I’ve received a handful of emails in the last two weeks from women. They all start the exact same way, and I can’t help but smile because of how many times I’ve received this email.

“I was wondering if you have any spaces left in the (Wine Country, San Diego, Seattle) workshop. I would love to attend, but before begging my husband, I want to see if it is even possible.”

The first time I got an email that said these exact words, I thought it was so sweet. The second, third, and fourth time the email came, I seriously had to check the sender to make sure it wasn’t the same person sending me the same email b/c the wording is exactly the same. When I double, triple checked that each time it’s a different woman, I couldn’t help but laugh b/c we are all in the same boat of not wanting to start the begging until we know for sure there is room.

If you were thinking about sending me this email, you totally can because I LOVE getting them. But just so you know, there is space left in all three workshops! I’ll say a prayer for your husbands, while you let the begging begin! 2008 is around the corner and what better New Year’s resolution to make than the kind that helps you capture your kids and feed your spirit with inspiration!

AND, AND, some really cool news, we just got word that Adobe (creator of Photoshop, Lightroom, PDF files, and five million other things) will be an official sponsor for our workshops which means really cool stuff for you ladies attending the workshops. Don’t by any software just yet. More details to follow!

For more info on our upcoming workshops, visit Refuse to Say Cheese!

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I also had to share this great post by the wonderful team at Photojojo on photo tips for shooting in the New Year!

Have a wonderful New Year celebration tonight!!! Brian and I look forward to meeting many of you in person in 2008!

We finally made it back home at 2am yesterday morning. You would think a three hour flight from LA to Seattle would be easy. But no. We had a three hour delay and lots of time to get creative with the kids in the airport. By the time we arrived in Seattle, waited for our luggage, and then another extra hour for one of the car seats, picked up our car, and made the drive home…let’s just say Brian and I were so close to fighting about NOTHING. The icing on the cake is this rotten cough that Pascaline has had (which only starts at bedtime), so we dealt with that until 4am.

The four of us finally woke up around 1pm yesterday. And then reality hit. Brian had made a run to Starbucks, and the kids were asking me question after question…

“Can you fix this mom?”

“Can you make us something else to eat?”

“Can you find me batteries for this new toy?”

“Can you sew my Batman costume, it ripped…wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!”

“Can I take out my new jewelry set?…Can I take out my new Polly Pockets? Mom, have you seen my new Barbie shoes?” (keep in mind that all these “little” things are smaller than your fingernail!)

“I’m hungry. Can I have my vitamins? Can I have some tea with Almond Milk?”

“Where’s my BLANKIE!!! We left it at Uncle Shae Shae’s!!!” (sheer panic and screaming sets in)

I was seriously overwhelmed, I mean seriously OVERWHELMED!!! The reality sunk in that our kids have had nine adults at their disposal for the last seven days, and upon arriving home, we were down to one tired mom. The transition of coming home was BRUTAL!

So I’m asking from one desperate parent to another, what are your travel tips for transitioning kids to being back home. How do you help kids get back into the swing of not having you at their disposal and regular life, work and play happening? You give me some good transition travel tips for kids, and I’ll give you more camera tips!

Sound like a deal?

p.s. The whole studio has taken the week off and will reopen after the New Year. If you’ve emailed or called we will get back to you after the New Year. I’ve tried to stay on top of email a little, but I’m still at 300 plus emails to reply to. So give me a few days to get back to you.

We’re headed home today after a wonderful time with the family!

This year was unique for so many reasons. First, we’ve never spent Christmas in LA. Truth be known, I was SUPER resistant to leave our Northwest Christmas behind. But my brother Shae and Erica invited us all to come and spend it in their new home.

ELEVEN of us flew in, and we spent the last seven days being together under one roof.

We all feel like this was the BEST Christmas ever for our family! Instead of spending JUST Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together, we stayed up for six nights and seven days playing games, watching movies, going shopping and swimming during the day, cooking up feasts, and eating lots of cake! Their was a rich mixture of laughs until you thought you would wet your parents, expected family tiffs from being in close quarters for seven days :), and a few good cries here and there. Wouldn’t have changed a thing…

Here’s a little photo album with some fun stories in between, and a question for you at the end!

Erica, having grown up in Tennessee, remembers leaving a slice of Red Velvet Cake out for Santa Claus instead of milk and cookies. Talk about cake that puts you flat on the couch because it’s so good and rich!

Every year we draw names for Christmas, and my youngest brother and Brian both got each other’s names. Shauni decided to get Brian one of those cool little remote control helicopters, you can guess what happened for the rest of the afternoon.

And then Shae had to get in on the fun too! That is totally the face Shae would have when he was a kid! Hilarious!! So focused!

I have to say that Blaze was the most thoughtful shopper this year! He picked out a hand mirror for his big sissy, and the crazy thing is Pascaline had been asking for this exact mirror one hour prior with me. Sissy was so excited!

When I asked Blaze what we should get for each other for Christmas, without even thinking, he looked up at me and said, “Mama, you need new tea set.” I almost died. When he gave me the little bird tea cup and saucer he found, he was so excited. I’ve got a pretty sweet boy (and it must be noted that dad won a few points for remembering to help Blaze find mama a teacup :)) .

My mom and I couldn’t resist after the family photo was taken. The Christmas balls were just to fun to not play with.

While my dad slaved away on the turkey!

And Shae let the marshmallows on top of the yams catch fire. Whoops!

And the kids were SUPER patient to open the rest of the presents!

Putting up with the dozens of photos that everyone wants in front of the tree. Remember those days?

And I can’t leave out the eleven stockings hanging. That was pretty cute!

Erica decorated the tree and house with a classic Nutcracker theme, and it turned out so beautiful and fun!

So if we had awards throughout the day…

Best Costume would have to be BATMAN (yes, Spiderman and Superman are a thing of the past, Batman is every thing now).

Check this out, I was taking the shot and didn’t even realize he was throwing a bat at me! This guy is serious!

2. Brian and I had so much fun conspiring with a couple more husbands on surprising their wives with spots in our upcoming workshops. You husbands rock! You must email and tell us what your wives said!

3. As we study the stats for www.refusetosaycheese.com, I’m excited to say that the 101 Kits have been the bestsellers these last two weeks (especially the Better Together deals)! You’re loving the Better Together deals, and we’ve been getting great feedback on the Kits content! I’m so excited Brian and I went with a hunch that many of you could use these types of tools! Keep sending the feedback on the kits by posting a review at www.refusetosaycheese.com!

4. It looks like 98% of the DVDs ordered for Christmas gifts made it! Can I just say we were SUPER excited about this! We now have an incredible shipping/distributor that we’ve started working with and coming to LA could have been this stressful thing, but the shipping company did things with great success! The 2% that didn’t make it in time is still a BIG deal to us. We plan to look into things when we’re back in the studio this week. Thanks for your patience!!

5. We have some BIG things underway for 2008 and can’t wait to start spilling the beans on the blog as the new year starts to roll in! Stay tuned friends because a lot of it has to do with all of you!

So glad you all liked yesterday’s post! I had a fun time recounting it all! Brian said he couldn’t stop laughing after reading the post, and he was there living it!

We’re off this morning to do an engagement shoot today at the Getty!

Brian and I can’t wait to shoot in such an inspiring location, and even more so, meet Marian and Greg in person. Their wedding is only six weeks away!

After the shoot Brian and I head down to Huntington Beach for a fun lunch with the talented Shoot Dot Edit gang, Dane Sanders, and the (beautiful, sweet) Sara France (if you haven’t checked out Sara’s sites, they’re great). Then we head back to Hollywood to grab dinner with Carey and her husband. I have this scary feeling that after the morning shoot, we’re going to be sitting, eating, sitting, eating more, and then sitting again, BUT great conversation the whole way through.

But here’s what I need your advice on. My grandma and grandpa have gone through horrible loss with two deaths in the family this last five weeks. I wanted to get them each something that was really special, unique and creative. Any ideas on what to get? They’re simple people and incredibly giving and kind. They’re both in their mid seventies and totally active from their Thanksgiving travels to Puerto Vallarta to spending the spring in Santa Barbara and the summer at their lake cabin. I hope I’m going this strong when I’m a great grandparent.

The only reason I can ask you guys for advice today is because my grandparents arrive to my brother’s place today, and because of this I know my grandma won’t read today’s blog post.

Thanks for the advice!!

Is how many questions Blaze asked from the moment we stepped into the airport, during our flight to LA, and then the wait for Uncle Shae-Shae to pick us up.

Blaze is a serious 3 1/2 year old. Can someone get daddy a coffee and mom a nap?

112 QUESTIONS that went something like;

58. Can we get something to drink? (sure, Blaze, you and I can get something to drink, said Brian.)

59. Can we get something to drink for mommy and sissy? (of course)

60. Why can’t we get anything to drink for me? (we can)

61. Are you going to have something to drink? (silence from Brian)

62. You don’t want any thing to drink dad? (no, I do Blaze, I do)

63. Can you help me go to the potty before we get something to drink? (sure Blaze)

64. After I drink something, can you help me go again if I have too? (yes, Blaze. I chime in, “Blaze, we’re going to take a two minute break from questions.”)

65. Will you tell me when the two minutes is all done mama?

66. Am I in trouble mama?

67. Mama?…

68…

When Blaze stopped asking questions he was trying to figure out 112 ways to put on his seatbelt. Click, unclick, click, unclick, click, unclick, click, unclick, ALL the way to LA.

All in all, we had a great day traveling with the kids yesterday! They were pretty amazing, Pascaline knitted most the flight. Yes, knitted, and she’s six. She broke one of her knitting needles, so she took my suggestion to use chopsticks. And away she goes. That’s my 1/4 Korean daughter!

Our house sitters are set, the cat is fed, the weather is looking J”slightly” better for LA than what we left in Seattle, the kids slept through the night, Christmas is only days away, AND Blaze has Uncle Shae Shae to ask questions with!

Can I get an “AMEN”?

Ready for another fun post on shooting Christmas Trees, Ornaments and White Balancing?!

As many of you know, Carey, Brian and myself are teaming up for a FUN workshop in San Diego in May 08. Click here for ALL the details! These eight tips are brought to you from Carey and her beautiful blog!!

Enjoy!! And thanks a million Carey for doing this!! You’re AWESOME!

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Christmas trees are beautiful.
Christmas trees are gorgeous.
So why is it so hard to get a great picture of something so pretty!?!

Using the tools you’ve got in your hand, you can accomplish stunning images.
You just have to use techniques and settings that you would probably not use otherwise.

Here are my tips for photographing your Christmas tree
and the image I created tonight using these methods:

• 1. Use a VERY slow shutter speed and a high ISO. For my shot I used a shutter speed of 2sec, set my camera to TV mode and let the camera choose the aperture. I remember one photography expert telling me that ISO is like grit on sandpaper. The higher the ISO, the higher the “GRIT”, like high-grit sandpaper, and there are more “nooks and crannies” to absorb in more light in dark situations.
• 2. You don’t have to have a tripod, just find a sturdy surface near where you want to shoot. For my shot, I had to move some ornaments into a good position. I lost my tripod bracket for my camera, so I ended up using my piano bench.
• 3. Use your camera’s TIMER! Just the movement of pushing the shutter button will move your camera & blur your shot. Use the timer, then you’re not pushing the shutter button as the shot is being taken.
• 4. Ignore the blinking numbers on your camera. If you have a DSLR, the metering settings will probably blink like the twinkling lights on your Christmas tree — warning you that your shot is under or over-exposed. You know better than your camera in this case.
• 5. TRIAL AND ERROR. Take a lot of shots, checking the back of your camera. Is it brighter than you want? Set the camera to a little bit quicker shutter speed. Is it too dark? Open the shutter for a longer time for the next shot.
• 6. Use the AF-points (auto-focus) points on your camera. Your camera will be hunting for focus all night if you have it set to full auto-focus in such a dark setting. On my shot, I wanted the bear in focus, but it’s way over to the left. I set the camera to look at the furthest left AF point instead of the center AF point that I usually use. Lock the camera into a certain AF point so the camera knows where to look for focus.
• 7. Shoot RAW if you can. Shooting in a RAW mode will allow you to not “lock in” your white balance settings. White balance settings are only embedded into an image when the picture is saved out to jpg. If you can shoot RAW, do so, then you can choose the white balance that looks best on your monitor. I use Adobe Camera Raw to set my white balance, but many photographers use Canon Digital Photo Pro, the software that comes with Canon DSLR cameras. For most Christmas tree shots, I end up lowering the color temperature of my white balance because Canon tends to create indoor images on the “warm” side, so I cool them down. If you can’t shoot RAW, choose auto white balance or a tungsten white balance setting so your camera knows that you are shooting a setting with a more “yellow” light than daylight or florescent.
  (And for all you Lightroom lovers, yes, Lightroom does have WB adjustments which emulate WB adjustments on jpgs.)

8. Experiment with different focal lengths. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to compose my image, so I took a bunch of shots with my 24-70 lens. I took some wide @24mm, and I zoomed way in for some at 70mm. I decided I liked this one best, the one I shot at 57mm. It shows my bear, given to my by my godfather when I was a child, my son’s “Baby’s first Christmas” ornament, our annual family crystal ornament, along with some beautiful light sparkle & pine greenery.

When Brian and I first got married, I was busy with full time graduate school getting my Masters in Teaching. Brian was working overtime every week while getting paid $12 an hour. Needless to say, we loved it when our parents sent us Safeway dollars.

Those first few year of marriage and Christmas are some of my favorite memories. We didn’t have any money so we had our own Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Since we couldn’t afford to buy ornaments, we found seashells and starfish and glued little beads to them. These little ornaments are still my most prized.

As I was taking photos of the Christmas tree and playing with White Balance, I stumbled upon some additional tips that might help the Christmas Tree photo taking.

The first tip is remove the saturation. I think the tree lights make the lighting look overkill and to yellowy in the photos. When I put the images on my computer and started looking through them, I decided to move the saturation scale down so the Christmas lights wouldn’t be so overpowering. Check it out below!

Before shot: full saturation.

After shot: saturation removed a little for a cleaner white.

One more example…

Before shot: full saturation. (Pascaline’s favorite ornament–Sleeping Beauty of course. :))

After shot: saturation removed a little for a cleaner white.

The photo of the Christmas tree is SUPER frustrating for everyone I think, unless…your French, live in France, and have your decorated tree in a pot on the front porch. Then you have fabulous natural light. But if your tree is in your home, like my tree, and surrounded with a mixture of lamp lighting and window light in the evening, ugh. Go easy on yourself friends, this is not an easy shot for anyone!

I played a little with white balance to see if that would help.

What is White Balance?

In plain English, White Balance is simply changing the color of white. You can change your white balance so the white is more blue toned…yuck.

Try changing your white balance to fluorescent. This changed my white tone to be a little more on the pink side.

Or you can leave it on AWB which is Automatic White Balance. This tends to be on the colder side if your shooting Canon and on the warmer side if you shoot Nikon.

You can use the Cloudy white balance, the little icon of the cloud which will add more yellow to your white…better. But even with this one, I took a hint of the yellow out because Cloudy White Balancing can overall be to yellow for my taste, but a little felt good.

Seriously, don’t stress about White Balance. Brian and I shoot in AWB most the time and don’t even bother with it. Unless it’s a cold, winter day and we want a little more warmth to the photos, then we may try switching the Shade or Cloudy White balance.

People can make white balance out to be this HUGE deal, but like I explain in DVD 2, Beyond the Green Box,, women have been working with white balance since the first time they wore make up and left the house. You knew when you walked into direct sunlight if the “white” color in your bathroom lights were loyal or betrayed you. Remember being caught with cover up lines along your jaw…oh the pain of junior high!

White balance is a great thing to play with. Every camera has different icons for the Automatic White Balance Setting, the Cloudy, the Shade, the Fluorescent, etc. Browse through your manual and play around with it.

But feel safe in the comments to post ANY questions. You can totally get this whole White Balance thing!

On a fun side note, don’t miss the shots that are not as obvious as shooting the tree straight on. One of my favorite view points of our tree is actually on the opposite wall in the mirror’s reflection. Cozy…

And we can’t forget Blazey’s favorite ornament!!!

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Recipe for the Christmas Tree Photos

Aperture was all the way up to a F16 because I wanted lots of detail.

ISO was down to 100 for best color saturation.

The Shutter Speed is the trick. With a high f-stop/aperture and low ISO, I need the shutter to stay open for a long time. These were all shot with the shutter open for 13 seconds. You can either use a tripod or set your camera on a stable surface and then let the shutter stay open as long as it needs to for enough light to record.

Recipe for the Ornament Photos

Aperture was down to a 1.2. This means it was WIDE open, lots of blur and enough light coming in for me to hand hold it.

ISO was 400.

Shutter Speed was at a 60th (1/60) of a second. (Remember, when you go below a 1/60 of a second in shutter speed (1/40, 1/20, 2 seconds, etc), you need a tripod or stable surface for your camera so the image doesn’t record camera shake from your hand. But with practice you should be okay at 1/60.

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WANT MORE Christmas Tree Ornament Photo Tips?

More tips, 7 MORE TIPS to be exact, coming tomorrow! When I thought of this blog topic, I asked my friend Carey to play with it too. She ended up sending me 7 fabulous tips for taking photos of Christmas tree ornaments. Love them all! Check back tomorrow to read Carey’s tips!!

Have you seen this website yet?

If your a mom you must! If your a husband looking for gift ideas, here you go!

But the coolest thing, is that Posh Little emailed me and said they did a review of our DVD series!! This is our first online review, and I can’t tell you how exciting it is!! You can read it below, or you can check out their fabulous site!

Refuse To Say Cheese Instructional DVD How many times have you lined up your kids in an attempt to get them to simultaneously “say cheese” but failed miserably and didn’t even get a single usable shot? Not only did you frustrate yourself trying to dictate the picture, but you have disrupted a rare, peaceful and picturesque moment posing everyone! Refuse To Say Cheese, Capture The Story is and easy to follow instructional dvd where Me Ra Koh, internationally acclaimed photographer and mother of 2, walks you through some fantastic elements of photographing your children and “storytelling”. Me Ra shows you some surprisingly simple and fun tips that will make picture time an entirely new experience. You will easily and excitedly have a new take on photography and look forward to the moments when no one is looking when you take your picture. Me Ra goes a couple steps further with a second dvd to the series with Beyond The Green Box, Understanding Your Digital Camera. I knew I had aspects of my digital camera that I was ignoring, but I didn’t realize what I was missing until Me Ra and her zany side kick, Professor T, wittily pointed out some terms and functions that even the most basic digital cameras, like mine, have. She actually makes you want to break out the manual and learn more about the functions of your camera. Another great aspect of this video is that she touches on some pointers about pursuing your own photography career. Me Ra turns technical into understandable and “manual” into exciting! This is a truly inspirational series that will change the way you capture your posh littles childhood! RefuseToSayCheese.Com Thank you Posh Little! You are so special to me for being the first to review this series!

Last week I got a voicemail from a husband in DC area. He wanted to surprise his wife for Christmas by sending her to the Wine Country Workshop. We talked over the phone and worked out a plan. He was going to give his wife a song and dance about how he didn’t know if it worked for the workshop to happen this year, and in the meantime he’d buy her spot and wait for me to call his wife, Wendy, so I could tell her over the phone that she was coming to Napa Valley in April 08!

This poor guy! Our plan was for me to call and surprise his wife on Wednesday night. But we had our annual PUG Christmas party that night, and I had so much on my plate. Well if you remember, registration opened Wednesday night, and Wendy was ready to sign up right at that moment. But Scott, knowing our plan, came up with more reasons of why she couldn’t do this workshop just yet. I’m talking “very brave man”!

All the suspense made it that much more fun to call Wendy myself on Thursday night and surprise her! The funny story in this all is she’d been really frustrated with how blurry her photos were. From her blog, it sounds like she reached a peak of frustration on Thursday when the doorbell rang and DVD 2, Beyond the Green Box, was on her doorstep! Isn’t this crazy, you couldn’t plan better timing!

When I called that night, Scott answered, and I heard him say to Wendy “Tech support for fuzzy pictures is on the phone!” I loved it! And then Wendy came on the phone!

What a sweet, wonderful woman! I can’t wait to meet in person Wendy! I hope it’s okay to share this, but Wendy is one of those amazing women who has had to share her husband with the war. Their baby was born on 9/11 (can you imagine going into labor that day?), and Scott was allowed to stay for the birth, but then he had to take off for several months. Wendy was alone, with a newborn, and need I say more…

Wendy, you deserve so much for all that you give as a wife and mom! I’m so excited for you to come to the workshop, be filled up, laugh, cry, and be inspired and empowered–with some wine and cheese in between!

Much love to you!

Me Ra

To read the WHOLE story of this fun surprise, visit Wendy’s blog!

More blog posts coming today so be sure to check back!

Let’s go to the Wine Country!

A Sonoma Photography Workshop for Women

I’m am SUPER excited to announce the newest workshop! A friend and talented photographer named, Garrett Burdick, asked us if we wanted to come to the Bay Area for a workshop. His day job is setting up shoots in homes for Pottery Barn catalogs as well as weddings, so he knows where to stay, where to go, where to hold a workshop! Garrett has been the perfect person to help hammer out all the little details, and check this out!…Actually, you are going to go freak out!!

When Saturday and Sunday, April 25-27th 2008, with an AMAZING Add-On day from Garrett’s business partner, celebrity photographer, Rick Chapman, see below for more info. This third day will sell out fast for Monday, April 28th 2008. Wait till you see Rick’s stuff!

Where The beautiful Westerbeke Ranch in Glen Ellen, CA (5 minutes away from Sonoma).

To see even MORE photos of the grounds where we’ll be shooting at, click here!

Time 9:30am-4:30pm (both days) Breakfast served and open to everyone at 9am on the upper deck of the Chapel. Now get this, lunch is brought to you from a Cordon Bleu Chef who makes each meal using the freshest of ingredients from the Farmer’s Market.

(are you dying yet! I totally am!)

Workshop Schedule

Starting Friday, April 25th a Wine and Dine/Meet and Greet in the Wine Country!

(now this is going to be a fun wine and dine!)

Friday night, April 25th, we’ll have a cozy, casual Meet and Greet with Wine and Appetizers at a local spot in the quaint town of Sonoma. If you can make it, this is a wonderful way to begin this special weekend treat for yourself.

Day One Topics, Saturday, April 26th

We’ll spend the first half of the day going over the mechanics of your camera and learning about indoor lighting so you can get great shots of your kids in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom! The second half of the day we’ll do some hands on shooting as we process ALL the things we’ve learned throughout the morning.

The first day is really about answering the question, “How does this big black thing work anyways!” Plus, lighting, kid model shoots, and a photo assignment due for the second day!

We’re also excited to share that Garrett will be joining us both days to help assist hands on! Is that so AWESOME!

Optional Group Dinner Saturday Night, April 26th

If we have enough people wanting to commit, Garrett is setting to hook us up with a fabulous wine/dinner that celebrates being in the beautiful wine country. So let us know your thoughts on this one! This may be a fun evening to invite your partner/spouse to join the group and meet everyone!

Day Two Topics, Sunday, April 27th

Strategies for tougher lighting that confronts us in daily life (like all the frustrating indoor stuff of how to light the birthday cake or our family by the Christmas tree without a black cave behind them b/c of your flash ). We’ll also cover what to do with your photos (post process), editing photos (softwares to use and how), and the in’s and out’s of starting a side business for yourself, and much more that is signature stuff to me and Brian.

Optional Add-On Day, Monday, April 28th!

Rick Chapman is a phenomenal portrait photographer. This is Rick.

Now take a look at some of his subjects. You may recognize their faces.

and one of my favorites on Rick’s website. “Keys”

Rick has invited our group to his beautiful home on Stinson Beach for an extra 4 hour intensive day. I’ll be hosting a question and answer with Rick on how he takes the photos he does. What are his techniques, his secrets to drawing out people’s personalities, his lighting strategies. Then we will bring in a few models and head to the beach where Rick, Garrett, Brian and myself help you try some new techniques of portrait photography and have all four of us to assist you. It’s going to be a wonderful experience. We’re going to give the workshop attendees first come, first serve priority. And then after the new year we’ll open up the third day to outside photographers too.

Lodging Info

The Westerbeke Ranch was already booked up for the weekend. April is beautiful in the wine country, so you want to move on this fast. I had thought about blocking rooms somewhere else, but Garrett and I both agreed to scratch that idea. There are just too many wonderful, quaint places to stay in Sonoma and Glen Ellen. So here is my favorite link for a variety of Inns and B&B’s with a range in pricing (many of the places have spas!!! :)). Just be sure to not put your lodging off because it goes fast! Here’s the Sonoma.com link.

Workshop Cost

$999 pp for Saturday and Sunday (lots of women are making these workshops their Christmas or Birthday gifts! Be sure to let family know they can now purchase Gift Certificates at the Refuse to Say Cheese website. You can also request to have us gift wrap them real pretty! But for Christmas delivery, you must order your gift certificate and then email your mailing address to mera@merakoh.com by Monday, December 17th!

Optional Add-On Day for $299 pp on Monday from 10am-2pm. Eat a big breakfast because this going to be one jam packed four hour day! 20 spots reserved for the workshop attendees first. Meaning, you must be attending the two day workshop to register for the Add-On day.

Class size is limited to 20 women. We like to keep the group small so that we can maximize your learning experience. Twenty was a great number with the last two day workshops!

Payment Options and Terms

1. You can pay the whole balance at once at Refuse to Say Cheese.

2. You can use the coupon code: deposit. This will allow you to pay a deposit of $650 to reserve your seat. The remaining balance of $350 (total $999) must be paid in full 14 days before the workshop date. The fastest way to ensure your seat is by registering through the Refuse to Say Cheese website. Call 253-468-8913 if you have any questions.

3. The $299 for the Add-On Day is something you must register for separately. It is not included with the two day workshop fee, but is an Add-On option for your enjoyment.

4 Things to Bring

1. Digital SLR Camera if you have one (don’t hesitate to come if you don’t have one b/c we have plenty and a number of lenses, so we should be good!) What’s a Digital SLR camera? A camera that has the ability to swap out different types of lenses.

2. Notepad, Pens, Warm Clothing for Shooting Outside. April can be beautiful in the Bay Area, but it an also be rain. Better to bring layers so you’re prepared.

3. Laptop with Photoshop Elements or the bigger version of Photoshop being Lightroom or CS2. It’s not necessary to have this, but if you have it bring it. (We’ll be discussing what to do in post process to answer the question “What do I do with these photos now that I’ve taken them?” the 2nd day of the workshop)

4. Last, but most important! “I’m going to go for it and have a blast just giving to myself for the weekend!” type attitude. “Even if I’m a little overwhelmed, or intimidated, I’m going for it because I CAN do this!”

***You can also request to have us gift wrap your gift certificates really pretty! But for Christmas delivery, you must order your gift certificate and then email your mailing address to mera@merakoh.com by Monday, December 17th!***

Click Here to Register!

Reserve Your Workshop Spot! Every workshop we’ve held has Sold Out, and the Waiting List grows. Women fly in from all over the country from Vermont to New Jersey to Arizona to Florida to Texas. I know some of you have been waiting a long time for this announcement! Yeah! It’s finally here! And we’ll have lots of fun surprises!)

Click below to see the Workshop Trailer!

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Very Short “recent” bio: **Where can you see Me Ra and Brian and their work in 2007? VH1’s Fabulous Wedding, Martha Stewart Television, Microsoft’s Small Business Show, Northwest Afternoon, a spotlight “Master of Their Craft” in Grace Ormonde’s Wedding Style, featured spread in Pacific Weddings magazine, editorial spread in Seattle Metropolitan Bride and Groom and a featured wedding in Seattle Bride magazine, November 2007! Phew!!

To read our bio and see our work, visit the website.

For the latest news, click on the Press category in this blog to the left!

To see a fun trailer of us in action for the VH1 wedding click My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding!