And since Austin is becoming the destination wedding photography location (yes, it’s true!) for many couples, we actually don’t usually get a chance to meet up with our clients after the wedding.  Many couples last year who got married in Austin ends up in Dallas and Houston.  So for many of them, the albums are shipped directly.  I was really excited tonight because I finally have a chance to meet up and show the beautiful works these are.

If you have never designed an album before, it is a very time consuming task – think of it this way – you have to tell your entire wedding day in just 60 photos for a 15 spread album  (they had about 100 because it’s a 25 spread album, but their wedding day images since it’s a 12 hour coverage with traditional Indian ceremony and with LOTs of dancing, ended up  about 1200 delivered).  Picking 100 out of 1200 is not easy.  I have talked with Nehal on the phone, in the email since December – met with her at their apartment to pick the images and then she came in the office to finalize the image selection and album design.   These books have to last for a LONG LONG time, so the selection of the images is critical.

Originally she bought the 10×10″ book at 15 spreads but after seeing the images from her wedding, they have decided to upgrade them to a 12×12″ Artisan Elite album with 25 spreads.  I think we actually ended up running over one extra spread of the large size album so it was 26 spreads total.

One of the newer albums we offer is the little 4×5″ Vertical book…  they are very, very cute!  Here is a close up and the quality is EXCELLENT.  No change in quality when compared to the bigger albums in the same series.

Love the red motif at the reception.

The little album next to the Artisan Elite, her big sister!

Looking at the album for the first time, i think they were really pleasantly surprised by the quality of the little one – it’s the exact same quality as the other albums, just smaller

Now, looking at the large 12×12″ Artisan Elite book and laughing at the fun dance photo at the end of the reception.

Thank you Nehal and Ankur for catching up tonight!!    Best wishes to you both and we hope you enjoy those albums forever!

So when we had the idea of presenting 3 images from each wedding, it became a real daunting task to go through all 30k images.   We knew we had to have some ground rules.  We decided that the majority of the images need to be both bride and groom together, that they’re nearly all moments with a few portraits thrown in.  And, we need to have over 80% of the images with either the bride or the groom in the picture (and limited the number of guests images – so quite a few really crazy and wild reception photos didn’t make the cut).

Still, cutting down from 29219 down to just 93 images and limit them to 3 images for a single wedding was a lot of work.  I hope you enjoy watching the slideshow as much as I enjoyed making it – I can still remember each wedding as if it was yesterday!  Some of these are also my clients favorites – we did a survey last year and will be publishing those shortly as well.

The slideshow ends with one of my favorite reception images from 2010 – and is also appropriate because I want ALL of my brides feel like Jessica and her sister at the end of one of the most important days of her life:

A BIG thank you to all of our clients for a great 2010 and best wishes to y’all for 2011!!

Ceremony and Reception:  Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort near Austin, Texas

Day two of Nehal and Ankur’s celebration starts at 8 am in the morning, with ceremony at 11 am and followed by a reception at night in the Lost Pines Ballroom.

A little bit of information about Nehal and Ankur – Nehal is a doctor and she commutes to Kyle, Texas.   Ankur is a surgeon at the Dell’s Children Hospital.   Ankur’s parents are from Ohio and Nehal’s parents came all the way from India along with her sister and family.   The wedding is meticulously planned by Jignasa Patel from the Dallas area with Nehal’s input.  Some of the most interesting details I have seen in the reception are in this wedding.

A big thank you to Michael Hooks and Chandler Prude for helping me out as my second shooter in the morning (Michael) and evening (Chandler).

If you have never seen an Indian wedding – you’re in a for a treat.  It’s a real interesting mixture of traditional religious ceremony and total celebration – the ceremony can last anywhere from an hour to 6 hours, depending on the region and tradition.

Here are only a few highlights of their day:

LOVE the red!

Congratulations to Nehal and Ankur!

Location: Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort

Nehal and Ankur celebrated their wedding in two days, October 8th through October 9th of this year.  They had a celebration the night before the wedding, the Sangeet, and then followed by an amazing ceremony and reception the next day (to be seen in the next post!)

We photographed their engagement session earlier – they were such a fun couple that I knew the wedding would be a blast!

The event was planned by Jignasa Patel and as you can see in the following images, she did a great job!

Here are some photos from the night:

Wedding post is next.

Lost Pines resort has a really nice golf course, and some horse back riding trails.  We spent our time near one of the courses where they get engaged, as well as inside the hotel itself.

Here are some of my favorite images from the session:

Slamdunk!

This tree is near where Ryan proposed to Jessica.  We had a second of sunlight that day at that moment.

One of my favorite images of the day:

Kicking it up, literally

Jessica and Ryan will get married in a few weeks at the Horseshoe Bay Resort near Marble Falls, TX.   Looking forward to it!!

Austin wedding and engagement photography by Tony Ku, Ku Photography LLC