A NYE wedding in Carmel…ceremony in a redwood grove…a Michael Jackson glove…what more do you want? Ok, how about a cake face-smash for the ages? I mean, if you’re going to throw a NYE wedding, THIS is how you do it. To top it off, the band performed a world-class rendition of Mark Morrison’s 1996 classic “Return of the Mack.” Bravo, bravo. I can’t think of a better way to ring in the new year…

 Hundreds more images to come soon at www.jakeholt.instaproofs.com!

Austin Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

Who needs photobooth props when you have these 2 adorable little nephews? Picture frames, balloons, chalkboards and fake moustaches are great, but nothing beats a bow-tie adorned baby. Pass ‘em around! Just be careful not to leave them behind as so often happens with the fake moustaches…

 San Francisco Wedding Photographer – Austin Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

That lipstick was supposed to be smudge-proof. SMUDGE-PROOF! That’s ok, I think Tim wears it quite well indeed. It goes well with the green tie, don’t you think? I love that photo more than I can possibly explain…and we didn’t even begin to discuss the yellow shoes.

San Francisco Wedding Photographer – New York City Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

So, what do you do when the forecast shows rain for your entire wedding day – and the forecast ends up being correct? Well, it always pays to have a good rain plan, and possibly the best rain plan imaginable is to have gigantic floor-to-ceiling windows allowing for a fabulous view of storm clouds blowing through downtown Chicago and into Millennium Park. Part two of that ideal plan is to have the entire modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago all to yourself, along with a huge covered patio, so that you can party the night away, dry as can be, with the beautiful lights of Chicago in clear view. Sunny days – who needs ‘em? I’ll happily trade this current 106 degree sunny Austin day for a monster rainstorm. Please, please allow me to trade for a monster rainstorm.

All of these images are now available for ordering at www.jakeholt.instaproofs.com - hundreds more to come soon!

Austin Wedding Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

Livebooks creates websites for some of the world’s greatest photographers, so when they asked if I would like to be featured on their Success Stories blog my answer was, of course, absolutely! Of particular interest to them was my About page, so they asked me to talk a bit about why a unique About page is such an important (and frequently underused) tool to be used to set yourself apart, as well as my general experiences with Livebooks as a 5+ year client.  You can view the entire post on their blog if you’d like to read my rambling essay. Thanks again to the team at Livebooks for the feature and for an awesome website!

Austin Wedding Photography – Los Angeles Wedding Photography – www.jakeholt.com

Wow, it’s been a busy month so far in magazine-land! Lesley and Paul’s November 2010 wedding was featured in Elle Taiwan’s summer wedding special, while one of my favorite photos from Hillary and Eric’s April 2011 wedding was used to illustrate the “photojournalistic style” in the August issue of Brides magazine for their Ultimate Guide To Photography. You can pick Brides up on newsstands everywhere now – their photography guide has TONS of great, helpful info for brides and grooms to be. Picking up a copy of Elle Taiwan might be just a bit tougher, unless of course you live in Taiwan. Thanks again to Lesley & Paul, Hillary and Eric, and (again!) Margaret at Three Apples Events!

Austin Wedding Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

I’m incredibly excited to announce that the new www.jakeholt.com has been officially waxed and polished by the team at Livebooks and is now live! After a number of years with my trusty old site (one that will always hold a dear place in my heart), it was time to move those rather moderate-sized images to a new site that can show them in all of their full-screen glory. With the average desktop screen size becoming larger and larger, small images just weren’t cutting it any longer – this new website will automatically scale images to fit the size of your screen, be it 13 or 30 inches. Hooray! Now you can clearly tell EXACTLY who it was at your reception that was screaming the lyrics to “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Badly.

Austin Wedding Photography – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

One of my favorite photos from Weneva & Mark’s April wedding at Becker Vineyards just won an award in the Creative Portrait category of the prestigious Wedding Photojournalist Association’s international photo contest! For those unfamiliar with the WPJA, it’s a merit-based organization comprised of some of the most talented wedding photographers in the world, so this award is quite an honor. If you take a look at some of the other winners, even just in the same category, you’ll see that they come from all over the world: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, NYC, England, Brazil, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Paris, etc. Wow and wow. Honored. Thanks so much to Weneva, Mark, Becker Vineyards and the WPJA!

Austin Wedding Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

Is it good luck or bad luck when the groom drops (and shatters) his glass during toasts? I say good luck. As you can see below, we definitely had some on Saturday, as the ominous storm clouds passed just close enough to give us an amazing sunset while thankfully sparing us from some late-May showers. Keep on dropping those glasses…

All of these images are now available for ordering at www.jakeholt.instaproofs.com – hundreds more to come soon!

Austin Wedding Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com

I’m relatively certain (positive, actually) that I have uncovered a grand conspiracy. Scroll on down toward the bottom of this post and take a look at the B&W photo of Jay’s grandfather, then tell me that it isn’t James Dean. Seriously. I will investigate further – I’m imagining body doubles, fake car crashes, the whole nine yards. Stay tuned for the juicy details.

Austin Wedding Photographer – Los Angeles Wedding Photographer – www.jakeholt.com