The craziest news for today is the type that makes me want to cry! Pascaline is starting first grade. Say a prayer for me moms and dads. I’m so not ready for this!

Pascaline and I have made a deal to have lunch after school, just the girls, and decompress her day together over a pot of tea. So love being a mom on days like this.

And the other fabulous thing is that Fabulous Life airs Shae and Erica’s, My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding, on VH1 at the below show times. From what I understand they did 300 plus hours of filming, and they’ve narrowed it down to 25 minutes worth!! And of course, we’re all stressed about us looking silly! Reality TV is way harder than it looks!

It’s been wonderful working with VH1 and Pink Sneakers Productions for this last year, especially the last couple months. I just wish they’d let us see it before it airs!

Here are the show times. I got these from TVguide.com, but be sure to double check your time zone to make sure these are the right times for you.

VH1 Thu, Sep 6
11:00 AM Erica and Shae
A Beverly Hills couple plan nuptials in Hawaii. Expenses include $200,000 for guest travel, $20,000 for photos and $5000 for the wedding gown.

VH1 Thu, Sep 6
10:00 PM Erica and Shae

VH1 Sun, Sep 9
10:30 AM Erica and Shae

VH1 Mon, Sep 10
1:00 PM Erica and Shae

Big favor! Can anyone record one of these for us? We have a TV, but it’s not hooked up to any thing–just use it for movies so if anyone can record it that would be AWESOME!

If you see the first showing at 11am let me know how it went (only if it went well! ). We probably won’t catch it till the later showing tonight.

Here we go! (holding my breath )

I found a trailer of Shae and Erica’s casting tape for their upcoming Big Fat Fabulous Wedding on VH1! If you want to check it out, click on this link, “My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding: Casting Tapes”, they are the last couple of the six.

They are both hilarious and so fun to watch! And they are by far the best couple of the six (and I’m not bias at all! ).

Official air date for their wedding: September 6th 2007 at 10pm (eastern time).

To view, click the “play” arrow, and then hit “pause” right away and wait for the video to load (this way it won’t stop mid video ). When it’s done loading hit “play” and enjoy!

Brian and I hired Joshua Smith from Cinematic Elegant Productions, to follow us around as we shot the wedding for VH1′s My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding series. We though it’d be fun for clients to have an inside look at Brian and I shooting a wedding.

We know our clients are going to flip when they see Josh’s work, so we did the next obvious step…we asked Josh to join our team as an Associate Videographer for Me Ra Koh Photography. He said “YES!” Josh has an incredible video business in Louisiana already, but by being an associate he’s providing two exclusive video packages for our clients only. We’re super excited! Email us at mera@merakoh.com for more info.

The full video of “Destination Maui” will premier in January with interviews from different clients, Brian and I sharing more of our story, and other fun surprises.

We can’t wait to hear what you think!

Five days after we shot the VH1′s My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding series in Maui, Brian and I hopped back on a plane to head to a different destination wedding in the beautiful Sonoma Valley. The heart of wine country.

We’d been so excited for this wedding for two reasons; Shannon and Rob are a great couple and had put such creativity into all the details. The second reason, we were finally going to meet Event Planner, David Aten with Melissa Teaff Catering. He’d been working with Shannon and I for months, and I was so excited for us to meet face to face.

The right Event Planner can put every one at ease, especially the bride, and David Aten has got to be one of the best! He had every detail that Shannon desired in it’s place from Gerber Daisy’s tied to the backs of every chair to the food’s artistic presentation (no wonder they’re on the cover of Food and Wine Magazine this month) to chocolate suede sofas brought in for guests and so much more. David made sure every single moment of the day happened as planned. When you’re planning a destination wedding for 200 plus people, the ability to pull the whole event off without any hiccups can be so stressful. But David accomplished this as if it was effortless.

Below are some detail shots to paint the picture for you. But be sure to check back b/c we’re almost done with the slideshow of the wedding day. The beauty of this wedding could not have happened without Shannon’s vision of a romantic wine country wedding and David Aten’s talent! We can’t wait to show you the whole day!

The man himself with Shannon.

A shot during the ceremony. Check out the Gerber Daisies on the backs of the chairs. Perfect Shannon!

Right after the ceremony, David ushered the guests to a cocktail hour. Then he and his staff turned the ceremony site into an elegant, wine-country, sit down dinner.

The cake was perfected.

And the food display was artistic in its display of vibrant summer colors!

You don’t have to be getting married in the Napa Valley to have David help with your event. They go every where! To read more about David Aten click his name or pick up an August issue of Food and Wine.

If you are a bride or photographer that has worked with an excellent Event Planner or Wedding Coordinator, post a comment and tell us their name, website link, and why you’d refer them! We’d love to hear!

Enjoy!

We’re back from a couple weeks of travel for destination weddings, and I’m so excited for you to see the slideshows! Our first wedding was my little brother’s in Maui. It was an amazing experience from both the perspective of a sister and photographer. As many of you know, VH1 called our studio several months ago because they were looking for couples to interview for their My Big Fat Fabulous Weddings show. This will be a new series starting sometime between this fall and January. (We’ll keep you updated!) Out of all the couples they interviewed, Shae and Erica were picked to be on of their eight shows. Without question, I think my brother and new sister-in-law are fabulous! But the way they did their wedding, took my breath away! Brian and I can see why VH1 thought this would be the perfect Fabulous Wedding.

Erica’s style and attention to detail was amazing. She bought hundreds of shells from remote beaches around the world to use for centerpieces, menus, and name cards. They had a cigar bar with custom rolled Cuban cigars. There was also an elaborate cookie cake made with hundreds of cookies decorated as hula dancers, palm trees, dolphins swimming. Their friend, Phoenix Stone, an up and coming pop country singer, flew in to sing the song for their first dance. The working title is “The Best Year of My Life” off his upcoming new album release. We had NINE cameras filming, five production crew, Brian and I shooting the photography, it was quite the experience…bit cozy at times! I could literally go on and one with all the amazing details. But check out the slideshow to see it for yourself!

Click here to view Shae and Erica Hong’s Wedding Slideshow. And be sure to check back for the next wedding in Sonoma, CA wine country!

I have to say that the above shot is one of my favorite from their engagement session. We were taking a break, and I turned around to see Erica rest her head on Shae’s shoulder–and I couldn’t help but shoot away. But you know who is more excited about this wedding than anyone else? Our daughter, Pascaline! Pascaline, our 5 yr. old, is the flower girl. And Blaze, our 2 yr. old, is the ring bearer.

Brian and I have a feeling that Pascaline will want to be the center of attention since the flower girl is much more important than the bride in her mind. And poor little Blaze probably want know how to walk down the aisle in front of all the people and camera crew while mom and dad are shooting pictures. Should be interesting!

The best part, this will all be televised in September 6th 2007 when the My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding series starts! We’re also flying in Josh Smith with www.cinematicbride.com to film our adventures and develop some fun promo material for us to share with you and all our clients. He’ll be shadowing our adventures in Maui as we shoot the wedding and do a special shoot with a musician whose meeting us on the island (more info to come! So stay tuned to our blog or http://www.merakoh.com/ for the teaser trailer on the website in early September 2006!

After Maui, we fly home with enough time to take our clothes to the dry cleaners and then pack our suitcase again as we head out to our next destination wedding in beautiful Sonoma, CA. The wedding is taking place at a villa in the wine country. We can’t wait to post some images for you when we’re back! For Photographers: A number of you from all over the country give me the honor of emailing me your stories and questions every week. I feel overwhelmed with how kind your emails are. It’s my goal to answer all of your emails in a timely manner, but I’d love to ask for your patience as I’m a bit behind with our July schedule. If you have not heard back from me, you will soon!