Museum Art Books are a new addition to our album catalog.  Coffee table style books, these versions by Couture are more akin to a monograph by your favorite artist: big, modern, beautifully crafted and printed, well composed and more about showcasing artwork than design.

Folks have been asking about how these books differ from the Coffee Table Art Books that we currently offer by Asuka and we can finally show you.  For starters, Museum Art Books come in over 20 different styles – yep, over 20 – so they are extremely diverse.  There are also over 10 different papers to choose from including linen, watercolor and even recycled papers for your binding.  Like Queensberry, these books are printed and bound by hand for superior craftsmanship.  As for the finer points, here are some photos so you can see for yourself…

Our first Museum Art Book is a first year documentary project with Baby Camille incorporating 6 different sessions from pregnancy through Camille’s first birthday.  We chose to do a French Paris book at a size of 10×13 with linen paper.  All Museum books come with a minimum of 100 pages, giving them more oompf than our 60 page Coffee Table Books as you can see (MAB on the left, CTB on the right):

In addition to being bigger and thicker, the Museum Art Book lacks the glossy casualness of the Coffee Table Book with heavy stock, textured paper.  Color is less punchy and more demure and the pages are thicker.

I definitely dig on the texture of the linen pages:

Some characteristics of the French Paris style include the vellum cover over a white leather binding, printed end pages and the option to add vellum inserts with text or graphics.

We’re getting geared up to order a Berlin book next and design our first Museum Book with Megan and Tom’s wedding.  Stay tuned – we’ll show you more of these as they come in!

Posted by Mel @ 6:00 pm, in Albums, News, Wee Ones | 2 Comments | Permalink

Stephanie and Jeff planned the first and only wedding we have attended to take place in a middle school!  The couple met in high school and Stephanie is a middle school art teacher, making Tomahawk Creek Middle School a very appropriate location for their wedding celebration.  Their marriage ceremony took place in the auditorium with a lunch reception to follow in the cafeteria.  The wedding colors embraced the school spirit colors of blue and silver.  Stephanie made almost all the decor herself including tons of paper flowers, bouquets and boutonnieres.  Mini composition books served as table assignments and the back of the wedding program was a sudoku puzzle.  The details were creative, clever and fun.  Check it out:

The school offered a lot of unique spots for portraits including the stage, the gym and even a school bus that was brought in just for the occasion!  Steph, Jeff and the wedding party let us have some fun with the location – I love this shot of the guys posing as the basketball team:

And this shot where I asked everyone to look totally bored and way too cool for me at the same time (sooooo middle school).  They nailed it…

Here’s a slideshow with our favs from the day and if you would like to be notified when their online gallery, including the pics from the dinner reception at Maggiano’s, is available for viewing click here.  A big congrats to Stephanie and Jeff on their unique marriage and a big thanks to the wedding party for being so much fun to photograph! 

And a big, BIG thanks to the very talented Hunter Henkel who has assisted us on the last 4 weddings.  I seriously couldn’t have done it without you…Thanks a million!!!

Posted by Mel @ 7:16 pm, in Weddings | 1 comment | Permalink

Kelly and Joe were married on a gorgeous, sunny day in the Italian gardens at Maymont here in Richmond, Virginia.  Kelly is very much a hippy chick so the bridesmaids joined her and took off their shoes to walk barefoot down the long, columned path to the ceremony site.  It was a very emotional ceremony:

After the ceremony, guests headed off to Maymont’s Nature Center to enjoy cocktail hour with Special Ed and the Short Bus (a.k.a the Hot Seats).  The event was all about bright color, daisies, toe tappin’ music and the occasional flash of the peace sign.  Oh, and a vintage VW Beetle too.  Check it out:

Here’s a slideshow with our favs from the day and if you would like to be notified by email when all the photos are online for viewing, click here.  A big congrats to Kelly and Joe on their marriage and for having such a fun celebration, thanks for inviting us to be part of it!

Posted by Mel @ 9:26 pm, in Weddings | No comments | Permalink

I just love those two portraits of the girls, they’re so age appropriate.  Such sisters!

Lauren is just a month shy of turning a year old and Anna is growing like a sprout.  We spent some time playing in the backyard on the swing set.  Lauren likes to prop her arm behind her head and strike a pose while swinging:

And more swinging fun…

Chrystal set up the kiddie pool in the backyard so the girls could splash around in the heat.

Of course we got some dry shots inside too, Anna loves to dance:

This was from a game of peekaboo that I was playing with Lauren, I don’t know why I love it so much but I do:

And Anna running with her blanket and sippy cup:

Here’s a slideshow from the session and if you would like to view their online galley, click here.

Posted by Mel @ 8:01 pm, in Portraits, Wee Ones | No comments | Permalink