I’m not quite sure where 2014 went- last year was a whirlwind for LLP, and it amazes me how much we accomplished during that time! Here are some of our biggest goals that we checked off of our list last year, and we couldn’t have done it without our amazing client base, which continues to grow rapidly in 2015!

2014 Accomplishments

1.) Rebranding
This project was a huge (HUGE) undertaking for us. It started with a new logo and website layout, and included the itty-bitty details such as finding the precise color scheme and fonts that best represent us. Do you believe that it took about 6 months for us to find a logo?! These rebranding details are a very important part of our business because they determine how we position ourselves in the market, and what we want to say to our clients, as examples.

2.) Growing Our Client Base
Our bookings in 2014 doubled in count since 2013. That’s right, DOUBLED! Thank you, thank you, thank you to our clients for helping us to accomplish this goal!

3.) Wedding Albums
Our wedding clients asked, and we answered! In 2014, we added high-end albums to our portfolio of wedding collection inclusions. These albums feature images that are printed on premium archival pages, and include a lay-flat design, which seamlessly showcases images (especially panoramic views!)

4.) Published Work
We were fortunate to have THREE published works! The first was Jenna and Justin’s wedding, featured on the website Beauty and Lifestyle Bride, another was Maura and Matt’s wedding, featured in The Perfect Wedding Guide magazine, and the last was our inspirational styled Rustic Wedding, featured on the website Fab You Bliss!

5.) Create Marketing Materials
We love to send our clients pretty things! In 2014, we included Welcome Kits and Thank You Packages for our wedding clients, mini accordion and 5”x7” albums for our boudoir clients, and premium DVD packaging for our engagement/family/children’s portrait sessions.

6.) Learn Directly From Top Industry Professionals
In March 2014, we flew to Las Vegas to attend WPPI’s Wedding and Portrait Photographer’s Trade Show. We listened to a multitude of the world’s best photographers speaking at this event, and saw the latest and greatest products offered by top-notch photography vendors such as album and camera equipment companies, to name a few.

Later in March, we attended a phenomenal wedding photography workshop right here in Pittsburgh, hosted by Leavell Photography. The speakers were the amazing husband and wife team, Ted and Rachel, of Linczak Photography. Ted and Rachel’s work is simply stunning, and they have won multiple awards for their creative and vibrant imagery.

As if that wasn’t enough, in May, we also drove out to the Philadelphia area to attend Cliff Mautner’s Lighting Boot Camp! Cliff is recognized as one of the world’s most talented wedding photographers. He has an acute sense for creating stunning images in the toughest of lighting scenarios. Studying under Cliff’s wing was an honor, and the relationships I created with the other talented photographers are invaluable. I still keep in touch with the friends I met at this boot camp!

7.) Increase Boudoir Bookings
We began photographing boudoir sessions in 2012, and just love how much these sessions empower women and make them feel confident and beautiful! Boudoir sessions are a wonderful treat for a girls’ day, a wedding party event, or a gift for that special someone. You will see us blogging more in 2015 about our boudoir sessions!

8.) Create a Beautiful Space to Meet Our Clients
We like to get to know our clients, and make it a point to try and meet every one of our wedding clients in person right off the bat, to ensure we’re a good fit! A great portion of this year was dedicated to creating a Client Meeting Room in the comfort of our own house. I plan to blog about this room in more detail down the road, but here’s a sneak peek picture of this room! And yes, Benny makes a cameo in the below image. He got curious and wandered into the Client Room as I was taking pictures!

9.) Blog More!
We love to talk to our fans, which is why in 2014, we committed to blogging more! Not just about the sessions we photographed, but also about the behind-the-scenes action, Giveaways, and published works, to name a few. We’d love to hear more about what YOU want us to talk about- so please leave any feedback in the blog comments below!

10.) Continue to Provide Excellent Service to Our Clients
Yes, we love to provide our Clients with images that make their hearts sing, but it is also about the day-to-day customer service, like making sure their questions are answered, helping them feel comfortable with their outfit selection, recommending a wedding day photography timeline to ensure they receive all the pictures they want. Our job extends beyond how to operate a camera. We like being there for our clients.

Warm Holiday Wishes to Our Amazing Clients

A simple thank you just doesn’t reflect the gratitude that we feel for having the most amazing clients this year! Not only have they trusted us to capture their most important moments in life, but we’ve also gotten to know these wonderful people, and feel like our lives are fuller in result. Our clients have propelled our growth in 2014, and continue to do so in 2015.

To these amazing people- thank you, thank you, thank you for hand picking us to be a part of your once-in-a-lifetime moments! We are truly blessed that you chose us to capture your lives in a very special way.

We wish you a glittering, magical, and love-filled holiday season!

Love,
Leigh and Barry

February Wedding Album Discount

Our New Client Meeting Room!

Workshops, Waterfalls, and Wineries: Our Trip to Portland, Oregon

2014: Our Accomplishments

Warm Holiday Wishes to Our Amazing Clients

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leigh@lavenderleigh.com