Casey called me while I was napping with Carly to let me know that we were picked to receive the Brides Choice Award from WeddingWire. Wow, so fun! We seriously can’t wait to see what this year of weddings brings.  Thanks to all our brides and grooms and we can’t wait to meet all our future 2010 brides and grooms!!

Here is the official press release… crazy right!? 

Lomita, Ca – January 21, 2010 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced Figlewicz Photography has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for wedding photography!

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

Figlewicz Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

We are happy to announce that Figlewicz Photography is among the very best photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes WeddingWire and Martha Stewart Weddings. We would like to thank our past newlyweds for nominating us for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/figlewicz-photography-lomita/19e1f924c6064884.html.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding vendors. WeddingWire enables engaged couples to search, compare and book over 100,000 reviewed wedding vendors nationwide, from wedding photographers to wedding cakes. WeddingWire also offers an online community and a suite of cutting-edge planning tools, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding vendors, WeddingWire provides free online management tools creating the only market opportunity that gives businesses control over their clients, reviews, leads and performance. In addition, WeddingWire has partnered with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE: MSO) to provide its network of local vendors and online wedding-planning tools in the Weddings section of www.MarthaStewartWeddings.com. For additional information, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

So, we were really tried to get these up before Carly’s arrival but nothing really goes as planned with three kids.  My friend Kelli Nelson did my makeup, she also does weddings! Casey and I had a fun time shooting these pictures… actually that’s not true at all.  We found out we work better shooting together then shooting each other.  Our friend Whitney who will be shooting with us this summer took our family photos at Burnout Beach.  It is so weird how one minute you can have a baby growing inside of you and a week later she decides to enter the world.  We are so blessed with all of our kids.  Trying to hold onto that thought even with a day like today. Dylly lost her mind after leaving her one and only blanket at Grandpa’s house, Nathan was bored to death, Carly was crying because she wanted to eat AGAIN…. it was chaos but right now they are all sleeping like angels.  Thank you Jesus!

Well what a wild weekend. We had our trade show in Orange County on Saturday then Andrea and baby Carly decided to pull a fast one on me Sunday morning.  I was woken up at 4am. Andrea wasn’t feeling very good. She felt dehydrated and felt like the baby hadn’t been moving up to her normal alien like self. So we jumped in the car and headed to the hospital. They attached her to all the monitors. Baby Carly was fine while she was sleeping but the minute she started to move her heart rate dropped. So they brought in the Ultra Sound machine to check the fluids. She was a little low so the doctors said you are going to have a C-Sections today. Well that was 7am. They said it would be in 30 min. I was like yikes I gotta go home and get my camera. So I raced home and grabbed my gear. I made it back just in time to put on my scrubs and get into the OR. Well the rest is history. Baby Carly and mommy are home as of today and doing well. Be sure to check back because there are lots more pictures to post.

We woke up at 6am to get ready and pack up the car for the Bride World Expo at the OC Fair Grounds.  We brought a team of our friends to help us set up, considering I couldn’t really do anything.  I was so excited to finally see our booth come to life.  I was sad to leave at  lunchtime, but I needed to get back to Nathan and Dylly.  Casey had so much fun meeting all the cute brides and couples.  Everything was going great until Casey realized he couldn’t find his keys and that’s when we realized I had taken both sets home!  So I woke Dylly up from her nap, jumped in the car and headed back to Costa Mesa.  My dad went with because Casey was to nervous that I would go into labor on the freeway… he is so cute.  We packed up the booth and ended our day at Applebee’s.  Thanks to our friends who spent their Saturday helping us.

We totally forgot to post these super cute pictures from our Christmas Eve service, but we are a little crazy right now.  As I’m typing this Carly is acting like an alien and causing my belly to make shapes that really shouldn’t be allowed!  We have a trade show tomorrow with Bride World, two days of nothing, and then my C-section Tuesday morning.  And Casey bless his little soul shot a candle light service for our friends at Burnout Beach earlier tonight and now is shooting in our studio for Linea Pelle.  And here I am blogging… we probably should pretend to have a date later tonight. Popcorn, movie, cuddling, you know husband and wife stuff.  Okay back to the Christmas Service.  Each year the little ones from our Canvas Service dress up for a nativity scene and then our pastor tells the story.  It is always pretty comical to get them all up there because kids will say anything.  This year we also had some new characters such as Tinkerbell the angel, Santa Claus, and Davy Crockett.  It was so cute!!  And I was pretty proud of Nathan who played Joseph and Dylly who was a sleepy sheep.

Their freshmen year of college, Justine and Patrick met when both spent their first semester in Yosemite as part of the High Sierra program. Somehow after four years of dating, Patrick completely surprised Justine when he proposed by singing to her and then popping the question with the help of Taco Bell packets and Sweethearts. Then, on July 11, 2009, the two tied the knot at Mariners Church in Orange County. The ceremony was incredible and the reception was so much fun!

Wedding Details:

Catering/Reception: Strawberry Farms

Ceremony Venue: Mariners

Dress: Marry Me Bridal

We can’t believe how quickly this year has gone.  There were so many fun weddings, engagements, family portraits, beach days, rainy days, babies being born, and of course Dylan and Nathan being crazy. It is amazing how life never slows down… and this year has been so fun working together, meeting new couples, and of course the excitement of expecting our daughter Carly who is due on the 12th!! Yikes we are crazy but it is so fun.  We wanted to show case all of our clients from 2009 with our favorite photos of them. Enjoy!!

We are so excited for our friends Ben and Holly and this new chapter to their adventure.  They can’t wait to meet their daughter… only a couple more days to go!  Ben and Holly started going to our church, Rolling Hills Covenant a couple years ago.  We got to know them better at our bible study called The Commons.  Holly is such a sweet heart and we are having fun being pregnant together.  Ben is so funny and is going to be an amazing daddy!  I can’t wait to shoot little Adelaide’s birth.

Here is a sneak peek of Jamie and Brett’s wedding at the Summit House in Fullerton today.

This one is for Casey! Most of you know that we have been married for 7 1/2 years now. CRAZY!  He is the BEST husband and daddy I know, sometimes I’m not sure how God gave him to me. Before we had kids Casey would seriously get up every morning at about 5:30 a.m. to check the surf.  And when I say check the surf I mean he would drive around and find the surf.  As our life has become a little more crazy… (kids, injuries, losing Taylor, jobs, new jobs, our photography business, more kids, you know grown up life.), his surfing has been pushed a little to the side or a lot at times.  Now instead of driving to check the surf he checks his I Phone.  This has been a hard thing for Casey, because not only is surfing a huge passion of his, it is one of the main ways he connects with God.  Being near to God and experience the power of the ocean.  So last week there was amazing surf at Casey’s second home, Burnout Beach in Redondo. He was so ’stoked’ to surf that morning that he took us back that night to show off the waves.  Luckily we LOVE the beach as much as he does.  My one hope and prayer for our family is that God will always remind us of who we are as individuals and as a family and why He created us no matter how crazy life gets.