As our readers vote, their favorite images will be displayed in a gallery of thumbnails at the top of our blog based on their popularity.

Cool, right?  It’s probably not near as awesome to anyone else as it is to us, but we really like to hear what our readers love. We can’t wait to see what images people vote for! Thanks for reading and go “love” some images!  (P.S. This doesn’t excuse you from commenting so feel free to keep, or start, doing that too. LOL!)

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We LOVE technology!  In pretty much all of it’s forms.  We’re both extremely attached to our iPhones and computers.  A week without internet access is like a week without air to us.  I would log onto my computer and type an email LONG before I’d pick up a pencil and write a letter – even if it actually took LONGER.   (Those of you who have ever seen my handwriting are probably really thankful for this fact!)  For a long time we’ve been managing our buisness in a rather traditional format . . . you know, file folders and spreadsheets and things like that, but recently, we’ve been introduced to an AMAZING new tool that has revolutionized the way we do things and how keep ourselves organized.  It’s a fabulous little service called ShootQ.

ShootQ is an online studio management service that allows us to have all our contacts, client and booking information, calendars and everything else in one super convienent place.  Since it’s based online we can access all of this information anytime and from anywhere.  AND we can do all kinds of other fun things like send out surveys and do online booking.  It’s awesome!  We’ve been using the service and transitioning things over since early November, but now we I think we can officially say, “ShootQ ROCKS!”

Another super fun feature that all of our couples will enjoy, is that each client has their own special “client site” with all the details for their wedding day or photo shoot.  They can visit it any time they want, update information, view their contract or billing information, fill out surveys and keep in touch with us.  YAY!!!

To all of our photographer friends out there – if you haven’t seen it all ready, go take a tour of this amazing tool and feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions!

View Portfolio | Become a Fan | Contact: studio@simplyknotphotos.com

We’ve got all kinds of fun stuff in the works that we can’t wait to share with all of you!  In the coming weeks we’ll be introducing a whole different look and feel for Simply Knot Photography.  Ryan and I have been talking a lot lately about who we are as photographers and what our buisness is really all about and we’ve kinda come to the conclusion that we’ve outgrown a few things that we put in place when we first launched out buisness.  The first thing to go: our logo and color scheme.  It’s time to kiss the old black and white ”SK” goodbye and say hello to this this cute little number:

So much more FUN and FRIENDLY, right?  When it comes to working with our clients, we’re ALL ABOUT the fun and friendly so we thought that it was time for the look of our buisness to reflect that too!  We also wanted to get away from the more tradtional look of our old stuff and emphasize the modern look you see in our photographs.  No stuffy traditional stuff here!  There’s a lot more changes to come, inlcuding a brand new AMAZING website so I hope this little taste will hold you off for a while ;-)

Wanna hear a little secret about our new logo?  The four dots are not only a cool graphic element, but they represent the letter “G” in the braille alphabet . . . “G” for Gotcher :-)  I’m probably the only one who cares, but I think it’s really fun that it has another meaning.  Don’t forget to leave us lots of comments below to tell us what you think!

View Portfolio | Become a Fan | Contact: info@simplyknotphotography.com

• BIG BIG BIG photos!  Our previous blog only allowed us to post photos at 600 pixels wide, but now we get to post at 900 pixels wide!  YAY!  We like big photos :-)
• At the top left hand side of the blog you’ll see a Twitter Updates box where you can always see what we’re up to via the social messaging utility Twitter.  If you’re a Twitter user, feel free to follow both of our feeds by clicking on the menu links under “Simply Knot”.
• On top of the comment box at the end of each post you’ll see a few little icons with ways you can interact with our blog content.  My favorite is the Facebook post icon that lets you automatically post the entry on your Facebook or send it in a message to your Facebook friends!

Exciting stuff :-)  Let us know what you think of our new blog by leaving us lots of comment love below!  Thanks for reading.

Making our customers happy is really important to us.  Whether it’s out shooting together, working with us on an album design or even ordering prints of your wedding photos, we want you to walk away feeling like you had a great experience!  In an effort to make the proof gallery side of our service even better, we’ve decided to make the switch to a new proofing company called Pictage.  Pictage is an awesome company that offers tons of great products and has the very best customer proofing interface on the market today.  Here are some of the ways that Pictage will make viewing and ordering your photos easier and better!

- You can create your own gallery of favorites to share with family and friends.

- Your wedding day will be categorized into different sections (ex: getting ready, ceremony, formal portraits, etc.) to make it fast and easy to get to the exact photo you want.

- You’ll have tons of great options to choose from every time you order a print.  The Pictage interface allows you to crop images to your liking, convert an image to black and white and even apply cool borders, all the while being able to view a preview of exactly what your print will look like.

- You’ll be offered great new products like canvas prints and photo cards that can be ordered directly from your gallery.

We’re very excited to make this change, but we also want to make the transition as easy as possible for our clients.  If you’re an existing client whose wedding date or portrait session has already been published in an online gallery, your gallery will remain as is until the expiration date 90 days after it was posted.  If you’re event or session has not yet been published to an online gallery, you’ll receive an email from us as soon as your photos are available using the new Pictage interface.

If you have any questions about our proof galleries or any of our other services please feel free to send us an email at info@simplyknotphotography.com.  Have a great week!

The topic of this post has been a long time in the making. At the beginning of this past wedding season Ryan and I started to collect pictures of each other doing what we love – being photographers! With the start of the New Year, we thought this would be a good time to take a look back at ourselves over the last few months and relive all the super fun photo shoots we’ve been blessed to be a part of. The truth is we have A LOT of fun when we’re behind the camera. We love getting to know our clients and do our very best to make them feel at ease and let their love and personalities shine through the photos. If that means looking a little ridiculous now and then, we think it’s totally worth it! So to give everybody a behind the scenes look at what we’re like out on a photo shoot, we’ve put together a little slideshow for your viewing pleasure!

But first, here are a couple favorites that I felt the need to comment on :-)

There’s just something about this first one that I love – it’s so rare that we’re both in an image at the same time (since one is usually shooting the other) so I just think its cool.

If there’s one thing that I always tell clients about Ryan, it’s that he’ll do anything, and I mean ANYTHING to get the shot! I snapped this one at our last wedding. And in case you don’t believe your eyes – yes, he’s standing in a lake . . . in DECEMBER! I was taking portraits of the bride and bridesmaids at the time and one of the girls actually pointed this out to me. Hilarious!

After getting out of the water, he had to walk around like this for a little while :-) How cute is my husband, seriously!

I may not be knee deep in freezing water, but I have been known to climb on things now and then . . .

And one of Ryan’s FAVORITE shooting positions – lying in the middle of the street! (By the way, though it may look like there’s no traffic – there was! He had to get up and run to the side of the road several times.)

I wonder sometimes if our clients think we’re completely nuts when we’re out shooting. We do things that probably look totally odd, but believe me, we know what we’re doing people! There’s always (well almost always) a reason for the madness. I decided to show a little before and after on a few of these to give you an idea of what I mean.

Before . . .

After . . .

Before . . . (I love how the groom looks completely confused in this shot!)

After . . .

Before . . .

After . . .

Before . . .

After . . .

I’ll close with this one because it’s just too funny! Ryan is actually looking down at me through his legs from where he was perched (rather precariously) on top of a trash can. Sadly my shot from below was not really worth sharing, but at least I still have the image in my mind :-)

***CLICK HERE *** to check out the slideshow with a whole lot more of our silliness :-)

Last but not least, we need to say thank you to all of the fabulous clients we’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with this past season! It’s because of all of you that we get to do what we love and we are so blessed that you allow us to be a part of your lives. We can’t say enough how much joy it brings us to capture your story and we hope you’ve enjoyed just a little peak at ours! Thank you!!!!

Both of our new wedding album options have thick, lay flat pages with virtually NO gutter so the page designs can stretch over the entire spread without interruption.  The Park Avenue line comes with a supple, Italian leather cover, giving it a classic, high-end look and feel.  (My other favorite feature is the chic cloth carrying case!)

The Manhattan line also features the thick, lay flat pages, but offers a full color image on the cover.  Produced with fingerprint and stain resistant material, this album has the outer look and durability of a coffee table album with the beautiful interior typically found only in a premium leather album.  It combines the best elements of modern style and traditional quality!

The other new option is the proof book.  These 8 x 10 hard cover books include every image from your wedding laid out in a simple six-images-to-a-page layout.  The image names are printed below each photo to make it easy to identify your favorites.  The cover includes a custom dust jacket with a full color image from your special day.   We do of course, still include an online proofing gallery in each of our wedding packages, so once your friends and family have selected their favorites you can simply send them to our website to place an order.  We don’t want our brides to have to worry about collecting a thousand post it notes full of image numbers!  Here’s an enlarged sample of what a page design would look like:

In addition to these new fabulous options, we have also made some changes to our wedding and portrait packages.  For all of the details, visit SimplyKnotPhotos.com!

*** A note to our current clients with upcoming wedding dates: you can also take advantage of these great new products!  We’re happy to apply any album credit from your package towards the purchase of one of our new album options.

Ever since the launch of Simply Knot Photography, we’ve been not so patiently waiting for our phone contract to expire so we could upgrade our phones.  Many of our clients reach us via email and it’s always been difficult to respond to email inquiries when we’re out and about during the day.  Last Saturday we FINALLY made the switch over to two Samsung Blackjack II smart phones!

These handy little phones have web browsing and email capabilities so we can stay in touch with our clients 24/7!  On top of that they come with lots of other fun features like a 2.0 mega pixel camera, a super cool program that analyzes music to tell you what song is playing, and the ability to use our own mp3 music files as ring-tones and alert sounds.  I have to say, I love that my phone says, “How you doin’?” every time I get a text message!  (For anyone who doesn’t know us all that well, Ryan and I are HUGE fans of Friends so having Joey Tribiani greet me with his traditional catch phase is always a thrill. :-)

Also, I have always been kind of a lazy “texter”.  Seems like way too much work to hit one key a zillion times to get to the letter you want.  I usually get annoyed half way through and just call or email the person.  Now that I have a full keyboard to play with . . . I may never actually TALK on the phone again!

What can I say, it doesn’t take much to make us happy!

WEDDING ALBUMS   Our new wedding albums are high-quality magazine style books that will showcase the unique story of each client’s wedding day from start to finish!  Each album will be custom designed by Ryan or myself (or a combination of both).  The albums have a full-grain leather cover that comes in six fun colors.  AND each book comes with a swank, cloth carrying case.  SO MUCH BETTER than a boring old slip album full of 4 x 6 photos!  These old style albums are nice, but a custom magazine style album doesn’t just show of your photos, it tells your story in a beautiful, artistic fashion. Can you image a better way to look back at your special day!

We’ve been debating for a while about changing our name because our long term goal is to have weddings make up the majority of our client base.  Though we enjoy doing portraits, head shots and other types of photos, wedding photography is where our true passions lie.  Our wedding day was one of the happiest days in both our lives!  We consider it an honor to have the chance to play a role in another couple’s special day.  A wedding is the culmination of months of planning and years of history between two people.  With all the thought and detail that goes into planning such an event, it kind of takes on it’s own unique personality.  As wedding photographers, we have the opportunity to capture it all and use our images to tell the story of the day and most importantly, the happy couple :-)

Another reason we decided to make the change to SIMPLY KNOT is because we wanted our company name to be something a little more fun and unique (to reflect the fun and unique photographers behind the lens!)  Along with our new name, we’ve just launched an AWESOME new website, a client proofing site AND the cool new blog you’re reading right now!  We’re still in the process of making a few tweaks here and there, but the best part of the new blog is that it will allow us to post much bigger pictures!  Yea!!!!!

 Here’s a (very cute) sample of what they will look like:

(Just a quick snapshot of of Molly’s contribution to Monopoly night – I lovingly titled it “Molly-opoly”)

Anyhow, please stop by the new website at www.SimplyKnotPhotos.com! Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!  Thanks for reading!