ABOUT THIS SERIES: Besides being the signature to Luke’s email, this blog series features the things we’re loving as we start each Monday morning with gratitude and coffee!

View previous editions here:
Love & Coffee #1
Love & Coffee #2

Here’s what we’re discussing over our morning coffee on this week!

• Steaks, steaks, and more steaks! We have spent almost every day for the past week thawing, cooking, and photographing some of the best beef in the world! Triangle B Ranch commissioned Luke to come to their ranch in Oklahoma last summer to build their image gallery for advertising, but they also needed photos of their actual beef products! So last week, they sent us over 75 pounds of beef to photograph! Wagyu beef is some of the finest beef around. Lets just say, we've been eating steaks that are worth several hundred dollars every day for a week - all while standing around our kitchen in tee shirts. Fine dining, indeed!

• Workshop mode! Our first Life & Craft Workshop (the workshop we host for photographers) in over a year starts exactly one week from today! We're hosting this one in a brand new 'venue' - a house on the ranch. We've been going over daily working and prepping. Tomorrow, we're headed into Houston to finalize a few rentals we need for the Farewell Fiesta. That may need to include margarita sampling!
• Time Changes Are Worse When you Have Children. I used to love "fall back" because that meant we got an extra hour of sleep. But little Knox, who is already a great sleeper and sleeps from 7:30 pm to 7:30 am, awoke at his normal time on Sunday morning... except that that was 6:30 with the new time! He's back to normal though already. Thank goodness!
• Speaking of Knox, he's rolling over like crazy now. Yay (and whoa) for mobility! He's 4.5 months old now, and we're excited to start feeding him his first 'solids' next week! Any tips for us? Leave it in the comments. We're nervous!
• This is Us brought us to tears again. Maybe it's just us, but the past couple of episodes just hadn't seemed as wow-worthy as Season 1. This past week though, that all changed. Who is your favorite character? Ours is Randall.

Have a great week!

Love & Coffee,
(Join Us In Praying That Buttered Pecan Creamer Is Not Seasonal!)

Luke & Cat

ABOUT THE WEEKEND SNAPSHOT SERIES: It’s our weekend ritual. Every Friday before shooting a wedding, we spend a few hours feasting on inspiration: glossy magazine spreads, favorite Instagram feeds, wedding site editorials, ads for luxury brands, Sprinkles’ cupcake window displays…. It ensures we arrive at every wedding fueled by fresh ideas. Now, we’re bringing a delicious bite of inspiration to you. Start your wedding weekend with a Luke & Cat Weekend Snapshot. The icing on the cake? The hands-on, how-to advice that accompanies each photo. Sweet!

View others in this series:

• Weekend Snapshot #1 Bookend Those Bridesmaids
• Weekend Snapshot #2 At The Reception
• Weekend Snapshot #3 Best of Both Worlds
• Weekend Snapshot #4 A Classic Toast

Our Favorite Ring Shot Backdrop

Every wedding has one thing in common, the rings! How do we use this wedding staple as an extraordinary prop? One of our personal favorite ring backdrops is the invitation. In our pre-wedding day questionnaire (sent 90 days prior to the wedding), we ask our clients to mail us a copy of the invitation suite, which we carry in our bag on the wedding day. And, as a backup, we ask them to have a copy of the invitation suite in the bride’s getting ready room.

Having the invitation suite means we have a background that is very versatile. It usually matches the color palette of the day, and we can position the rings to showcase the couple's first names, the wedding date, or their new last name. That’s three shots right there! 

Lavish diamonds & Calligraphy 
(a great duo for that golden ring shot,)

Luke & Cat

One of the best emails we get is when it is an inquiry from a stock show couple. Luke and I grew up showing cattle, so it's a real treat when we get asked by friends from the livestock industry to shoot their wedding. We're so excited to join Emma and Chase in Colorado next summer at their wedding in the mountains, but were equally thrilled when they traveled to our ranch on the Texas gulf coast for their engagement photos. 

Love & Cattle (Two Things That Brought Us Together, Too!),

Luke & Cat