Impact Tip - Need inspiration to plan your green wedding?

Check out this website: The Green Bride Guide! You will find lots of real green weddings with story boards that will help you visualize how you can make your wedding eco-friendly and save some green!
While going through this site, I found a friend whose green wedding was featured and some of you may remember her. I have featured Heather and her eco-friendly custom invitations on this blog in the past.


Please feel free to share your ideas and tips with me and I will share them with our readers! Happy planning!

I Want to Walk the Talk's Cooking Class

Last week Aaron got to shoot I Want to Walk The Talk's Cooking class aptly named; I Want to Stir Things Up, and I am jealous! The food looks great and we hope even more people show up next time to take advantage of this great program! Go to their website for more info and sign up now! http://www.walkthetalkchicago.org/

Be sure to check out the next event too, a Wii tournament with open bar at the Palmer House! Sounds like a fun night to show your skills, have a little party, and meet some great people.

Margaret and Brian, a really great couple that I am excited to work with, were also there working on their cooking skills. I think this is such a great way to spend time with someone you love!

Impact Tip - I'm on Protovert!

My hope was to share some fun photos of my volunteer day on Sunday but as anyone who was in Chicago knows, it was snowing that day! April is for showers, not snow! So I am bummed that I wasn't able to go.

But I have another fun thing to share with you. I was recently interviewed by Protovert.com which is the premier wedding website for planning a green wedding. They have great ideas and stylish ways to make your wedding speak for your commitment to the environment and community without sacrificing style. I am honored to help other brides know what questions to ask their photographer that will further their green wedding plans.

Check it out! Some of you may recognize this picture from my bio although in my bio its not just my face! Sorry for the creepy stare! :)

Impact Tip - Jump into spring!

It's getting nicer and nicer around Chicago, thank goodness! A great way to make an impact is with your time. This spring, see if you can find some time to help out local stewardship groups in beautifying Chicagoland! I am going on Sunday to help plant and weed a meadow to encourage native flowers to grow and get rid of pesky exotics at Nichols Park Wildflower Meadow (1355 E. 53rd St.)! I am really looking forward to being outside again and working in the field.

If anyone wants to join me, send me an email or call me and I can give you more info. Or check out this site and chose your own date and time to go out and help. This is also a great activity to do as a couple or a family, make a day of it!

I will show some pictures of my experience next week, please feel free to share yours with me as well!

Impact Tip - Wind-powered letterpress eco-invites!

Thank you Christina for sending in this great tip! I love to share info my readers find and this is really cool! Bella Figura is an eco-friendly invitation company that uses wind-power letter press and tree-less paper for their invites. They are beautiful and very stylish!

A little about them..."In our Central New York print shop, we create unique letterpress wedding invitations the old-fashioned way, using vintage cast-iron presses, the best paper, time, patience, perfection, and a whole lot of love. Because we want to make the world a better place, we're a wind-powered, carbon neutral, and eco-friendly letterpress shop, and we donate 1% of sales to environmental causes. We print our custom wedding invitations only on 100% cotton (tree-free) paper that's made exclusively for us in a historic European paper mill. Our letterpress wedding invitation designs, our commitment to the planet, and our expert and attentive service have garnered us a national and international following."

Photos courtesy of Bella Figura

Vendor Spotlight - Katherine Anne Confections

This week I had the pleasure of meeting Katherine of Katherine Anne Confections. She makes delicious caramels and truffles from local and organic ingredients wherever possible. She also uses fair trade, recyclable and biodegradable containers made from tree-free paper for her special treats. You can find more information here on where to get these great confections at local retailers!

She also does wedding favors which are pictured below. They come in an assortment of beautifully crafted tree-free paper boxes that are reusable and are hand crafted to match your colors and style. There are several paper's to chose from to make your box.

Don't they look delicious!

These are a sample of the favors

Impact Tip - What to throw and not have to throw away!

I have seen a lot of really cute ideas out there that make really fun pictures for that all special announcement of the couple just after the wedding. Of course bubbles and streamers and flowers are great but can be costly and leave lots of unwanted waste...so consider this new idea!

This came to me from a bride that is planning her green wedding in May, some of you may remember her, Stephenie, she was EXTREMELY close to winning my green wedding contest and lucky for me, I get to shoot her wedding too!

She is tossing lavender buds which I think is such a fun idea! Not only are they biodegradable and harmless to animals, they also release a fresh scent of spring as they are stepped on as people say their congrats and hellos! I just loved this idea so I had to share. She got them here!

I can't wait for a fun shot like these with this unique and green idea! Way to go Stephenie!