Good morning everyone and Happy Friday!  Each Friday we are going to start of the day with what we are calling our “Friday Favorites.”  Each week we will highlight one of our favorite things, something that we just can’t live without, or something that helps us to live a more AMAZING life.  So without further adieu …

Friday Favorites: In The Kitchen – Our Starbucks French Press. 

One of our absolute favorite things is walking into one of our favorite coffee shops and being surrounded by the AMAZING aroma of coffee.  As soon as you walk in the door the scent of freshly ground beans, brewed coffee, and espresso, washes over you.  It’s like a caffeine jolt to your senses.  Waking up and driving immediately to the nearest Starbucks or up to the AMAZING Artifact Coffee doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  So, the next best thing is brewing coffee in our Starbucks French Press.  Each morning we start our day by grinding some fresh Ceremony Coffee, boiling water in our green teakettle, and then brewing the perfect cup of coffee in our press.  The aroma quickly fills our first floor as the coffee bloom builds.  After 4 minutes it’s time to break the crust and press down the grinds.  What’s left is a perfect cup of coffee and a fabulous coffee house aroma to start our day.  The bold flavor is something you just can’t get from a regular old coffee pot.  The extra effort is truly worth it.  Get yourself a French Press here and learn more about how to make a perfect cup of coffee with the Intelligentsia App.

And to start of our first Friday Favorites and to commemorate Liz and Ryan launch week, leave us a comment for your chance to win a bag our favorite Ceremony Coffee to go with your new French press!

It was a Wednesday night as we got together with Jennie and Adam to capture their lives as they prepared for their little one to arrive.  On Thursday, they were planning to start the induction process to have little baby Young on that Friday.  We took some time that night to soak in the reality that soon life was going to be just a little bit different for Jennie and Adam.  We talked about their excitement to become parents and to find out the surprise of whether it was a boy or a girl.  Jennie and Adam shared their emotions and their fears that come along with being parents… like “what are we going to do when they can drive.”  ;)

It was so real.  The night before they were expecting to start the delivery process, they shared their raw emotions with us.  We captured it with video and still photos so that they will always remember what “those days” were like.

Jennie and Adam were married in December of 2010.  We fell in love with them as a couple the very first minute we met them.  They have a special kind of love that literally overflows into the lives of every single person they meet.  They have a saying that hangs in their home that says, “Spread Love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”  Honestly, they are the walking billboards for that quote!

As we captured Jennie and Adam’s Baby Story, we wanted to be able to give them something that will always remind them of where their family journey began.  It began with their relationship and the love they share with each other.  The love that overflows leaving the world a happier place!

We ended that Wednesday evening with dinner (a little sushi and wasabi in hopes to push that little baby out naturally!)  As we sat down, Jennie came out of the bathroom and said, (with a HUGE smile on her face) “I don’t mean to alarm anyone but I think I might be in Labor.”  ;) Of course we all pretty much jumped out of our chairs with excitement.  But Jennie assured us, it was not quite time to go to the hospital.  Dinner was waiting!  ;)  In the middle of dinner, as Jennie felt her belly… she said, “Oooooo!  I think this is it!  I think that was a contraction.”  Again, saying that with a huge smile on her face!  ;)  Ohh my goodness, if/when I ever have a baby, please God let me be as calm, happy, and energized as Jennie!  ;)  Seriously, she is amazing.  We left that night with Jennie saying she was going to try to get some sleep, “just in case” that was in fact the start of her labor.  Before noon on Thursday morning, Jennie had baby Charlotte Munroe.  ;)

With a visit to the hospital and some time hanging out with the new parents, we can honestly say our thoughts have been confirmed that baby Charlotte is one lucky little girl to have amazing parents like Jennie and Adam!  We are all certainly blessed that they have brought one special little girl into the world to help spread the love!  We have no doubt, Charlotte certainly will!

Jennie and Adam, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to capture your baby story.  We are so blessed to have you and Charlotte in our lives!  Thank you for bringing her into this world and for being an incredible example of spreading love and happiness to the world around us!

In the past, we have referred our maternity, baby, and family photo inquiries to other photographers because it was not what we “specialized” in.  As we concentrate our focus on documenting people’s amazing lives and celebrating life’s most amazing moments, we are excited to accept a limited number of Baby Story Documentaries into our work flow!  If you are expecting and interested in documenting this amazing time in your family’s lives in a real-life documentary (not your traditional portrait) kind of way, please send us a note!

When we started the process of redesigning our website, we knew we wanted video to have a very strong focus.  As you saw yesterday, we plan to post a new Manifesto Video each week, and we have slowly been incorporating bits and pieces of video into our story telling photography sessions (check back later today for a super fun session we just did with our AMAZING friends Jennie and Adam).

So when it came to our promo video, it had to be fit perfectly with our brand and tell the story of us.  Yes, we are photographers, but the goal with our site is so much more than that.  It is about helping people live an AMAZING life, encouraging people to live their dreams each day, and capturing life’s most AMAZING moments to share with friends and family for generations to come.  We wanted our promo video to capture exactly those same ideas.  So we started with the idea of having a fun date that included heading to our local farmers market, cooking together, enjoying wine and cupcakes, and just soaking each other in.  But enough of me trying to explain the video, check it out for yourselves and leave us a comment to let us know what you think!

Liz and Ryan: This is Us //  Promo Video // by Jeremy Mitchell Cinema on Vimeo

Thanks to Jeremy and Nick of Jeremy Mitchell Cinema for making us a promo video that exceeded even our grandest expectations!  These guys ROCK and if you are looking to have your wedding filmed or need an AMAZING promo video, definitely give them a shout!

Ohh my goodness!  We can’t believe this moment is actually here!!!  It has been a year + in the making!  (and we promise you that is not an exaggeration!)  We have put so much heart and soul into this rebranding project and we are so happy to say it was worth every single minute!

Beginning in January we embarked on this rebranding journey with the lovely ladies at Making Brands Happen (Lara Casey and Emily Ley).  They challenged us in ways that we never could have imagined.  They were there to ask us the tough questions and push us to dig deep when the answer came out too “easy” or we defaulted to just do what we thought we were suppose to do.  Every question they asked and challenge they put forth have led us to this point today and we could not be more grateful!

Sharing this new site with you is just the beginning of something AMAZING.  We have a fire in our hearts that is burning stronger than it ever has before.  We are confident in knowing that we want to do everything we can to be an inspiration to the world around us.  We have built this site (well actually the amazing team at Flosites built this site! ;) ) as a channel to share our life and our love with you all.  We hope to inspire you to live your own AMAZING life and to be sure to document it along the way!

Without further ado, we could not be any more excited to introduce to you, our new brand Liz and Ryan.

Huge Huge HUGE thanks to the amazing team at Making Brands Happen (Lara, Emily, Emily, Nicole, etc.) for pushing us and being that sounding board that actually challenges us to dig deeper!  Having you in our lives is such an amazing blessing that we will forever be grateful for! … and to think that it all began with Ryan’s comment “Lara Casey, she is CRAZY!  I want to meet her!”  ;)  So happy!   We are beyond excited about where Liz and Ryan is headed, but we will never forget where it all began!  THANK YOU!

A special shout out also needs to go to Ross and his amazing team at Flosites.  Ohh my word they are incredibly talented at what they do!  Thank you to everyone that had a hand in making our new site a reality!  You took our random brainstorms and wildest dreams for this site and made them happen!  We are website geniouses and we are proud to have you on our team!  ;)

And one more note of thanks… We would not be where we are today without every single one of our past and current clients!  You all have touched our lives in such a special way that makes our hearts smile HUGE!  We appreciate you and are so grateful you are a part of our lives.

To say our lives have been busy over the last several months is an understatement.  Preparing to launch our new brand while also trying to balance all of the necessary work required to still run our business has made for some late nights.  I am sure you all have had similar experiences in your own lives where work and life just don’t seem to balance. It’s at those times we need to take one deep breath and no matter how hard, carve out just a little extra time for that someone special.  Grab a quick coffee, call a babysitter and go on a date.  And most importantly, don’t lose track of what are really the most important things in life.

A few months back, just as we were starting to get into one the busy wedding months of the year, and as we were still finalizing our new brand, we decided to do just that.  We

took a moment to pause life, and went on a super fun date.  One of the things we LOVE the most about our job, is being able to inspire other couples to also be spontaneous and  to make moments to soak each other in.  This was also why we started hosting Couple’s Date Nights with our AMAZING couples.  No matter how long you have been together, never stop dating.  So to continue to inspire you to go on fun dates, we have decided to document some of our most fun dates and share them on our blog.  In fact, we have actually created an entire category just for Date Nights!

For our very first featured date night, we headed out to the Baltimore Print Studio to meet up with our super fun friend Catherine (who we are totally jealous of right now because she is spending time in Italy for grad school as we speak!) to learn what goes into making your very own custom letter press.  Letter press stationary is playing a huge part in our rebranded collateral suite, (future post to come) so seeing how it is actual made was super exciting to us.  After taking turns spinning the giant letter press wheel, we headed out for a romantic dinner at one of our favorite Baltimore restaurants, Pazo!  We sipped on fancy martinis, enjoyed some amazing tapas and shared a super tasty flatbread.

Cheers to making time for more Date Nights and holding the one you love extra close!