I am so honored to have been selected as one of Wedding Chicks Hand Picked Vendors!  Thanks so much Wedding Chicks for including me with such a distinguished group of colleagues, so humbled.  Thanks!!!

Click HERE to see my listing!

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For almost a decade, I have been photographing weddings.  Sometimes I can’t believe that I even do this, how did I get myself into weddings & photography?  How did I get so lucky to have clients who trust me to capture one of the most special days of their lives?  I love my job more and more everyday and as each year goes by, things get better and better. 

The last year has seen the biggest growth with lots of great weddings, traveling & being published in many wedding industry publications.  Also, (and I never actually announced this), I finally left my full-time job as an Interior Designer to focus 100% on my photography business.  It’s been a dream come true to do what I love full-time.  2011 is proving to be another great year as well with many beautiful weddings and clients.  As most of you know, much of my work is destination based weddings & engagement shoots.  I absolutely love to travel and love shooting couples at the places that are so special to them.  It really gets my artistic juices flowing and pushes me as an artist to create new and artistic photographs for my clients.  This year is filled to the brim with destination weddings, so much so that right now, I only have two weddings that are actually IN Atlanta for the remainder of the year!  I’m so excited to travel and get to shoot in some new places & locations!

So, in order to even further expand my destination reach, I am happy to announce that I am opening an office on the west coast in Phoenix, Arizona!!!  I will still have an office in Atlanta and will continue to service clients in Atlanta, the Southeast and the entire East Coast just as I am doing now, but will have a second office in Phoenix to serve the Southwest and the entire West Coast!  This move allows me to be able to be closer to more clients, meet with them and allows me additional flight capabilities and easy access to many locations on the West Coast including California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico & Hawaii.

The Phoenix office officially opens on June 1, 2011 and I will be spending most of the summer in Phoenix as well as traveling to all of my destination weddings on the East Coast.  After that, I will be back and forth as needed in each location.  I will also be available via phone, email & video chat to meet with clients in any location who may be planning their destination wedding from a distance.

So, if you are in Phoenix and would like to meetup, please email me at melissa@melissaschollaert.com to setup a meeting!  I’d love to meet any newly engaged couples, wedding vendors & photographers so please don’t be shy!

More coming soon on the new office & some fun things to celebrate my new location!  For now, enjoy a few images from my recent, secret trip out to Phoenix!

I absolutely LOVE the desert landscape and I can’t wait to start shooting there!  The colors and textures are just dreamy.  I’ve done several shoots out there and have loved all the beautiful, natural backdrops that I’ve been able to photograph in.

Are you located in Phoenix or the Southwest and are interested in my photography services or just want to say hello?

Find out more about my Weddings HERE

And more about my Portraits HERE

Or, contact me HERE to receive additional information about my services.

Thanks to all of my current clients, colleagues, wedding industry professionals & publications for supporting me and my work.  I wouldn’t be here without all of you!

Cheers to new adventures!!!

WEBSITE | CONTACT | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

I’m so excited to announce the launch of my new website, branding & blog design!  I’ve been working on this for months and I’m so glad to finally share it with everyone.  It was a long process that not only included a full website redesign and blog update, but rebranding as well.  Here’s a little insight into the process and what to expect from the new site - enjoy! 

Let’s start at the beginning.  When I first decided that it was time for a website update, I thought long and hard about who I was and what I wanted my site to be.  The bad part was, my current branding didn’t really match who I was and the clients I wanted to attract.  So, I enlisted the expertise of Emily Ley with Emily Ley Creative.  Emily created a new brand & logo for my company and did a fabulous job matching the graphic look to who I am and the style of my photographs.  We went through many design iterations before finally settling on this beauty of a logo:

Emily also worked on updating my colors and creating a new pattern for my blog background.  One of my favorite elements is the nature-themed graphic element in my logo.  She designed it so it could be broken into little bits & pieces of the bigger logo.  For example, a part of the stem & leaf is broken off and used as the little graphic next to each of my blogpost titles (see above).  I not only love Emily’s graphic elements, but the words she used to describe my brand, so beautiful:

“Melissa Schollaert Photography is fresh, clean and breathable.  Like her images, Melissa is full of light and embodies the natural style upon which MSP is based.”  -Emily Ley Creative

Now, for the website!  I wanted something very simple & clean that really showed off my images - nothing fussy.  Just like my old website, I created this website myself using ShowitSites.  I am truly a fan of Showit and the ability to create a great looking site myself.  I also love that I can update it at a moment’s notice anytime I want.  It was fairly simple to create a template - it was deciding which images to include that was the hard part!

In addition to the redesign, there are many new features.  Here’s a peek into a few:

1.  LOTS OF IMAGE GALLERIES - I’ve included many more wedding galleries including Featured Weddings & Destination Weddings.

2.  DESTINATION GALLERIES - Since destination weddings are such a huge part of my business, I decided to dedicate a large portion of the galleries to destination weddings.  You’ll also find something BRAND NEW from MSP under this menu as well - Destination Engagements!  I’m so excited to start offering these destination engagement sessions to my clients.  So many clients may be getting married in their hometown, but also have a special place afar that they want to incorporate into their wedding & engagement.  I’ve had many clients request destination engagement sessions, so I’m really excited to officially start offering them to everyone!

3.  INFORMATION - I’ve incorporated much more information into the site under the Information menu of the site.  There is everything from Pricing info, what to expect from your Wedding Experience or Portrait Experience, Destination Wedding information, links to purchase my Fine Art Prints and much more.  There is also a special About section that includes my bio & more information about my style.

4.  STYLED SHOOTS - I’ve done so many styled shoots in the last year that I thought I’d show some of these great shoots to inspire my clients and potential clients.  They are a great source of inspiration and range in feel from the beaches of California, to the snowy lakefront of Chicago to the warm marshes of Charleston, South Carolina.  {To any vendors out there, MSP is also available to photograph your inspiration shoot - please inquire for more information!}

5.  NEW OFFERINGS - MSP is also pleased to offer new services to my clients!  I’ve already mentioned the Destination Engagement sessions & Styled Shoots - I’m also offering a new shoot called the “Love Shoot”.  This session is for anyone, whether you’ve been married for 5 days, 5 years or 50 years, it is a great way to commemorate anniversaries and other special occasions.  The clients shown in the Love Shoots gallery decided that on their 1 year anniversary, they would have a picnic celebration & dress up in their wedding attire again to celebrate.  I love the idea of this shoot because it can be for anyone, any age, there are no limits.  You can wear your wedding dress, your everyday clothes, or even go swimming in your two-piece with your love.  It is completely up to you to have fun and be creative with it.

With the rebranding & new design came a little update to the blog - check it out!

Again, I’m so happy to launch this site and I hope you enjoy peeking around and having a look - don’t forget to GO SEE THE NEW WEBSITE HERE!!!

Enjoy!

Katie & Kacey’s charming southern wedding in Columbus, Mississippi was featured on Style Unveiled!  Many thanks to Heather & Kimberly at Style Unveiled for featuring my work and this sweet wedding.  Check out their feature on Style Unveiled to see more from their wedding and all of the stylish details! 

CLICK HERE to see the Real Wedding Feature on Style Unveiled!

Here’s a few from my sneak peek of Katie & Kacey’s Wedding - more coming soon!

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Mary & Mark’s chic farm wedding was recently published on the Wedding Unveiled blog!  Their wedding was held at the beautiful Farmhouse Inn in Madison, Georgia.  I absolutely LOVE this venue and couldn’t recommend it more to my clients & potential clients.  It is so beautiful and has something for everyone from backporch rocking chairs to a pond, paths & barn with animals for the kiddies.  There are so many hidden nooks & crannies, there are photo ops at every turn - many that change with the seasons.  I’ve been fortunate to shoot several weddings at the farm and I have to say that it is beautiful in all seasons, I just love it.

Click HERE to see the feature on Wedding Unveiled’s Blog and stay tuned for an extended look at Mary & Mark’s Wedding soon on my blog!

Here’s a little sneak peek of more to come!

MSP WEBSITE  |  CONTACT  |  TWITTER  |  FACEBOOK