The Paule's are definitely one of those couples.

When I met them and again when I photographed their engagement pictures, I kept thinking how gorgeous of a couple they were. Their sexy chemistry in front of the camera was amazing too. STEEEAMY!!!

But their wedding day, showed how fun thy are. I was having fun from the minute I showed up until I left. Even their ceremony, which was at a catholic church, notoriously reverent, they were smiling and giggling at each other throughout. You could see their love and compatibility. The dance was definitely one of the most fun dances that I have photographed. People were break dancing, the bride got on the floor, the groom was showing off, it was such a great time. But also romantic, which describes the couple as well. They had a dark candlelit dinner unlike anything I had ever seen. It was gorgeous.

Everything was executed by I Do Weddings, an awesome wedding planning service that I have worked with for about ten years. They couple was based in California so Cody from I Do was a especially a big help for them. 

Please enjoy the photos from this romantic/fun wedding!!!

I had the most weddings in a calendar year last year than I ever had before!!! (thank you 2020 reschedules!) So I have plenty to blog about!! I will do my best to blog one a week for the next few weeks. No promises but I will try!

This wedding was a ton of fun! The couple was so sweet and cool as a cucumber! The whole day went off without a hitch. The family and the court were cheerful and easy going and treated me so nicely and were so accommodating. They made me feel like I was a part of the group. 

Every part of the day was magazine worthy!! From the makeup truck (Sun City Glam,) to getting ready at The Plaza Hotel, to the beautiful venue (Epic Rail Yard), to the beautiful flowers by Laura Carrillo. Even the catering by La Vianda was delicious, they also served elote en vaso half way trough the dance, which was my absolute favorite part of the night!!! I wish I got elote at every wedding!!!!

Definitely a photographer's dream!! I was swooning all day. Tell me your favorite part from the images below in the comments!!

This wedding was Valentine's weekend last year. After 10 years of dating, and one son, Daniel finally proposed and after a year of planning, Alyssa and Daniel had their dream wedding and boy oh boy was it fun!!!

Not only that, but 2020 turned out to be a great year for this amazing couple. After their beautiful wedding, they bought a house and had another baby (a wedding night baby if I may). So happy for them, they have become some of my favorite people and I could not be happier for them and all their blessings.

Back to their wedding. So much fun. I think we were all smiling every minute of the day. Here are some of my favorite images of the day!!! Enjoy!!

This blog is a little sad actually. I was invited to go shoot at a new venue in Las Cruces last year, They had models and dresses and table setups. They wanted people to know they were there and that's why us photographers were there, to help give visuals to their advertising. 

Unfortunately, this terrible pandemic has caused so many businesses to close down this year and it breaks my heart. 

Blue Door Venue was one of those businesses. I just found out recently that they are closed for good and they were just getting started.

In honor of their hard work, here are the images I took last year. The dressed were provided by Livingstone Bridal in Las Cruces as well.

I hear about photographers that get burnt out and I don't want to experience that. I want to always stay in love with it. Photography is like a marriage. You need to keep dating your camera to stay in love and not get stagnant. I have been shooting for over 20 years and I am still falling in love with it.

(I am also super thankful for all the people throughout the years that blindly trust my vision when I want to create a fun shoot. You all are the real MVPs.)

I am always working on personal projects that have nothing to do with weddings just to help my creative juices. In the past, it has been ballerinas on pointe, girl gangs, garden nurseries, snow, playing with lights, diners, vitiligo, chico's tacos, swimming pools, and so much more! Anything outside the box makes me so happy!

Last year, I had the best shoot with Audrey. I wanted to display motion through still photography, using flour.

We covered her in flour and then let her skate hoping that when she banked or jumped or anything that the flour would kick up and show motion. The final results weren't quite how I imagined it but I am still super happy with how they came out and the actual shoot was so much fun. Definitely satisfied my creative craving!

Enjoy!!

It gives female entrepreneurs a chance to have images for their brand. Images for their website, their social media, and helps give a face to their business, their brand.

These are non-traditional head shots. Fun images that really describe your personality and display what you do and offer!

Not only all that, but these special shoots are offered at a super discounted rate of only $99. Always. This price is exclusive for my Las Jefas. I know what it takes to be an entrepreneur and it can take a toll on your finances. I want to be able to help you with visuals for your brand without breaking your probably already broken bank.

I also feature you on my blogs! People get to know who you are and what you do and how to get a hold of you.

This is something I started about 3 years ago and I have met the most amazing women along the way!! I am so blessed to get to do what I do. I love my weddings and my boudoirs but my Jefas hold a special place in my heart. 

Today I am featuring Andy!! Owner of BTTRMLK, which offers custom specialty cakes.

Andy said she has been baking since she can remember. Her dad loves chocolate cakes so she always took it upon herself to bake him his cakes. She was always the one to show up to gatherings with a cake, so much so that everyone started expecting it. She said "I remember one specific cake that got me really excited. It was for my high school's homecoming and I made a football shaped cake covered in chocolate sprinkles. It was so unique! Sprinkled covered cakes became my thing at that point." Sprinkled cakes are definitely her thing!! They are so fun!

In college, she said people started asking her for cakes for family members or co-workers, and she started charging but just enough to break even and it started taking up most of her time. Her husband (then boyfriend) encouraged her to really take it seriously and together they came up with the name BTTRMLK. He helped her immensely with pricing and the back end and her dad helped her financially to get started and she officially launched in 2013. She also took advantage of social media to help advertise her new business, and 6 years later, she says "I'm busier than ever and I love that!"

I personally have followed Andy for a few years which has been so much fun to see all of her beautiful creations. I have ordered 2 cakes from her and they were both beautiful and delicious and I plan to order more.

This shoot was so much fun and SO Andy! From wearing Vans with her dress to sitting cross legged on her kitchen counter, it was so uniquely her and we both had a blast!!  We are already working on shoot #2 and I can't wait!

You can find her on instagram at @bttrmlk_ or you can email her at orders.bttrmlk@gmail.com.

Now, enjoy these beautiful fun photos from our fun, in home, cake shoot! 

This was my last wedding of 2018 and might be one of my favorites! It was such a good day. Everything went right. No stress. No time crunch. Everyone was happy and feeling good. It was everything I could ever ask for in a wedding. Including lots of goofs and bloopers along with gooey goodness and sexiness and happy tears and love. So delicious!!

I usually like to mix up my layout and bounce around but I decided to keep this in chronological order because the flow is just so beautiful.

I loved this wedding. I love this family. I love this blog post. Enjoy!!!

I have been frustrated lately with a few things like social media rules and what not so I needed to get away from all that and do something different. 

This is not boudoir, this is not wedding, this is my creativity juices flowing at it's best. B&K hired me to do their engagement, their wedding, their 1 year anniversary and now their baby bump. What I have always loved about this couple is that they let me have complete creative control. And every single shoot with them has been my favorite shoot ever. And you know why? Because I get to do what I want. When you let the artist do their thing, you get something amazing every time. Guaranteed. And that goes for any industry. Tattoo artists will always give you something amazing if you give them an idea to run with rather than a copy and paste tattoo. Hair dressers will give you a bomb haircut if you give them very little guidelines. You will always get so much more than you can ever imagine if you let go and let the artist have fun.

I don't blog maternity sessions but this session was so good for my soul and so therapeutic. I really needed this. I loved shooting in the greenhouse and all the shadows and moods and looks. It was so much better than I ever imagined. This shoot gave me so much life. I would love to shoot more images like this. Message me if you need something like this in your life.

Delores in particular was especially amazing. Her soul is so sweet and we immediately zinged!!

She first hired me for a fitness shoot. She had just competed in a competition and wanted to have photographs of her elite physical state while it was at it's ultimate prime. Not only did she completely rock her shoot but she just really impacted me with her story and her vibe and her outlook on life. I had so much fun with her!

During the shoot she started talking about her brand and her business so of course I slipped it in there that I have a super discounted photo shoot available to female entrepreneurs to help put visuals to their brand and also gives them a place in my blog. Her eyes sparkled immediately and if I remember correctly, we set up a #lajefaseries shoot date right then and there. Did not waste any time. 

Now normally I summarize in my own words BUT Delores wrote out it out so amazingly that I think I will just quote her directly!! 

Enjoy!!

"BRAND STORY

I’m an integrative fitness coach who helps women of any age achieve the body of their dreams. As a first-time physique competitor at age 52, I won six trophies. More importantly, I won the battle against depression and I stopped hiding in my home and feeling invisible in my life.

When I entered the competition, I was newly divorced. My kids were on the way out of the nest. I hadn’t feel great for a very long time, but no one was very surprised about that. Everyone chalked it up to the fact that my father committed suicide when I was young. I didn’t know exactly what the problem was, but I did know something was missing from my life.

When I entered the competition, I wanted to do well, so I hired a coach to help me. And then I proceeded to tweak the diet program he gave me, because I knew I could come up with something that would work better for me. I also did the same thing with the training plan. But I never told him about these modifications. Why didn’t I discuss these changes with the coach? And why did I think I could do better? Because I am an AFAA-certified personal trainer and a retired university professor of nutrition. Maybe you can see what I was missing. It is so obvious now! What was missing from my life was ME! My voice. My confidence in my skills. My opinions. I had no trust in myself and what I knew. I was invisible even to myself.

I help women come out of hiding and embrace their own voice and power and true visibility. We start with the work in the gym and in the kitchen, uncovering the body of their dreams. All the while, using my skills as a Certified Life Coach, we work with their beautiful minds to ensure that old identities are retrained to support their new dream bodies. My clients find their voice, their beauty, their strength and power. They find themselves, and ultimately the life they have always wanted, emerging from half-lived, disconnected lives into full bloom.

MY PASSIONS . . .

My business as an integrative fitness coach

To share a path to true empowerment and happiness with women who are hiding in their lives and not living to the fullest, often walking around in bodies that are not their dream bodies

My passion is to grow, challenge myself through goals and adventures, love life, love my people, and to be happy. My passion for myself is to be truly happy deep inside. After 30 years of struggling with depression, you can understand why that’s my “passion”. To live life fully!

WHAT LED ME HERE . . .

I was honored to teach nutrition-related courses at NMSU and DACC for 20 years. I loved my career. But felt I was not making “the impact” I had originally wanted to make with teaching nutrition. My students were learning information, but they were not making changes. Something was missing in my passion as a health educator.

I then started a side gig as a certified personal trainer and loved that. I felt I was making more of an impact as a health educator . . . my clients were actually making changes in their fitness level. But yet something was still missing.

I then discovered the emerging field of mindset management as a Certified Life Coach. This was the change agent that has taken my passion as a health educator to a new level of effectiveness. I can coach my clients into thinking and experiencing their lives in a whole new way, a more successful way. A happier way. And is long lasting. Life Coaching is empowering and self-perpetuating. So now when I teach nutrition and train my clients, they get an ultra-effective impact for true, deep change that creates a mindset of success. This is my passion . . . to share what I experienced in my journey, my successes and obstacles, and my current level of pure happiness. indeed, true happiness. That’s what I wanted to do all along! It’s the best “health educator” that I could ever be!

WHAT I DO . . .

As an integrative fitness coach, I work on three components (the trifecta) of my clients fitness goals which usually include weight loss:

Physical aspect in the gym (I am an AFAA-certified personal trainer)

Nutritional aspect (I am a former university professor in nutrition, plus a Certified Weight Loss Coach)

Mindset aspect (I am a Certified Life Coach. I coach my clients to examine attitudes and personal beliefs (aka mindset) which are holding them back from being successful in attaining their goals. This is the magic sauce! This is what makes the nutrition and training plans ultra-effective in creating long lasting life changes. And that’s what my clients want . . . .changes that are permanent, new ways of living.)

I have clients both locally (Scottsdale AZ) and online. My package includes a

personalized training and nutrition plan, and weekly personal coaching calls."

Contact info. www.DeloresGarciaCoaching.com FB Delores Garcia Coaching

IG delores.garcia.1216

Text 915-731-9147

Here are the images from her #lajefaseries shoot

And because her fitness shoot is so fitting with her brand, we decided to include those images as well. Not to mention they are GORGEOUS photos!!! So here you go!! 

It was actually an anniversary shoot but I treated it like an engagement shoot. This couple have been married for several years, have small children, and really wanted to step away from being parents for a day and just celebrate themselves and I am pretty sure I delivered it. They were able to cuddle and make out and not have any tiny humans interrupt. I actually didn't do much posing, I just walked around with them and let them create their own magic and it was...well, magical!!

I was s happy to hear that after the shoot they had dinner reservations and rented a hotel room for the night. I was so excited and happy for them!! I think it is so important for couples to remember that they are more than just parents, they are also lovers!

Thank you for letting me be a part of your magical night. Thank you to all of my dope couples who let me inside their bubbles and let me show them how sexy they are together. My favorite thing to hear at the beginning of a shoot is that they are awkward and goofy, and I love to to remind them of how sexy they are together!!

I have SEVERAL girlfriends that I rely on and text and facetime very regularly. Anywhere between 20-25 girls are on my regular communication list. And I can always make room for more!!

I need a regular dose of estrogen in my life or I go crazy. I know some girls can stay home with their husband or kids every single night of their lives and I am so not one of them. (Don't get me wrong, I adore my family and love all the time I do get with them, but I need a break every once in a while).

I believe girls should have each other's backs and support each other and just be there for each other. I know I have made wrong decisions in my life before and my girls were there for me despite knowing the entire time what I was doing was wrong. I think we should constantly lift each other up. "Love that shirt, is it new?" "Your makeup is gorgeous today" "Those sweats look so comfortable" (heehee)

I think girlfriends should be supportive but also genuine. No one has time for fake compliments or fake relationships. Be real with your girls. If you're tired, say it. If you're upset with your girlfriend, tell her why and work it out, or give it space, but don't fake being happy with her. If you really like her shirt, say it. but if she asks and her shirt is ugly, then tell her she needs to put something else on.  

If girls can't support and encourage each other and rely on each other, then who else do we have? Yes, of course our families will be there for us (most of them time), but sometimes we need more than that. I do.

Because I believe in girl gangs so much, and I have had my share of GREAT girlfriends (and a few bad ones), I really wanted to do a personal project and make a visual of girlfriends. I got 8 very different girls from very different backgrounds to help me represent an authentic girl gang. Because girls come in all different flavors and I know that is what makes my personal girl gang so much fun is that we are all so different.

Some of the girls that showed up are white, black asian, hispanic, bald, skinny, curvy, gothic, artsy, straight, lesbian, country, rocker, athletic, sultry.

All amazing. All beautiful. All so much fun.

We had blast during our quick one hour photo shoot and laughed the whole time. And I felt so creatively full and estrogen satisfied by the end.

Thank you to all the girls that showed up. Thank you for helping my vision come to life. Thank you for being you.

Now go text your girl gang how much you love them!!!

This was such a great wedding!!

SO good that I had a really hard time selecting which images to blog. I always blog my personal favorite images but I had so many from this wedding!! Lucky for you guys, you get to see a BUNCH of images from this wedding!

Mary and Miguel were so chill and relaxed, it completely set the mood for romance. It also gave them plenty of room to have a great time at the reception. (see images below)

I was also super impressed that they planned this whole wedding from a distance because they don't actually live in El Paso! Instead they had the help from I Do Weddings and Events to plan their gorgeous wedding and it came out beautifully! The ceremony was at Our Lady of Guadalupe which is such a beautiful church, and then the reception was at Painted Dunes golf course.

Instantly one of my favorite weddings!! I love that Mary and Miguel gave me so much creative freedom and let me shoot whatever and I was able to completely rock their wedding images! I'll stop talking and let the images talk for themselves!

You guys!! I have been so excited to blog this session, you have no idea! I love to work on personal projects and I always have something completely different up my sleeve.

A few months back, I got the itch to meet someone with vitiligo and ask them questions and photograph the beauty of their skin. I put it out there in the world and someone replied pretty quickly! I was so excited!!!

When I met Lorena, thought she was gorgeous immediately!!! I ended up totally clicking with her personality, we vibed well, she is just an awesome down to earth, amazing woman. 

I could write all day long about how gorgeous I think she is inside and out but I decided to ask her for her side of the story, and how she feels about her skin. She wrote me back and I would rather quote her directly. 

Here's what she wrote: "Started when I was 14. A tiny spot on my right thumb. I was hoping it was just sun spots. I was devastated when the dermatologist told me it was vitiligo aka the Michael Jackson disease. The doc said it would continue to progress and I was in denial. I remember being a little girl and being mesmerized by people with vitiligo but not in a positive way. So knowing I would be like that was hard to swallow. I've tried many treatments; rx creams, sitting out in the sun with placenta on the non pigmented spots, rattlesnake skin, teas, herbs, etc. Nothing has worked. I have a difficult relationship with the disease. I was embarrassed. I would go on dates and sit on my hands, dreading the moment my date would ask 'what's that on your hands?' or 'why are your hands like that?' It has progressed immensely as the years have gone by, but I have learned to accept it now. This is who I am. How I was meant to be. Vitiligo has certainly humbled me. The disease has shown me what it is to be different."

Isn't she amazing?!!

My high school best friend had her first baby last year after a very long struggle. I think what I admire most abut her is that she was so public and vulnerable about her journey. She took all of us along with her and we all prayed with her and cried with her, and of course celebrated with her when she finally made it to the finish line and brought Willow into this world. Willow has actually gained the nickname "everyone's baby" because she is! We have all be so emotionally involved with every step of her coming into this world, we all feel like we have a little piece of her.

Willow (and Mark and April) live in Florida and I am way out here in Texas and I missed her whole first year. But I FINALLY made it out to Florida in February for Willow's 1st birthday and I enjoyed every single drop of it. And I of coursed took a billion images. I am so happy I was able to experience Willow's blooming personality in person but also to capture it in images. I hope you can see how amazing she is through these images because she is the best blessing to everyone that knows her.

And now I can't wait to meet her little sibling is due early next year! Yayyyy!!

Enjoy these images of Miss Willow!!

Anyways! I totally love this couple! From the first minute I met them and the bride's big smile and super happy demeanor to the groom telling me my work is "alright" and that he could probably shoot better, I immediately loved them!! I seriously can't wait to see their cute baby! (I am also obsessed with their baby name because I also named one of my kids the same name, yay!) 

I want to emphasize how very important it is to meet with your photographer before you hire them. You need to see if you all have chemistry together. Chemistry is everything. When you vibe well together then you work well together and then amazing things happen. I vibed so well with this couple and you can see it in the images. The art that comes with working with people who you have chemistry with is mind boggling! 

See for yo self!!!

Their wedding was amazing! It was beautifully decorated by Gabbi and the wonderful staff at 150 Sunset. The ceremony had God in every aspect. The reception was so much fun! The entire day was great and so smooth. From getting ready in her beautiful home (and me drooling over her jaclyn hill palette) all the way to the last kiss shot at the end of the night, I had a blast and this is one wedding that I will always remember.

We also did a first look downtown that was really sweet. It was a thousand degrees that day but it didn't affect them one bit. They were so excited to be marrying each other.

It was just one of those weddings were I loved every single frame, It was so hard narrowing down my favorites for the blog. So hard!!!

Thanks again to 150 Sunset for hosting such a beautiful event as always.

It was also my birthday and sitting in my mom's backyard with my family, I was on cloud 9. Life can't get much better than this!! What else can I ask for?

Plus I have all of you guys! My little dream has turned into a thriving business. And I have all of you to thank for that! I absolutely love my business. I love getting to capture your beautiful personalities and even more so, seeing you all enjoy your images so much year after year. 

It can't get any better than this!! Thank you!

And then, to put the cherry on top, I had a BOMB engagement session with Brittny and Kris. Oh mylanta!!! They were all kinds of amazing! I canNOT wait until their wedding this fall. In the meantime, let me plaster all my internet walls with their engagement images. Mmmmmmm.

I figure today would be the best day to blog about my new project featuring amazing women!!!

I have started a new portrait series called #LaJefaSeries and it's amazing!!!

It celebrates boss babes!!! Duh! I LOVE being a girl boss. It takes a lot of hard work and courage and tenacity to be a girl boss. I think all boss babes should be celebrated so I have have started this Jefa series to help with that. Basically I take your girl boss portrait (at more than half off my regular portrait price, that's how excited I am about this project) and we have so much fun, and you're the center of the show, and you get new photos for your website, your brand, your social media, yourself, or whatever you need it for. PLUS I will feature you on my social media! I can tag your business and tell your story. (it'll be like your 15 minutes of fame). It'll be so much fun!!

I am super excited!!!! So shoot me an email and let's get this #LaJefaSeries going!!! Sara@Sara-Liz.com

This was one of my favorite weddings from last year and I haven't blogged it yet!! #shameshame

I love it when I totally click with my bride. In this case, she became an instant homeslice. She jammed to 90's hip-hop while hair and makeup. For those of you that don't already know me, my soul is completely made up of all 90's everything. 

I pretty much danced from morning until midnight. 

The ceremony was gorgeous and that perfect balance of emotion and giggles. 

And the sunset. Gah!! We caught the most perfect sunset during portraits. Every photographer's duh-reeeeeem. And along with the sunset, they turned up the sexy!! Always a plus!

Seriously such a  great day and I did take forever to blog this but it was so. worth. the. wait!!!

Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyy

xoxoxo,  

sara

New Look !

Que fancy right?! Well I recently went to an amazing workshop and learned a load of information. I learned that my brand did not properly describe my personality and who I really am. So here it is!

I am fun and enthusiastic and vibrant and fearless and powerful and I love to take charge. And I use all of those traits on my photo shoots. I will guarantee fun and laughter and direction at my shoots. You will leave laughing and feeling great!

I wanted a creative logo that no one else had and was fun and was something that I loved. There are definitely trends right now in the photography industry and I wanted to stay away from that and do something that is totally me. I have a henna tattoo (a real one) that I love so I incorporated into my logo along with a fun (yet still professional) font and of course I had to make it purple, but I went with a more grown up shade of purple.

I also learned a lot about shooting and editing and just photography over all. An easy way to describe it to other people is this is how photographers go to college. We go to workshops and I attended one of the best in the country. It was amazing, and surreal getting to meet someone I have looked up to for forever. I met some amazing lady bosses and made great friends with them (we still chat on the weekly).

Because of this great opportunity (and getting my "college degree"), I am confident to raise my prices and offer better packages and a better product overall. You are going to get AH-mazing images when we work together. Images that you will just stare at forever. Not only that, we are going to have so much fun working together!! I am a ton of fun and I heard that I am contagious! We are always laughing and having a blast at my photo shoots. So. Much. Fun.

I love what I do and I like to think that it shows in my work.

Here are some images from the workshop that I attended (which was in beautiful Vail, Colorado at a gorgeous air bnb).

These are some portraits that I took of our queen, as we called her. Our beautiful workshop host, Andria Lindquist. She was amazing. Everything that I expected and then some! I learned so much from her. She was funny and knowledgeable and so easy to talk to. She wasn't arrogant at all and treated me like a human, she even laughed at my stupid jokes. I had such a wonderful experience and I will never forget my time with her and all the lovely lady bosses that I met.

  I am still on cloud 9 but also very very ready for this new look and new way of thinking and running my business. I can't wait to meet you al and work with you and laugh with you and create beautiful gorgeous images for you to cherish forever.