Tiffany & Steve's Blog

A little bit off the subject of wedding photography, but our friends Devon & Jeff Haupt of The Classic Harpist will be presenting a harp recital as part of the Music Under the Dome concert series at the Jacksonville Public Library 201 West College Avenue Jacksonville, IL 62650 at 4pm Sunday January 29th. They will also be part of the Jacksonville Main Street Bridal & Prom Expo January 22nd.

The couple are fellow members of Springfield Local Favorites and have returned to Devon’s home of Central Illinois from the Chicago area. They have an impressive list of locations they performed recently: In Michigan — Four Winds Casino, New Buffalo; Comstock; Grand Rapids; Farmington Hills; Whitcomb Parlor, St. Joseph; Fore Lakes Golf Club, Kimball; & Battle Creek Country Club, Battle Creek. In Indiana — Valparaiso Country Club & Taltree Arboretum, Valparaiso; Granger; White Hawk Country Club, Crown Point; Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart; Columbia City; South Bend; & Benton House, Indianapolis. In Illinois – Cornerstone Building, Peoria; Mattoon; Quad Cities Botanical Gardens, Rock Island; Heritage Woods, Charleston; Pine Lakes Golf Course, Washington; Quail Creek Country Club, Robinson; Esplanade Lakes, Downers Grove; & Allerton Hotel, Chicago. And Tiffin, Ohio. See their list of top wedding ceremony music for 2011.

If you’re interested in harp music at your wedding or event, be sure to check them out and come to the recital or bridal expo for a preview. And, as you can see from above they (just like us) are more than happy to travel.

Posted by Steve. Warmowski Photography, husband-wife photojournalist team available to tell the story of your wedding day. Follow us on Facebook. Member of Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois (on Facebook).

An update on Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois, who met at the Northfield Inn & Suites.

Group president Matthew Stevens of Stevens DJ Service told of how connections made within the group have paid off for Springfield brides. He was working four different weddings where the cake was not delivered (!) He called fellow SLF member Tammy of Specialty Cakes and asked her if she could help. She was able to pull a cake out of the fridge and quickly put one together to save the day. Another reception was being held up because the limousine had broken down (bad maintenance!) He called Party Time Limousine and they were able to quickly pick up the wedding party from the side of I-55 and bring them to the party.

Members heard a presentation by Kimber Leka, formerly of  wedding photography by Photofever (old site was www.photo-fever.com). Now she leads Leaving Hoofprints Youth Ranch in Springfield, Illinois. The organization saves abused horses, and uses them to give horsemanship and rides to struggling children. Springfield Local Favorites members are working on helping this program as a form of service to the community.

Members are getting ready for bridal shows, including this weekend’s WDBR bridal show at the Crowne Plaza and the Jacksonville Main Street Bridal & Prom Expo January 22nd. Get a list of 2012 central illinois Illinois bridal shows.

Other highlights from the meeting . . .

• Girls In White Satin Bridal & Formal Wear will be doing the fashion show at the WDBR show.
• Dan at Treetop Productions announced they now offer Blu-ray discs.
• Made connections with Tammy at Having a Ball Productions and Michelle at Petals & Company florist in Rochester.

And don’t forget about Magical Event’s How To “I Do” seminar series, next event 2-4 pm Sunday January 15th, featuring a workshop with ideas to plan your wedding. Call 217.741.9850 or email to register.

Posted by Steve. Warmowski Photography, husband-wife photojournalist team available to tell the story of your wedding day. Follow us on Facebook. Member of Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois (on Facebook).

Happy new year! In a time of new year resolutions, we have to admit that we have not been very good at posting to our blog as of late. But as a tech-savvy friend once said — photographers who blog all the time do so because they don’t have enough real work. We were so fortunate to have so many weddings to cover this fall. Our main priority of getting photos edited, toned and posted for our brides, along with fulfilling book and print orders, took precedence from nurturing the blog. A goal for 2012 is to do a better job posting and keeping all our followers and friends more connected with what we’re doing.

One change we’ve made is to click off the comment section on the blog. We have edited thousands of spam posts just to find a few remarks by real people. We post all our blog entries onto our Facebook page, so the conversation can carry on there.

And speaking of the ever-shifting sands of Facebook, our posts used to automatically import onto our page. Facebook doesn’t like that any more, so now we will have to add manually posting links into our workflow.

Thanks to all who follow us! We hope you have a great 2012!

Posted by Steve. Warmowski Photography, husband-wife photojournalist team available to tell the story of your wedding day. Follow us on Facebook. Member of Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois (on Facebook).

Wow, been super busy with coffee table books (we’ve done more than a dozen books in the last month, including a 100-page wedding album, so our clients can have everything to share over the holidays), so we haven’t been posting on our blog much. This will soon be corrected!

Just wanted to share a couple notes from the Springfield Local Favorites meeting last week at the Northfield Inn & Suites. We spent most of the meeting talking about plans for 2012, ideas for the Bridal Bash, plans for a SLF bridal guide, ideas for upcoming wedding expos and bridal shows, and even talked about starting up a streaming radio station (another way for brides to get specific ideas for Central Illinois). WDBR’s bridal show at the Crowne Plaza on January 8, 2012 is a popular show amongst our members (get a full list of downstate bridal shows).

We ended the meeting reviewing all our fellow wedding vendors in the group, and the recurring theme was how each of us tailor our services for our clients. Lisa Kates at Lisa Lu Designs is a perfect example: “Don’t be a template!” is her slogan. Instead of getting style X, design Y, and having your programs and invitations being a copy of what your friends had for their wedding, she designs everything from scratch and the printing is done locally. Some others . . .

• Why walk down the aisle to that familiar song when Adam Rainis from Themes from the Heart can compose a song just for your wedding.
• Each dress from Girls In White Satin Bridal & Formal Wear gets steamed at least three times before you walk down the aisle. Don’t have a wrinkled dress! Also offering in-house alterations, with a maximum charge of $125.
• Soon to join is Shawnna Franklin who will be offering airbrush makeup. 217.331.8533 (web site in development www.bigbeautifuleyes.com)
• Alicia is famous in Springfield for her homemade caramels. Also offering Longaberger goodies, and registering for pottery and other wedding gifts.
• Slumber Parties by Sara offers a fun experience for bachelorette parties. Don’t wait to get your goodies shipped, bring them home from the party.
• Hamilton’s Catering is a family-owned company, with Gina & George Hamilton putting all sorts of extra effort to make sure service is tops for your day.
• Specialty Cakes gave out free cookies, which were included in the goodie bags given to the first 150 people at September’s Bridal Bash. Along with one of those cookies was a certificate for a free cake. Cool prize!
• Coming events: Monday December 5th is the grand opening of Secret Recipes‘ new banquet facility in Mount Zion (1475 Village Parkway). A great new alternative for weddings in the Decatur area. They also will have a wedding expo February 25th.

And, coming up is Magical Event’s How To “I Do” seminar 2-4 pm Sunday January 15th, 2012 featuring a workshop with ideas on how to plan your wedding. At Northfield Inn & Suites, 3280 Northfield Drive, Springfield, IL 62702. How to plan your wedding, with various speakers, question & answer session, and more. Call 217.741.9850 or email to register.

Posted by Steve. Warmowski Photography, husband-wife photojournalist team available to tell the story of your wedding day. Follow us on Facebook. Member of Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois (on Facebook).

Admission $5 in advance, pick up tickets at A Head of Times Grand Salon & Day Spa, Girls in White Satin Bridal & Formal Wear, American Rental & Party Center, Ashley’s Petals and Angels or the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. Tickets are $8 at the door.

The event is well worth the price of admission. As a special bonus, we’ll pay you back for your tickets when you come to the show and choose us as your wedding photographers. (Book us before/at/or within a month of the expo; check in at our booth during the show; and we’ll credit $10 off your final wedding package price for your and your guest’s tickets. Offer good for new bookings only.)

Event put together by Jacksonville Main Street and is sponsored by the ticket sellers above as well as Hamilton’s Catering, Production Xpress, Casey’s DJ Service & Artistic Portraits and World Travel.

Say you’re coming on our Facebook event page.

Great news! The Jacksonville Main Street Bridal & Prom Expo has been moved up a week to Sunday January 22, 2012. The event, held at Hamilton’s 110 North East, was down in attendance last year due to conflicts with shows in Springfield and Quincy. Check back to our blog for more details as the date gets closer.

Speaking of bridal shows, it’s always maddening searching for information about downstate bridal shows (Illinois). Many of them are put on by TV and radio stations, and they put their airwaves to use in promoting the events. (Advertising drops off after Christmas, so TV/radio put on these shows in part to fill up all the open ad slots.) At the same time the sponsoring stations’ web sites have been lacking details on the events! So, we’re here to help you find resources as you plan for your wedding day. (If you want more information on photography, get in touch with Tiffany 217.473.5581 voice/text― she has lots of suggestions for other vendors including venues, banquet facilities, wedding cakes, dress shops, bridal bouquets and flowers, wedding DJs, limousines & transportation, and more.)

So, here’s a list of the 2012 Bridal Shows in Central Illinois (as complete as I’ve been able to find). Thanks to Girls In White Satin for doing the initial leg work! If you have additional information for me, post it on a comment on this blog, on our Facebook page or e-mail steve -at warmowskiphoto.com. Everything is listed by date, day of the week, city, description of the show and times (anything in italics is a guess based on the previous year). I’ll put in links when available, and will update this post as I get more information.

• January 6-7 Friday-Saturday Decatur Bridal Expo
• January 8 Sunday Champaign Elegant Bridal Expo at the at I Hotel & Conference Center 12-4pm
• January 8 Sunday Springfield WDBR at Crowne Plaza
• * January 15 Sunday Springfield “How To I Do” seminar/workshop 2-4pm at Northfield Inn & Suites by Magical Events (featuring Springfield Local Favorites vendors)
• January 15 Bloomington The Wedding Show at Marriott
• January 20-21 Friday-Saturday Peoria Bridal Bash at Embassy Suites East Peoria with Radio Peoria 5-8 pm Frdiay, 10-3 Saturday
• January 22 Sunday Jacksonville Main Street Bridal & Prom Expo at Hamilton’s 110 North East, noon-4 pm, $5 in advance$8 at door (prom fashion 2 pm, bridal fashion 3 pm)
• January 28 Saturday Quincy Y101 at The Ambiance 12-3
• January 26 Thursday Collinsville Gateway Convention Center 5-9 pm
• January 29 Sunday Springfield WNNS at the Prairie Capital Convention Center Everything Weddings Expo
• February? Sunday Rushville Times Bridal & Prom Expo at Virginia Community Building 1-4 pm
• February 25 Saturday Quincy KHQA Bridal Show at the Oakley Lindsay Civic Center, 1-4 pm
• February 25 Saturday Mount Zion (Decatur/Mt. Zion) Expo by Secret Recipes
• February 26 Sunday Springfield Elegant Bridal at the Hilton
• February 26 Sunday Bloomington Your Dream Wedding WBNQ Double Tree Hotel
• March 4 Sunday Peoria Toast, Taste & Tour
• May 6 Sunday O’Fallon Regency Conference Center
• July 29 Sunday Collinsville Gateway Convention Center
• September 9 Saturday O’Fallon Regency Conference Center
• September 23 Sunday Springfield Local Favorites 5th Annual Bridal Bash
• * Sunday 14 October Jacksonville Girls In White Satin Extravaganza, annual end -of-season sale with $199 wedding dresses, $99 mothers dresses, $59 maids dresses, $49 flower girl dresses, and more.

* Asterisk denotes special event.  Last updated 2 November.

As of now we’re planning to take part in the Jacksonville Illinois Main Street Bridal & Prom Expo on January 22nd 2012, maybe one of the Quincy shows, and the Springfield Illinois Local Favorites 5th Annual Bridal Bash, September 23rd, 2012 at the Northfield Inn & Suites. We like this show because the atmosphere is more relaxed. All the exhibitors are Springfield Local Favorites members, and we all cooperate. It’s not like a regular show where whoever can write a check for the booth is let in. SLF has standards for membership in the group, and we even have accountability standards. If you have a problem with a SLF member, you can come to the group to mediate. It’s a great way Springfield Local Favorites contributes to stress-free events.

Posted by Steve. Warmowski Photography, husband-wife photojournalist team available to tell the story of your wedding day. Member of Springfield Local Favorites, a group of the top wedding vendors in Central Illinois (on Facebook). New location for studio at 301 E. Court Street Suite B, Jacksonville, Illinois 62650. Hours by appointment, first floor of Hamilton’s 110 North East.

Girls In White Satin quick style show at the Springfield Local Favorites Bridal Bash 2011.