A last minute, but still lovely Valentine's Day!

Hey guys!!! What is up? Obviously, today is Valentine's day - I know there are lovers and haters of this holiday, but I am definitely on the love side. Of any holiday actually. Why not celebrate? I'll take any holiday as an excuse to make a cake! Valentine's day, 4th of July, World Nutella Day, Pi day, you know, the usual holidays.

Anyway, I thought I would pop in today with some super last minute gifts that are awesome. All are homemade or semi-homemade and really easy. Here we go!
(counter clock-wise)

1) Marshmallow pops. Ridiculously easy. Here are the instructions: Get marshmallows. Put a stick in them. Dip in some melted chocolate. Add accoutrements. Let dry and package cute. Sophie made 3/4 of ours herself!  They taste so, so good too.

2) Make a sandwich heart. Does this need any more directions? (heart pancakes are a good idea too!)

3) Brownie bites. Again, totally easy. Either make brownies from-scratch, or from a box. Let them cool. Roll into balls. See #1. Super easy.

4) homemade valentines! I fell in love with these (you can get the template here!) b/c Sophie loves bugs and she is in preschool, so it was perfect for us. Again, totally easy.

5) Red velvet cake batter cookies. Recipe here - easy and quick and an awesome end to dinner!

6) the DIY bouquet. Get flowers from the grocery store (double points if you are near a trader joe's or whole foods) - ok, not the ugly ones, but some nice ones - two bunches. Take them home, open them, ditch the plastic, put the flowers together, cut the bottoms the same length. Now, this is key - wrap them in paper. Not PLASTIC. Either wax paper, or parchment paper, or kraft paper, or even solid wrapping paper if you must, but not PLASTIC. Tie somewhere with a twine (think the twine from the bakery box, or some rustic cord from the garage, or ribbon - not the curling kind). This bouquet will get you way farther than that original one in plastic (hopefully the price was not still attached!).

And, just in case those gifts don't work...

Monday Updates, sort-of :)

Hey you guys!!!  Things are finally getting back to normal!  Today will be a little weird because I'm not going to do a full Monday update, sorry :(.  I know you were excited.  I'm still finishing up work from 2012 and want to get that all done before I start revealing all that is happening.  We have awards to talk about, trips, engagement sessions, Sophie (of course!), the holiday wrap-up, best-of posts, etc.  Lots and lots.  I also have been cooking up a storm and want to give you the thumbs up/down on a bunch of pinterest recipes!

But, for today.  This is what I'm leaving you with...have you been checking out the gorgeous sunsets lately?  These are taken from my deck or kitchen window with the iphone and then put through instagram (you can follow our public feed if you like - @upliftphotography).


So, back this week with lots more!  Hope you all are having a wonderful start to 2013! 

2013!!!

Hey everyone!!!  So, so happy to be back!  I hope you all spent lots of time of family and friends, ate lots of good desserts, and played in the snow :). 

2012 was an awesome year for us and we are getting so excited to see what 2013 is going to bring.  Bring.it.on.  I took a few days off from the blog in December - I hope you all understand.  It was difficult for me to post about such happy things - brides, weddings, babies, personal life, holidays, parties, etc., while such terrible things were happening in the world.  I feel like I had to give it a little space, really think about things, enjoy the holidays and spend time with my family and then just start fresh in the New Year.  Is that ok?  I hope so.

But, now we are back in business - loving life and I'm just so excited to show you everything that is in the line-up here.  Besides the epic 'best of 2012' post coming soon (!) and embarassing annual 'behind the scenes' photos, I have a bunch of great shoots and happy people to show you!  And, all the news of 2013 - including the fact that we are starting off our wedding season this year in the Bahamas!  Pretty awesome. 

Here is a preview of what is coming up:

Elizabeth + Mike


Kelly + Tom


Amanda + Jon


Brooke + Jack


Halyn + Stephen


Caitlin + Matt


Fall Mini-sessions


Morgan + Charlotte


I told you it was a lot :)

And, just because this is currently my favorite photo of her....a quick holiday photo of Sophie :).

Happy 2013 everyone! It is going to be a great one.

Monday Updates!!

It is here.  Monday is upon us.  And, it feels good.  Especially good because I have a hilarious batch of photobooth pics from the holiday party to share this week!  Thanks to all that came out to the party- we had a blast!  It is so much fun to hang out and chat/drink/eat/photobooth :). 

As the wedding season winds down, I'm so pumped to talk about all the other stuff that we have going on... including two awesome things that happened this week!  So exciting.  Each will have their own post soon, but...we are beyond happy to announce that we've been awarded the 2013 Best of Weddings from The Knot!  Official press release and internet bling coming soon, but I just had to post it today! 

And...we have an amazing feature spot in the latest issue of Westchester/Hudson Valley Weddings Magazine!  Full-page photo on the back page.  Looking good Liz and Fred!  So awesome.  (we also have another photo in the middle of the mag!).

So, last week, I was a little insane with party prep.  If you have been following this blog for awhile, you probably have seen that I tend to go just the tiniest bit overboard in the party/holiday/food/enteraining dept, and cooking/baking are definitely hobbies of mine (I used to have a food blog too!).   My mom taught me to never not have enough food for people (bad double negative there) plus, I mean, come on, it is just fun to make mini-food for parties.  Pinterest kills me now too, like I don't have enough procrastination methods already thanks to the internet - do I need another recipe for cinnamon pull-apart bread?  Anyway, I have a lot of fun with it and you should think of it as a positive when you visit us (and come hungry) :). 

Here are a few quick instagrams of the results (really wish I had taken more photos!).  ps. I didn't make the cannolis, but my friend Amelia did!  She is a good party guest, huh?


Just a tiny sneak peek of the photobooth insanity!!  Seriously, these are just a few that I grabbed quickly.  There are so many more and all are amazing. You guys brought it.  Ha.  And, Tim picked some pretty funny props.  I think next year we are going to make it a BYOHP party (bring your own hilarious prop party).  Start thinking now!
(and, no, soph wasn't at the party, but she liked the photobooth the next day!)


To balance out all that craziness, I have to post this photo from my sweet session with baby Charlotte today.  Can you get over her hair??

Ok, see you all later! Back with a fun wedding post this evening!

Monday Updates!

Hey everyone!  How are you?  I missed you guys last week.  Today, I thought I would do a 'what-we-are-up-to' post - I'm feeling a little insane, the holidays do that to you, or, at least to me :), and the last few weeks have been busy busy, so I'm going to download my mind into this post right now, if thats ok.  I'm pretty sure that is the longest sentence ever written on this blog.

Did you guys like Wedding Week?  If you missed it, here is a recap:
Mon: Holly + John's Robibero Vineyards wedding
Tues: Danielle + Brien's wedding at Locust Grove
Wed: Laren + Adam's home wedding
Thurs: Nadia + Tom's wedding at the Falkirk Estates
Fri/Sat: Jenna + Kevin's Patriot Hills wedding

So, the 2013 Holiday Party is this Saturday!!! If you haven't heard yet, email me for details.  Lots of fun and food and drinks.  :).


Tim's birthday was yesterday!  I planned a fun-filled weekend that included me singing Crazy by Aerosmith here, and yes, the song sounded as awful as you might think.  All for the birthday boy! I made him a red velvet cake that was amazing (using this recipe!), but didn't take many good pics (ps. I love to cook and bake, if you are interested, you can see some more baked goods here).  We were too busy devouring it, it was perfect.  I did make Tim a homemade birthday card by printing out this...:), I just couldn't find anything appropriate at Hallmark!

We chopped down a tree! Did you know that Tim was a lumberjack in his former life?  Did you know that a female lumberjack is a lumberjane?  Urban Dictionary really is up on their stuff.

I have edited over 100K photos in the last few days!!!  Insanity.  The holidays are always like that over here - more to do, trying to square everyone away before the new year.  Whew. 


And, lots of albums are rolling through too!  I have a full post coming soon on that (post-holidays), but I love these.


and, ps, if you are looking for some gift ideas, I just found this awesome gift guide - tons of great shops and unique ideas - check it out!

Monday Updates!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all are excited for your short work week :).  We are excited for all sorts of reasons today - for one, the holidays have begun!  Such a fun time of year.  Secondly, we shot our last wedding of the season this past Saturday!  Wow.  We had such a busy, fun and crazy year of weddings and we ended it with the awesomeness that was Halyn and Stephen's wedding in NYC.  I have not blogged all of those weddings yet, so expect a lot more posts with wedding goodness in the next few weeks.  The third reason to be excited today is that we are announcing the Uplift Party!  Oh yeah.  Lots of fun last year and we are doing it again.  Email me if you want some details!

The rest of my post today is going to be a bit shorter than normal, only because the stack of editing on my desk is piled sky-high and I need to get it done and clear my mind :).  But, I definitely want to leave you with a few teasers and things.

Check out the view from the Trump Soho - this is from the room where Halyn was getting ready. The best city.

And, two of my favorites from Halyn + Stephen's wedding day. I know they are both kissing photos :), but I had to post them - they are just so classic modern and so New York. I couldn't choose between them. Tim is responsible for the 2nd one. Not bad, huh? :)

Love love love this photo from Caitlin and Matthew's engagement shoot last week.  I love it so much, I almost want to put it on my own wall.

And check out this one too!  They rocked out a bit of cold weather for this.  I have the best clients ever.

We took Soph to the Stamford Thanksgiving Day parade yesterday and she wanted to wear her sunglasses...I think she looks like a rockstar.

Quick favor to ask - I'm guessing a lot of you guys are getting your holiday cards together.  If you are using one of the photos we have taken, and have an extra, or just want to send me one :), I would love it! I want to do a post in the new year showing different holiday card variations and would love to showcase some of yours!

And...a few things I found interesting this week:

• Love this poster (proceeds benefit hurricane victims)
• Have you seen these holiday gift guides from Creature Comforts?  They are awesome. 
• I forget where I saw this link, but it is hysterical.  Definitely worth a minute or two.
• This is in my slow cooker right now.  Do you think it could actually taste like the real thing?  We'll see.
• I need to make this for Sophie.  I'll let you know how it goes.
• Some good looking holiday cocktail tips.  I'll be using these for the party!
• Anyone use this for keeping up with their address book?

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

Monday Updates!

This weekend gave me hope for a bunch of sunny days, but...its raining again!  I have three engagement sessions this week and it better clear up!  Rant over.  So, how was your weekend? 

Mine was wonderful!  You should know that I love all holidays and of course, that includes Mother's Day.  We have a few special Moms in our life and they do so much for us, so we always try to show them a good time.  This year Tim planned an awesome day for all of us - a cruise down the Hudson River.  With the gorgeous weather, it was perfect - the moms loved it, I loved it and Soph loved it too :). I hope all the moms out there had a great day, because seriously, where would the world be without moms (both literally and figuratively!) 





Love love love this one.

Last week was insane. Last minute, we got asked to be a part of an event run by the Events & Catering at the New York Zoos and Aquarium - the event was to show off their new (and wonderful!) event space at the Prospect Park Zoo as part of a larger NYC & Co staff event. We shot some photographs and had a table and it was a flurry of insanity to get it all ready (found out 2 days prior!). We met a lot of great folks and had a great time. I love the spaces that they have too - can't wait to shoot another wedding there (check out Meri & Eric's wedding @ the Bronx Zoo)!

Oops, forgot to show you my mom's day gift from Sophie! Love that kid :)

Now, here is a call for help - two areas...here is the first:

Not exactly looking pinterest-worthy, huh? I know some of you guys must be spray paint experts - help!!! I bought this awesome rusty metal basket thing at an antique shop a few weeks back and I bought some flourescent paint. I thought I just had to spray it (thin coats a la Young House Love - any fans???). I feel like I read enough about spray painting things and it looks so easy, but mine looks like crap. Obviously, I wasn't going to stop as it looks in the photo - it needed more paint...but here is where it started to get worse. I did another coat and it started to bead up and got ruffled-looking and then sort-of rolled off?! Do I need to sand this puppy or something before painting? Someone please help :).

And then, landscaping. Another expert is needed :). I love to plant outside, but we have 1) deer and 2) groundhogs. And they.eat.everything. So, I went to the nursery and got some non-deer-loving plants (they said the furry and smelly ones were the most deer-resistant), but I don't know what to do about the groundhogs. Any advice before I make Tim trap them and drive them to New Hampshire or New Jersey?! Another caveat is that I really prefer natural-ish remedies (meaning, I don't want to poison them, or shoot them, or anything similar). Here are my current plants, and, in case any of you guys have deer issues, I'll keep you updated!

Off to a meeting! I'd love to hear what you were up to this weekend!

ps. I am planning on doing a blog series showing off what people have done with their wedding/engagement/family photos (whether its wall hangings, albums, or something else creative) - send me some photos and I'd love to include them!!