Super Tuesday

Today is the day that us Californians get our chance to get our voices heard. I don't care who or what you vote for... but please just go VOTE! And if you're a photographer, bring your camera and document it for the New York Times polling place photo project. I'll be voting around lunchtime (and brining my camera) so look for a photo later today. If you're still reading this... what are you doing? Get out and vote!

*edit* So I'm back! No line (I'm hoping it's just because it was early, not because no one is voting!) I was worried that taking photos inside wasn't allowed... so I only took a couple quick snaps of the outside. Yay for polling places that are walking distance from the house!

Say Hello to Herbert!

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that Ben and I had a rough winter with the loss of our lovable family dog Rita. Our house just hasn't been the same without the jingle of a collar and a friendly face at the door to greet us on our return home.

Which is why I am overjoyed to introduce you to the newest member of our family... a spunky little guy we've decided to call Herbert! We're calling him Herbie for short, and he's quite a handful. He's a fully grown rescue dog (of course) which means he comes with a bundle of issues, but we love him in spite of all of his quirks. He came home with us on Thursday night and has been learning the rules of the house (although he seems quite unhappy with the "no dogs on the couch" rule). I am so happy that we were able to find a lovable dog that needed a good home, and that we finally have that excited jingle when we come through the door (now complete with a full body wag as well). I seem to be totally incapable of stopping myself from taking photos of my pets so expect periodic Herbie posts from now on.... but for the moment here is just one introductory shot of our fabulous new friend!

On a totally unrelated note... I just shot an amazing wedding in Malibu yesterday and I cannot wait to show you some of my favorites. I may be posting a teaser later today, and expect a full post later this week!

Dallas Wedding Weekend

Ok here goes... photos from my weekend in Dallas. There were two main reasons for me to travel to Texas; number one because my cousin Emily was gettin' hitched (yippee!) and number two because my brother is going to be marrying one of my best friends Tara in Dallas this fall as well (double yippee!) and we were going to scout locations and dresses for their wedding. We had a super packed and busy weekend, which was exhausting but SO much fun. I took lots of photos and I'm just warning you now this is going to be a whopper of a post... so sit back, grab a cup of tea and settle it, here we go!

The first thing that we did when we got in was attend the rehearsal. My mom and Tara got to work decorating the pews...

The MOB (mother of the bride for those that don't speak wedding) my aunt Sue looking so proud!

And the father of the bride, my uncle Mike, taking photos :)

The happy couple, walking down the aisle after the rehearsal...

The next day was WEDDING DAY! It was fun to experience a wedding day as a guest instead of as a photographer, but of course you couldn't pry the camera out of my hands if you tried... so I had to grab a couple of shots here and there. The next few are from Emily's bridal brunch.

The bride and her momma :)

All of the bridesmaids looking fabulous

Emily toasting her bridesmaids and thanking them.... such a sweet speech! I love girly get togethers!

Between the brunch and the wedding we headed out dress shopping for Tara (I told you it was a packed weekend!!) I am holding myself back from posting any photos of her actually in a wedding dress, as I hear it's bad luck for Chris to see her in one before the big day.

The other thing that made my trip extra-fabulous was that I got to see one of my absolute best friends Jean. Tara, Jean and I were like 3 peas in a pod in college. We were all in the same architecture studio together, all rowed crew together, and basically spent all our time together :) I was so happy that Jean drove up from Houston to hang out with us on Saturday! I just had to throw her in front of the camera though, no one is safe around me :)

How gorgeous is she? I have such good looking friends!

Tara and Jean together.. so cute!

And of course I couldn't forget Tara's sister. They are so adorable together!

And now, finally... on to the wedding! There was no photography allowed during the ceremony and I wasn't around for the getting ready... which only leaves the reception. I did my best to stay out of the way of the hired photographer, Sarah Holt from VIM studio (who is awesome by the way!) so I mostly took photos of my family, plus a few dancing shots just for fun :) Here are my parents looking sharp

And Chris and Tara, looking ridiculous. Don't worry, that face was on purpose. They don't always look like that :)

I think this one is hilarious. I always tease my sister that her mannerisms are slowly turning into those of my mom... and I think this shot proves it!

Allison with the happy bride & groom

This dancing shot of my parents is one of my favorites of the night, so sweet!

And a little more dancing action. The party was a total blast!

Just as the night was winding down I glanced over and caught this shot, Emily with her parents in such a sweet moment. She is definitely daddy's (and mommy's) little girl! It was so touching to see the love between them.

So there you have it! My ridiculously long Dallas weekend wrap-up post! I had such an amazing time and I'm so happy for you Eric & Emily!! Congratulations on your marriage and I hope you're having a fantastic time on your honeymoon.
Chris & Tara, you're next! I can't wait for your wedding in Dallas this fall, it's going to be amazing I'm sure. Thank you so much to Jean for driving all the way up to see us, you looked fantastic and I can't wait until you move closer so we can hang out all the time :)

Long Overdue Holiday Recap

Well the holidays are officially over. It's been a busy couple of weeks so I haven't had much time to update the blog. I was hoping to put up a separate Christmas post before new years but clearly that didn't happen... so now you just have to sit through my Christmas and new years posts all at once. And get comfortable because this is about to be a long one, but trust me... this is the abridged version. You're lucky I didn't post photos from my family white elephant gift exchange :)

My favorite part about going home for the holidays is getting to spend time with friends and family. We typically play a lot of games, mostly apples to apples (which I love) and boggle (which I love even more... I think it may just be the best game ever invented!)

We also have a tradition in my family of always building ginger bread houses at Christmas. Leave it to Ben the architect to build a crazy round house. It was pretty fabulous.

On Christmas morning we open all of our presents in our pajamas like little kids. I will spare Ben the embarrassment of posting photos of him in his pajamas :) but I couldn't help posting this one of my sister. Just look at the excitement on her face! You'd never guess that gift was a pillow. Yes. A pillow. She's easy to please :)

She painted an amazing landscape (from a photo she took in Maui) for her boyfriend for his gift. Isn't it gorgeous? She is a super talented artist.

One of Ben's favorite gifts was his new photo toy. I think now we're going to have ridiculous numbers of photos of each other holding our cameras because every time I went to take a photo of him, he was pointing his camera right back at me. Oh dear.

After opening presents we usually go to visit friends at their house. This year they had a new dog that I'd never met before and Oh My Gosh it was about the cutest thing that I have ever seen. They're lucky I didn't steal her!

Ok so that's the Christmas photos... but now it's time for the new years batch! We headed out to Palm Springs for the weekend with my sister and Mark, John and Valena, and my parents. What better way to spend new years eve in the desert than going to an arcade and playing mini golf?

Allison has a photo-a-day blog which she had been sadly behind on updating due to a broken camera. She got it fixed for Christmas so it was back in action on this trip. Here she is in full photographer mode.

Mark and John tallying the score. I lost. By a lot. I do not have a golf career in my future :)

After mini golf we went back to the house and had some time to kill before midnight. So of course in an attempt to entertain ourselves we had to balance things on each others noses.

And play lots and lots of wii. I became addicted to the Rayman Rabbids game. The dancing bunnies are hilarious.

We got all festive with hilarious party hats and noise makers...

And at midnight had copious amounts of confetti.

At the end of the night we were all pretty wiped out. I think maybe those faces were from thinking about how hard it would be to clean up all the confetti :)

And to finish up the set... a ridiculous self portrait of Ben and I in party hats. Don't we look awesome?

All in all it was a wonderful holiday season. If you made it to the bottom of this post, congratulations. That was a lot of Regnier family holiday to wade through :) I hope you all had a wonderful new year. Stay tuned to the blog in the next few days, I'm heading out for my first wedding of the year on Thursday so there's lots of excitement yet to come!

New Photos for a New Year

In December I called up my friend Crissy to see if she would be willing to take some new photos of me for my website and blog. She is crazy and fun like me and my one and only request for our session was that my pictures be fun! I have to add here that I am not terribly good in front of the camera if I'm by myself.... I tend to squint up my eyes and laugh nervously. I think she did a great job of making me look less ridiculous than I really do :)
I haven't seen all of the photos yet... and I definitely haven't decided which ones are going on my website yet, but here is a sneak peak (all photos snagged from her blog). Thanks Crissy for a super fun afternoon!

Towards the end of our session we were getting a bit loopy so she made me throw my shoe at her. I was nervous that I was going to whack her in the head (or worse the camera) with my shoe. Hence the face :)

Thanks Crissy for the fabulous photos. I can't wait to see the rest!