Happy Holidays!

Dear Friends, Family, & Clients (who are, of course, friends),

Well, 2006 is coming to a close, and I am very fortunate to be able to travel home to visit my family in Texas. Over the next 10 days I'll have limited access to email, but please please don't hesitate to call me if you have any questions, ideas, requests, or just to chat! I absolutely love my family, but I don't mind a break every once in a while. ;)

I want to thank everyone for being a part of one of my personal best years ever! I also want to thank everyone who helped me through the tough, stressful parts of the year. I am so excited about next year, when I'll be graduating from CMU, taking on some challenging (but fun) projects at work, and of course, seeing my wedding and portrait photography business bloom like a garden! Being a photographer is really a dream come true.

Very soon in 2007 I hope to be debuting a new website, new journal style, and new sample albums! Keep checking back for updates.

Even though I didn't anticipate any wedding bookings until the begining of the year, I am already about 50% booked for 2007! Since I will be in school until August and it is very important to me to be sure I have plenty of quality time for each couple, I havelimited availability. If you're thinking about booking...stop thinking and give me a call!

Over the next couple of weeks I hope you enjoy friends, family, good food, love, memories, photographs and the hope of possibilities in the new year. I am so excited to be a part of that. :)

Happy Holidays!
Jillian
408-206-8684

Jaime Soria

Oh goodness, well it's nearly 4am here, and I *do* have to get up for work soon, lol. But I just couldn't wait to get Jaime's photos finished before the holidays!

Saturday afternoon Jaime braved the bitter cold weather in San Jose for an awesome photoshoot! Warning to all you who haven't had a session with me before....we just take a walk, and we stop wheverever we want to shoot. So that could be 10 minutes away, or more likely, every 10 steps! But she's a trooper and didn't make a peep about having to take her coat off every 2 minutes. :)

Jaime Soria is a gorgeous actress (http://jaimesoria.com, check back soon for the updated site) and was a blast to shoot with! Check out the slideshow, you know you can't fight it!

Here are a few selected favorites:

Oh DRAT!

Well, for a couple reasons. First, my shoot last Saturday was rescheduled due to rain, and that's super disappointing! I need my photo fix each week or I just don't feel like myself. :)

Second, I switched to the new google version of blogger....which would be cool....Except almost all the names from comments are gone!! Now it just says anonymous. Hopefully new comments will be properly labeled, and that was just an artifact of the move. I guess there are worse things that could happen to a gal, but this one made me throw a tiny tantrom (in my head).

Hopefully I'll have new photos to show this weekend from a fun shoot I have lined up. I'm also hoping that I can get my Christmas shopping both started and finished on Sunday!!

Stay tuned!

Bryan Thomas

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk in downtown San Jose with Bryan Thomas, a real photographer's dream! He's stylish, has tons of personality, can laugh on cue, and was up for any idea I suggested. Bryan is an awesome radio producer, owns his own dj company (www.armadillostudios.net), and is interested in venturing into rodeo anouncing!

All right ladies, this slideshow is just for you. ;)

A few of my favorites:

Gregg & Suzi & Morgan!

Saturday evening I met up with Gregg & Suzi and their sweet dog Morgan for a fun E-Session! I don't think Morgan quite understood what was going on, or why we kept telling her to move around, but she sure had fun. :)

As usual, the E-session was a relaxed walk up and down a few blocks, stopping here and there when we saw a spot that caught our eye. Gregg & Suzi are both really sweet, and I just can't wait for their wedding next year!

A Very Sweet Slideshow :)

A-WHOOP!!!

Ok, so this is a little out of the ordinary for a photo-journal. :) But I just had to share with someone! I'm not a football fan, never have been. I didn't even have that "school spirit" thing...until I started Texas A&M. Now I'm an Aggie, I bleed Maroon, and I'd be willing to be the 12th man if they ever needed me. Oh, and I don't like Longhorns. (I'll make an exception for my friend Rosa.)

:) But ever since I became a part of the Aggie family (a rather large and loving family), we really haven't won a game against the Longhorns (University of Texas, or as we like to say "tu"), our biggest rival (at least in our minds....it's a tradition). Still, we love our team, we support them, and it doesn't matter what other team we're playing, we sing in our fight-song that we'll saw off the horns of the tu mascot. We kind of love being weird like that.

Every year the big rivalry game is played at Thanksgiving time, and this year, I admit, I didn't even bother to look up the score....until about 10 minutes ago.

WE WON WE WON WE WON!! 12-6. A-Whoooooooooooop!!

So I just wanted to give a shout out to all my Aggie family...I love you, I haven't forgotten you, I'm so excited, GIG 'EM AGGIES!

Ben & Kim E-Session

Ben was a cubemate of mine for nearly a year (he makes awesome balloon animals!), and I've met Kim on several occasions, so meeting up with them for their Engagement Session was a just like hanging out with old friends. :)

I had a blast and these two are just incredibly cute. I can't wait to shoot their Tea Ceremony next year!

SLIDESHOW!!!
Here's a few favorites.

Trash That Dress!

Bridesmaids at least have a little hope of reusing the dress...but brides, be honest...most of you won't be sporting your wedding dress at the next holiday party. So what do you do with it? Most people choose to have it dry cleaned, and then stick it in the back of their closet for the next 20 years, until one day they realize the moths or mold have ruined it. Or it just won't fit anymore. :) Sure, it's sentimental...but it's entirely out of sight.

So why not use it while you can? That's exactly what Lisa wanted to do with her dress, so she donned it one more time and we headed out to the Mission district and the Palace of Fine Arts to get some extraordinary (and extraordinarily sexy) photos to remember the dress by! It's not called a "Trash the Dress" session for nothing...she sat in alleys, leaned on walls, and finally even waded into the pond in front of the palace. This isn't for the faint of heart!

The slideshow is so much fun!

LA for 2 Days!

Hi everyone, I'll be in LA for the next couple of days without internet access. I'll be available by phone (listed on my contact page) if you need anything!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sandy & the City

Some of you may recognize Sandy from her photoshoot earlier this year....then again, you might not. :) She got this awesome new funky cute haircut to match her funky cute personality and suddenly we needed new pictures! Sandy's always so much fun to work with (hey, she's a comedianne AND a radio dj how could she not be fun?) so I jumped on the opportunity!

We headed back downtown where she strutted her stuff for the camera! Check out the funky slideshow!

George And Sandra in Sonoma!

Saturday I had the pleasure of shooting a fun wedding in Sonoma! Now, first of all, I just love wine country...it's beautiful and relaxed and quaint and fun. Secondly, Sandra and George have an amazing group of family and friends who made me feel like I'd known them forever! And of course, Sandra and George are beautiful, vibrant, sweet, and fun! I couldn't ask for a better combination. :)

My favorites are in their slideshow!


She has beautiful eyes!



















She had a very talented hair stylist/makeup artist!



















Her amazing dress was custom made to be everything she ever wanted.




















We took some fun portraits before heading over to the church.



















The wedding was at a beautiful Catholic church, and the priest made the ceremony really sweet!



















I loved this moment right after the ceremony...I think they just realized they were married!













A couple of sweet portraits in vineyards at Rodney Strong winery.
































The bride's nephews were so cute, and this one posed for the camera!
















A sweet moment from the first dance...






















Thanks so much to Sandra and George and all your wonderful family and friends! I had an amazing time, and I loved capturing your wedding. Enjoy your honeymoon in Maui!

OH MY GOODNESS: I HAD COMMENTS!

So, despite the fact that I am a Software Engineer, I can be pretty ditzy when it comes to my own site! For the longest time I thought that no one every said anything on my blog. And then tonight someone flat out *told* me they did. So I went looking for it.....


and i found 33!!! 33 comments I never knew about. ;) I feel pretty silly, and very loved all at the same time. So thank you everyone who left comments, I am having a lot of fun looking over all my old posts and seeing what very nice things you have said.

Seriously, it really made my day (but it should have been making my day for the past month)!

THANKS!! :)

Beautiful Menlo Park Wedding!

Wednesday I left for Texas rather suddenly, due to a critical family emergency. My clients and their weddings are so very important to me, but nothing is more important than family. Before I left I secured a wonderful back-up photographer in case I was not able to return on time. We were incredibly blessed that Jennifer came through her third surgery well, and we are even hoping that she'll be home from the hospital by Christmas! All of this was a great relief, in part because I felt comfortable traveling back to California for a gorgeous Menlo Park wedding. :)

Tim and Michelle were married at the Allied Arts Guild, a quaint little village of shops, a restaurant, beautiful gardens, and artist studios. All of the proceeds go to the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. What a gorgeous location! Of course, the bride was prettier. :)

Check out their wonderful slideshow!

The day started with Michelle getting "glitzie" at the salon...



















I just love shoes!



















What a perfect dress...



















The groom giving last minute directions!



















They got the idea for the ring bearer's "pillow" from my sister's bridal portraits! I especially love it because the nest is such a symbol of new life. :)













A little mischief in the garden...



















The bridesmaids fixing Michelle's dress right before...



















We're Married!!



















Lucious cake...



















A sweet moment...













Garden moment: