arizona wedding photography ~ brenda eden photography

Why those flyers were homemade!

So! I was in a bridal show this weekend. The Phoenix Bridal Show at the Fairmont Princess Resort in Scottsdale.  I had not exactly planned to be at the bridal show, although I had planned to do it someday and I was thinking about getting the bride list.

But I was talking to the producer of the show and before you know it, I was signed up to be in the show. Around 5 pm on Friday night. Yeah, just 41 hours before the show would actually begin.

A huge part of my decision to be in the show was due to my friend Stacie (the owner of Ethereal Events Decor) and my new friend Be (owner of Arizona Wedding Concierge). My sister and I had dinner with them at P. F. Chang's about a week ago. We talked about a ton of things, one of them being what they thought of being in a bridal show, because they have participated in a few.

Just as we were getting ready to go, the waiter brought fortune cookies to the table. Mine read "Amazing things will happen for you in business this summer." I thought that was the strangest thing to read on a fortune cookie. Not so much the You will do well in business (that's kind of common for fortune cookies, right(?), but that it was specific.

This summer will be amazing. 

I always love summer, even though the days are hot. But I just love the feel of long days and tons of sunshine and all that can happen in the summer time, from the 4th of July to going camping to sweet cold stuff to eat like watermelon and icecream to going swimming and staying up late.

So...after talking to my friends and the producer of the show, I decided to be in the show and it had a really awesome feel to it. Deciding at the last minute made it feel kind of Cinderella-ish. Like, oooh, I'm going to the ball and I have to get ready RIGHT NOW! So that explains the homemade flyers. There just wasn't enough time to create them in photoshop and have them printed. 

Perhaps I got to meet you today at the show. I hope I did! It was so cool getting to see all the people that were there and I definitely had fun talking to brides and grooms and also to other vendors.  If I met you at the show, thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog. One of my plans for this summer is to post A LOT. It won't all be wedding photography related, but some of it will, so please stop back when you can.

(Since I like posting with photos, here is a photo from last week when the moon was almost full. A couple minutes after this the sun was gone from the sky and it was completely dark except for all this magical moonlight.) 

{A Walk around Calle 16}

At the very last minute this weekend, I decided to go on a walk with a bunch of other people to see what is happening in the neighborhood around 16th St and McDowell in Phoenix. 

The walk started around Way Cool Hair and went north to Barrio Cafe. (Have you ever been to Barrio Cafe? I've only been a couple times, but they have some of the best food I have EVER tasted and I can't wait to go back some day soon.  It's the type of place that you would take friends from out of town to give them a unique Arizona food experience.)

Artist Hugo Medina was the main speaker on the tour, with a few other people talking here and there. I didn't catch all that he said, but he was telling great stories and explaining about plans to revitalize the area and....wait....let me see how Calle 16's facebook page describes it.  Ok, they describe it like this:

 Grass roots community effort to fund and promote a community mural project on 16th Street, Phoenix, Arizona. Showcasing the barrio's voice through art/murals. 

Here are some of the images I took along the way.

So, as we were walking along, someone on the tour pointed to the ground and explained that he had been walking along with a geologist friend, who stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed this strange concrete. Something had caused an electrical pole to topple onto the ground (maybe it was hit by a car?) and the heat of the electricity turned the concrete into glass. There's something delightfully sci-fi and kinda scary knowing that concrete can turn to glass like that right there on the city sidewalk.

Here is Hugo Medina, who spoke on the tour.

I would LOVE to paint a mural. I've thought for a long time that I would. One of my favorite classes that I took at ASU when I was getting a degree in Fine Arts/Photography was my Mexican Art History Class and of course we studied murals quite a bit in that class. I actually have tons (tons!) of cans of spray paint left over from an art project I did about 8 years ago. I wonder if the spray paint would even still work. I have this idea that I would like to paint a mural as a backdrop for a portrait session and then use a tilt-shift lens to create a super dreamy effect. I definitely want to do that someday! 

Kiki!

Oh Sneaky Jasper Kiki Tiki Roo! Every time I see him he is being cute in some new and incredibly adorable way that makes me run for my camera. Here he is walking on walls.