So what song is on my first musical madness blog post you ask? Britney Spear’s “Stronger”. I came across this song today and it brought me back to when she first released the video. At that time, I used to watch MTV all the time. I really enjoyed watching music videos and learning about new tunes (truth be told I have been watching MTV since 1990).  Anyway back to the video. I was watching the making of the video on MTV, it was pretty cool to watch all the behind the scenes stuff. The biggest thing that stuck with me from this video was Britney’s lipstick. That’s right, lipstick. I loved that brownish color! I remember trying to mix different lip glosses and lipsticks to try and get the “Britney Shade”. I may have succeeded…I don’t really remember haha.

Since I am on the topic of beautiful people, here is a photo of Liz. Liz (Liz Maryann Photography) and I did a girl’s photo day. We decided we needed new photos for our websites/Facebook, etc. and decided to get glammed up and photograph each other. A post about her is coming soon I hope

Happy Friday! <3

I don’t really know how to explain it. I know chipmunks are a menace to plants (especially my strawberries and tomatoes) but I have grown fond of this little creature. I love my plants and I appreciate all creatures cute and not so cute. I find that Intrepid has become part of our outdoor family and he/she is quite the live entertainment for Leela and Stealth. I first met Intrepid Jr this year. I knew this wasn’t the original Intrepid because it was less of afraid of me and the cats than the other Intrepid was last year.

Intrepid Jr made a few grand appearances today on our deck and I had to snap a few images. So far, this little creature hasn’t discovered my strawberries (fingers crossed). He/she seems to be more interested in those seeds with the little propeller which is good for us because he/she is doing a great job of keeping the deck clean. The original Intrepid and I seemed to have a mutual understanding last year with my tomatoes. I would give him one large tomato and in turn he wouldn’t touch my other ones. This really seemed to work but in the end I couldn’t seem to strike the same agreement with the bug community :’( so Intrepid ended up getting all the tomatoes… Maybe he/she was working for the bugs… lol. Whatever the case, here are some pics

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…aaaaaand Stealth (grey) got bored… but Leela is keeping a close eye on this little “intruder”

I am sad I didn’t actually catch the moment when he picked out on of those propeller seed things. So smart.

Intrepid Jr the model…. hahahahaha

…a little sip of water? Why yes, thank you

<3 Enjoy!

Enjoy! <3 Happy Monday and I hope all the lovely Mommies out there had a marvelous day yesterday

Meet Christine. Beautiful, funny, feminine and with a voice that will knock your socks off. This girl can SING Christine and I met in High School. She was (is) very good friends with one of my besties (Katie). Christine and I also went to GMU. She studied Vocal Performance at George Mason University (GMU) while I studied Art with concentration in Photography. The Art building and Music building were next to each other so we ran into each other quite frequently. I had heard Christine sing in High School and a little bit in college, she was truly amazing. Then, I ran across her music page a few months ago and was blown away.

I was honored when Christine contacted me to do a portrait session for her. I loved working with Christine, she was such a pleasure to photograph. Since we are on the topic of High School, Elle Alise Hair & Makeup Artistry dazzled her up. Elle Alise (I know her at Latavia) went to High School with us as well. I absolutely loved having a mini reunion for this shoot because I had seen neither since 2003.

Christine is about to go rock NYC with her incredible voice and I wish her nothing but the very best!

Christine: Singer

Elle Alise: Hair and Makeup

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Below: I like a little drama in my images… haha

I started and ended with my faves

I do have one disclaimer… if your parents or your love’s parents are funding the wedding then please take caution with how you approach them about budget and what priorities you might have for the big day (I fully understand that the wedding day is all about you but if someone else is footing the bill then it will also be about them to some extent).

Make a list and check it twice… (boy I am full of them today hahaha)

What are the THREE MOST IMPORTANT must haves for your wedding day. Start from the most important must haves to the least important, listing the top three first. Don’t know what to list? Do an online search or visit your local bookstore. I recommend investing in a wedding binder that has a step by step guide to wedding planning down to the last second before walking down the isle (well maybe not the last second but at least to the day of). In my experience the top 10 things are where you are going to spend the most $$.

My wedding priority list went something like this:

????? for a few months…then… after a gorgeous vacation in Mexico it went something like this:

Important

-Venue: Le Kliff Restaurant (the food came with the venue)

-Date: (something memorable and to make sure it wasn’t during the rainy season)… 02/14/2010. If the date is most important to you (because its a most wanted date then be prepared to plan way ahead).

-Plane Tickets

-Number of guests to invite

-Photography

-Suit (I wanted Adam to look a certain way)

-Hotel for guests

-Alcohol (open bar)

-Cake: Had to be something Latin… Tres Leches. Mmmmmm

-Transportation

-Hair: I needed a hair style that would hold in humid beach weather

-What music to play

Not as important:

-The dress: Ladies don’t gasp. Yes the dress was important but it wasn’t top priority. I wasn’t too picky. I wanted something without a train and inexpensive (I was going to have to stuff it in a suitcase and take it to Mexico)

-What kind of stationary I bought (I ended up making my own)

-Hiring a DJ: We were going to have 30 people tops actually attend (but thanks to Snowmageddon we had 13 including Adam and I). Hiring a DJ was not necessary for us. We reviewed our music and asked for favorite songs from our families to put on my iPod and just played that.

-Wedding Favors: They were important but I didn’t need to spend a lot. We bulk ordered the items and made candles for our guests

-Florals and Centerpieces: We… well I wasn’t hard pressed about certain flowers. I just wanted them to be white and whatever was in season at the moment. We chose cute ocean themed center pieces for our special day… kept it local.

-The Officiant: We just wanted to get married at the beach. We let Le Kliff hire someone for us.

Not Important:

-Wedding program

-Makeup: I did it myself. I sweat like crazy so I didn’t need much aside from eye and lip stuff

-Videography

-Wedding Party & Attire: I realize this is a HUGE part of EVERY wedding. We didn’t want to force anyone to have to pay to come to Mexico just to be in our wedding party. We also could not afford to pay for all the friends we wanted in our wedding party to come out so we just didn’t have a wedding party (it was kind of nice because there was more time for photos of Adam and I )

It’s been two years and 2 months ish since we got married so I don’t remember every detail on my list but the list above about sums it up. I do want to say that knowing what I know now that I didn’t know then… I would have prioritized a couple of things differently… but oh well. Instead, hopefully I can help YOU make the right choices for you.

One last thought about the list: think about what would be most important to you from your wedding in 10 years from now. Is it the food? The Venue? The Season? The photographer? The Flowers? The killer DJ? The guests? Whatever are your top three is what you should be investing the most in.

Get Creative:

The last thing I want to talk about is getting creative to save you some $$

Do you have time?

-Make as much as you can. Denise decided to make meaningful, yet inexpensive, wedding favors by creating a CD mix of her and LJ’s favorite tunes for their guests to enjoy. She also purchased pre-designed invitations from a local store and printed the text herself.

-My brother and his wife saved money by making table cards themselves instead of going with a stationary company. What was also cute about them is that they were snowflake  ornaments (winter wedding)

-We made our wedding favors ourselves. We created ocean themed gel candles for our guests.

Get Friends to help!

-If you have something that is not in your top 10-15 must haves but you would still like to have that one thing in your wedding? Find someone who would like to help you with that or someone who is studying that craft.

Take your time

-Sometimes waiting a little bit longer to get married can help. It can help save you money and it can help you get first dibs on that vendor that you simply MUST HAVE

Check out your local wedding blogs for more ideas

Hope this tip has been helpful <3 Leave any questions, comments or love below

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Allie took complete control over the details of this e-session. She wanted it to be country themed together with boots and a country-esque setting. I just picked the location and she did the rest. The “S” is for soon to be Mr and Mrs Suttle and was hand painted by her. She also made the really cute “Save the Date” sign. …And what about the chalk on the boots saying “Please Save the Date”? So cute! I hope you enjoy these pics because I had a total blast shooting this session as well as editing it

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So, who is that behind the camera? I wanted you to meet myself and Adam on a shoot we assisted Evelyn Alas with on Friday at Midnight. If you are a bride reading this, don’t freak out (this is not how I would show up dressed at your wedding ), this is my outdoor portrait attire. I like to jump in bushes, lay on the ground, run, hop, make fun of myself and such to get the perfect shot For those who I have photographed before, you know what I am talking about

Adam is my husband (look what he has to put up with LOL) and he occasionally assists me on shoots. I have been teaching him the ways of photography for a while but it hasn’t been until the last few weeks that I have taught him how to use my camera (because I know inevitably he would get images of my being totally silly).

So with that being said, I present to you team Anna D Bruce Photography

Notice how Adam is well composed and with a perfect smile… I taught him that in all these years of being my model. He does it so well

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So the story starts something like this… I had to run 3 errands in Washington D.C. which were the reason why I had to be there in the first place… I had been putting off getting my cameras’ sensors cleaned because it would require a trip into the city which… which I didn’t really want to do. My sensors however were pretty dusty and with the wedding season starting for me this Sunday, I had no choice but to go to DC. I also needed to scout some locations for a shoot this Saturday so it seemed only perfect to go in after BNI because I figured by 9:30am it would be the tail end of rush hour… BOY WAS I WRONG!

I get on 395 from Alexandria and immediately got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I was like “greeeaaat… only me. Only I pick the one day to get stuck in all this mess”. So, I patiently crawled into the city. Although, after Arlington it was smooth sailing til I got on route 1. So I am stuck on 14th street and see all these people by the Washington Monument and I think to myself “Um… Spring break is over… the cherry blossoms have long gone by way of the Dodo bird… what’s the deal with these hundreds of people with cameras??” So I am looking around and nothing. I get stuck behind this cab with this huge crowd of people and hear “There it is!” I turn to look out my window and THERE IT WAS INDEED! The shuttle Discovery being piggy backed over DC. “OMG OMG OMG OMG” is all I could think! All of a sudden the traffic seemed irrelevant, all the people didn’t bother me anymore because I got to see a once in a lifetime thing!

Check it out! <3

Ps- Yes, I had no idea the Shuttle Discovery was on its way to DC. I don’t watch the news anymore (it’s done me a world of good not to know what is going on you should try it for a month. You will feel like a whole new more free person).

On another note… I like visiting the monuments in Washington D.C. at night… There is TONS of parking, there are barely any people and best of all there is NO traffic on 395! It is so serene to be here at this hour. I like nighttime photography but must admit I have been too lazy (and somewhat nervous) to go out at night and shoot. Last night, Adam accompanied me into DC for a very awesome shoot with Evelyn Alas

Evelyn and I met at the Jasmine Star event in D.C (blog post here) last month and was so honored when she contacted me to assist her with a shoot in DC at… midnight! Can’t wait to share more with you (whether it be her post or photos of my own)

xoxo and love always

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I love the photo below because even at a 30 second exposure you can see the stars moving. The two long streaks are airplanes flying in to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport so they don’t count as stars