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BONUS: Conversation with Christy Weber of Junebug Weddings

To meet you. Welcome everybody. This is christy and christie. And june bug helped out a lot with this workshop, styling everything. So we would love to hear from you a little bit. First of all, tell us a little bit about june bug. Well, s o june bug weddings, dot com is an online wedding magazine and exclusive wedding planning resource. We started here in in seattle myself actually, kim our model today and our other partner, blair, are all wedding photographers or were and we started june bug from that experience and it's just grown and grown and grown, and now we have a presence internationally, but we just love weddings and loved the whole community, so we're passionate about doing well, thank you so much you're welcome, and I know there are so many moving pieces as far as putting together something like this. So why don't you tell us all of the moving pieces that have to come together in orderto make pull this off? Absolutely, I think just like with any real wedding, there are a mil...

lion pieces and so many wedding professionals who come together to create a day like this, kim and adam are actually, wedding photographers themselves lobby photography and they were married almost ten years ago in france I was actually there as one of the photographers, so it's been really fun to kind of re enact a little bit of the energy of their day, so I think that everyone who was involved really tried to kind of think of kim and adam and even though this isn't a rial wedding still really reflect their personalities, so our team in june bug, which is, you know, quite a number of people all really pulled together to reach out to the different wedding professionals in seattle who we know and think are just really a good fit for them. So alexa johnson from fiori blossom was the lead designer she's part of our team in june bug as well. She designed all the florals, the decor of the reception, the ceremony set up, we had rentals from peterson's rental we had incredible wooden table from seattle farm tables who is actually the company of um and as you're sorry, azure and michael where our models as well yesterday they're actually on kim's cousins and we had a beautiful letter press menus on the table from a thumb or a letter press kim's dress is from the dress theory a great little bridal shop in green, green lake and cash the chairs are from peterson's is well we have really great umbrellas I'm not sure if we'll be able to use them today or not before they're from bell umbrella and cake from uh this shoot the sweet side the right this was a lot of people are hoping I apologize I should have my list written down we had so many people who really impressive and remember no really jumped up to help us find the name of the cake, but I will say that everyone thought that you two were newlyweds a couple were newlyweds because of the way they interacted I can't believe they've been married for ten years married for ten years totally oh yeah and their whole family was here yesterday which was just absolutely credible to see them all really get to relive the wedding and you hear the vows again and so all that emotion you saw yesterday was totally real it's a real family, a little bit of almost a vow renewal ten years later that's so cool. Yeah, well people thought that they were incredible actors but they were really not very little that's why we wanted them to do it because we know they're very emotional couple on we could got some really good moments for markets to shoot with it was very amusing I was talking tio some of their their I think parents and older folks that were there and they were saying that for a while they just kind of ignored the cameras and we're like having family dinner like that's just how they were way we're always happy to have people who are willing to come in and do that for us especially when like you know your family aren't photographers and so they didn't know what they were getting into but we really appreciated them well I can honestly say after just being around them for the last two days I want to be friends with you yeah done deal I e you're good so tell us about I know that you with june bug would have liked markets for a long time they tell us about that relationship at all is there you know well yes we have been really really really lucky to work with marcus for years he's one of the photographers on our world's best wedding photographers hot list that we have on the website on dwi just aren't such huge admires of his work he is such a great photo journalist but he also really connects with his couples and gets right in there and pulls that emotion and I just feel like it's kind of the best of both worlds so we've felt really privileged over the years to get to work with him from him on our web site and honestly the best part of my job I get to really do all the editorial for the site and that is tio to get it interact with his photography he sends us work and we get to publish it and I get to choose which images to work with and it is just beyond an honor to get to do that with him and so many other photographers but his works pretty special and I have to absolutely a special yeah yeah and what we're gonna say oh come on oh I was just going to say his work is special and people were saying in the chat room yesterday how incredible it is to be able to spend all of this time with someone that doesn't normally do this and I think that's what's incredible about this workshop is marcus is not a public speaker he doesn't give workshops around the world he is a photographer working photographer he did fifty two wedding clash it's amazing which is a lot of weddings to do so he is actually were really, really privileged happen here incredible absolutely and I was speaking with blair my partner june bug yesterday about the things he's been teaching and we just have so much admiration for the way that he approaches working for his clients on dh understands the kind of responsibility that comes with being a leading photographer and that you're creating these memories for the rest of their lives and he just I love the way that he's been doing this for so long he's had so much success and so much so many awards and kudos but he just is the most humble person and really takes the heart what he's creating for these families and that he is there with this very special emotional responsibility things were falling down a live broadcast one many moving pieces actually pretty amazing seeing all this come together and being able to do all of these things that you know art marcus is known for and are kind of outside what we usually do it creative lives so it's been exciting? I have all this come together, but you're right like the heart of it I think is much is his ability to really focus on those emotions and he's said it over and over and over again just letting them be them focusing on them and seeing what comes out of it is yeah it's I think it's part of what makes it really special? I think so too being a wedding photographer is so much more than just the technical it's so much about social graces about connecting with the family and really understanding where you could be a support to those people on this wedding day that's so emotional it really takes so many different skills to be a wedding photographer, which is why amazing wedding photographers are so incredibly impressive okay, I would love to hear more about june bug absolutely hear more about how you started and how long you've been in business and what people can find when they go to your web sites, which is www dot june bug weddings dot com very easy, eh? So we started about cash almost seven years ago now, which I just can't believe on dh. Like I said, blair, kim and I were all wedding photographers. We actually met in our very, very first day of fine art school in photography class black and white one o one three we'll walked into that room and we all came from totally different backgrounds. We all had a love for photography that we we just wanted to learn. And so that was it. Our lives changed that first day of class, and we learned photography over the years, and mentor each other and learn from other people, and became wedding photographers in seattle. And soon after that, we just really realized there was sort of something missing in the market. We felt like our clients were calling us all the time and asking us for advice about who else to hire who else to work with. Sometimes they would hire people that we thought, gosh, if they had only known this, would this person over here would have been really the right match for their personality and their goals for their wedding, so we wanted to help. Connect those brides who we were working with with the very best wedding professionals in seattle who we thought they would absolutely love and they could really trust to hire on so we just to have this crazy idea to start june bug and create this list of who we wanted to recommend in town and we were in the right place at the right time the blog's were just starting there were no other wedding blog's at that time were one of the very, very first ones and we just were kind of lucky to begin it when we did and it has grown and grown so now when you come to june bug you confined so many different things tons and tons of beautiful inspiration we have two different blog's one focuses entirely just on wedding photography since that's our to love and a beautiful image gallery tons of inspiration advice for grooms and then you can also find our recommendation lest we call it our hot lists and it's the very best wedding photographers in the world the best wedding planners wedding venues and now we're starting to expand all over the country with other kinds of but leading categories like case dress shops, caterers all the important things you need yeah this is not just in seattle they have many other cities where you can you help wedding photographers find all of the resources they need absolutely and you know it's a really neat community of people too because the way we accept people onto our site as members we really take applications we check their references very, very, very serious about who we allowed to who to become a member of our community because we know that it's our reputation on the line, whoever we're recommending we have to wholeheartedly believe in them and know that they have great customer service and our going absolutely do right by the couples who hire them. So it's a it's an incredible community of talent so many small businesses out there so many artists who just are passionate about what they dio on so we love to see that you know couples are using it to plan their weddings but also the professionals within the community are using it as well to get to know each other and if find out who else eyes out there doing amazing work that they can be inspired by so it's a pretty neat network you're an incredible speaker have you ever thought about when I was a chat host on credit why you call me any time you know where to find me? So you mentioned that you do that you get to work with the editorial side of things what else to do for june bug? Well, as with every small business owner out there, I'm sure they know a little bit of everything um anything that pops up you know, putting out fires right left but really my job at on june bug is working with our editorial producing the website in general one of the things I love the most is thinking about just the building of the website how the navigation works how our users we're acting with it what else can we do that that would be valuable to our members and to our readers? My partner blair works with the relationships with all of the many, many amazing wedding professionals we have out there and then we have just a spectacular team of people who I couldn't be more grateful for who do you know a little bit of everything so um yeah I'm passionate about helping wedding professionals out there really get exposure be exposed to the right kinds of clients who are looking for them and so editorial getting publishes a really powerful way to do that and it's pretty exciting to get to do that for people all around the country put their work out there showcase their best work on our site so that people can see what's possible for weddings if you are talking about how do you get on the june bug lists? Good question well we take applications and so there is a link right on the web site from the main nab our says join us I believe and there's application we take their we ask for bridal references, professional references and we just really want to know that you are passionate about what you do and you have incredible customer service and you know that we can recommend you with all of our hearts and feel really confident about that no matter where you live no matter where you are it doesn't matter where you live you could be anywhere and world june bug website absolutely we have photographers especially from all over the world internationally it's really really fun to get to learn about the wedding industries in the various countries and even just within the u s all the different kinds of markets and what the you know weddings are a little bit different here versus there and the kinds of wedding photography traditions that are even their bridal portrait are much more popular in the south they have separate often bridal shoes just for the bride to get dressed up and have reported taken that's not the same in the pacific northwest day after sessions are more popular in different area so it's really need to see kind of how it changes across the u s and international well I started in photography about three years ago and I used to go to the june by website every week and dream of the day that I could possibly be on that list and here I am setting that oh yea well there's so much inspiration there and another really fun resource for wedding photographers I for inspiration I find inspiration in it almost every day we have a photo competition we do at the end of every year it's called the best of the best we started at a number of years ago and it's just grown and grown and grown this year we had submissions from I think cash thirty seven or maybe thirty nine different countries around the world at almost seven thousand entries and we narrow those photos down tio the fifty we think are the most amazing, interesting, innovative, beautiful photos of the year and so there are a number of collections of the top fifty photos of the year from the last I think from maybe two thousand eight on and those collections are so inspirational just a look at those fifty photos and try toe imagine all the creativity that went into making those the couple's the stories so those are some really fun things you can check out on the site wow! Fantastic that is awesome! Amos k is wondering what art school it's the photographic center northwest is where we all went tio photography school to fine art photography school on capitol hill and actually before that I went to cornish college of the arts a cz well, so a lot of our school don't very nice very nice um mr duck says what do you suggest regarding working with wedding planners and getting on wedding planners recommended list. Oh, that's. A really, really good question. Well, one thing that we see all the time we hear across the board from every kind of wedding professional we work with is that they have such a hard time getting the professional photos from the work they do. And it's it's just so hard. And I know that is a photographer it's challenging to find the time after the fact to deliver your photos to all the professions who worked on those weddings. But we think it is the smartest way to network to make friends and to really just have a mutually beneficial relationship. Every wedding professional who works those weddings needs those professional photos for their portfolios, for their web sites, and to showcase what they dio on. And if you could find the time to do that for them, I think that's the best way to make friends in the industry.