Melissa J Photography

i am SUPER excited to blog this next shoot for you all to enjoy! it’s a result of the collaboration between the wonderful lady at the sassy lamb, one ms. jaime “talented” dobbs, and melissa j photography. i met jaime in our secret other life – our day jobs! i was selling travel to the old folks and she was putting their brochures together in large type. we bonded over following our dreams, cupcakes, and more recently the love for dogs whose first names begin with “o” (that would be our olive and jaime’s lovely lady ophelia). in other words? it was a match made in whichever heaven where baked goods abound.

so let’s cut to a snowy, cold day (the snowiest, coldiest day of 2010 thus far!) where two crazy ladies decided that in the middle of the busiest season of the year they were going to tromp over to an abandoned greenhouse with so! many! boxes! of! things! and spend the afternoon shooting, making gorgeous models cold, and staring longingly at cupcakes. behold the result of said collaboration: a sassy photoshoot with a twist of grunge and glamour!

jaime (that’s the sassy lamb to you folks) baked the baked goods (including the awesome red velvet cupcakes and pretty purple cupcake pops above) AND did the graphic design for the invites, table numbers, and place settings! seriously. she’s also a talented knitter, awesome puppy mama, and a photographer! seriously, this girl does it all. drop her a line or visit her website for samples of her work – she also did the cupcake pops from an earlier post. i wasn’t lying when i said she is a genius. here’s some more of her work.

dang. they tasted as good as they looked. a friend, um, wanted me to tell you that.

a sample of her fabulous graphic design word, avec cuppycake pop!

cupcake pops are seriously the best thing in the entire world. also known simply as cake pops (i think i might have invented cupcake pops for my own selfish enjoyment since i love cupcakes so much, second only to delicious things on sticks), i first heard of them through jaime when she blew my mind with samples one day at work. i demanded to know her secrets. and more samples. happily, she obliged. as someone who dabbles in cupcake pops herself, i can tell you with confidence that you should not even bother trying them at home – save yourself the headache and just call jaime and she’ll make up some tasty treats for your next party. seriously – i’m not even trying to hard-sell you on this. the biggest fights that the fiance nick & i have ever had have revolved around properly melting the damn chocolate for dipping the pops. it’s a science (akin to astro-physics or brain surgery or other really super hard science-y things), which happily jaime has mastered so you don’t have to live in fear of ruining your relationship. you’re welcome, from jaime.

and! she does cakes. check that beauty out! it tasted as good as it looked! …a friend wanted me to tell you that.

………a friend wanted me to tell you that she’ll be right back as after looking at all these photos she really needs a cupcake.

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back! did you know that it’s scientifically impossible to look at cupcake photos and not eat a cupcake??! a friend told me that.

i shoulda saved my cupcake break. doesn’t that just look like a little piece of baked, adorable, delicous heaven? i can’t even stand it.

and now some detail shots of jaime’s graphic design, just in case all of the delicious food has made you forget how multi-talented jaime is!

so the place where we were shooting is a patented melissa j secret because, clearly, it’s freaking stunning and i want to do more shoots there and i want to keep the secret for myself! it started snowing ever so gently, which just gave the place even more mystique. if it wasn’t for the random animal poop i could probably move in there and just shoot all of my days away in the confines of the tangled plants. seriously. there was a surprising amount of animal poop in there. it was very strange. BUT! ignoring that! look how pretty it issssssssssss:

i think those apples forgot it was december?

now i want to introduce you to two very special people – robyn and jamie. our models for the day were fearless – robyn went coatless in her sleeveless stress and braved the freezing temperatures, and jamie stay strong and resisted eating all of the cupcakes before the shoot was done. a feat of strength for both!

aren’t they just the freaking gorgeous-est??!

if you check out the photo on the right, you’ll see jamie staying strong in the face of delicious baked goods. not pictured: me, looking at the cuppies the exact same way. we all needed to tap into our strength reserves that day, even just a little.

HANDSOME!

robyn and jamie had such an easy way with each other, it was so cute! even on a cold snowy day they both found things to laugh about together. and of course, they found a few ways to keep themselves warm…

also, other ways…

you can tell these two have such a great time together.

also an easy way with the camera! i couldn’t have asked for a better couple!

finally it was time to sample the goods! but not before teasing jamie with a few shots just HOLDING the cupcakes before letting him dig in. meanest photographer ever? maybe. but if he had to wait, so did i!!

despite the palpable cupcake tension, they still managed to pull out the cute!!! what a handsome couple, huh?

it was time to taste! the! cupcakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

isn’t jamie the sweetest??! he takes such good care of robyn.

one of my favourite shots of the day! (for obvious reasons.)

one of my favourite things to shoot are the bridal portraits. i love my camera, i love my lenses, and i love using them to make brides and grooms look wonderful! how many of us have really lovely portraits of ourselves that make us feel like a million bucks?? and on weddings our hair is done, our make up is done, so there is no better time to capture you looking lovely like you do! my aim is to take the kind of photo i want brides and grooms to look at 50 years from today and say “holy crap, look how beautiful i was when i was younger!” i want to take a beautiful snapshot for you to look at and feel proud of – clean, simple, just you caught in a moment in time.

isn’t robyn lovely??!

and we can’t forget the groom! ladies, i will tell you that getting a few great shots of your man at his handsomest is priceless! not just for you (cause there’s nothing like showing off your man a little, am i right?), but it also secretly makes him feel good too. whenever i take a great picture of nick, i always show him and give a little whistle and say “haaaandsome” and even though he won’t admit it, i can see he’s secretly thinking “dang, i AM good looking, aren’t i?” and he puffs his chest out a little and walks around with an extra spring in his step. all that to say: groom portraits? also awesome!

here’s jamie demonstrating:

isn’t jamie handsome?

tied for top spot in my favourite photos contest is the wedding couple portraits! these are like the individual photos, but steamier, adorable-ier, and all about the two of you and the love you share!

so i think i’ve kept you long enough for tonight. i’m going to finish up the rest of the photos in a second post later this week, including some outdoor portraits and some more smooching! and potentially the best cupcake shot i’ve ever taken in life??!

thanks again to the sassy lamb for all of her wonderful help in putting this shoot together! i’d like to highlight some other vendors in my next post (including a fabulous videographer and a local florist that blows! my! mind!) so stay tuned friends!