{The New Blog Has Arrived}

Hi blog readers, friends and brides! After some long hours and much attention my new blog is up and running. I will be posting there from now on. This blog will still be up so you can access over 100 blog posts of mine in the past 2 years. Please feel free to follow the link below to the new blog and check it out, leave comments and share with your friends!!

See you at THE NEW BLOG www.katelinwallaceblog.com

The old blog address will be http://www.katelinwallace.blogspot.com

{New Blog Under Construction}

Wow, I feel like a broken record when I say that it has been way too long since I have last blogged. I am so sorry I am so behind (about 4 weddings and a gazillion other shoots to be exact)! I am working on getting a new and fresh blog designed and up so please bear with me on the delay. I will be sure to catch up on the blogs I have missed these past couple months once the new blog is up and running so be sure to check back in a few weeks! CHEERS! Katelin

{Mr. & Mrs. Neville}

First off can I just say that I love destination weddings! Sometimes I cheat on my love for photography with my love of travel. So when the two loves collide, which they often do, it is like pure bliss. In this case Tripp (he’s a William Neville III) and Brooke were married just outside of Boston in a little town called Duxbury. Duxbury has a similar feel to the Cape and is only about a 30 minute drive from there. The streets of Duxbury are lined with amazing houses that are just oozing character and history. Tripp and Brooke’s parents both have houses on the water where there is just a calm sea that quietly crashes up on the shore. The town is just so peaceful. The beaches are beautiful and many of them have these great green tall fields of grass on the sand. I was able to photograph Brooke in front of this fantastic willow tree by her parents’ house. I wish we had more trees like that one in OC. Tripp and Brooke said their vows at a park that overlooks the bay. Then we headed over to have the reception at a venue that is actually an old house. It was a small quaint wedding filled with close family and friends. Brooke and her mom worked so hard to put this wedding together in just a couple of months! Be sure to check out Brooke’s flowers. She wrapped them in natural rope and then put them in vases. She pulled the idea after seeing a photo of another one of my bride’s bouquets and then she put her own twist on it. I love it when my bride’s inspire one another! To say the least it was a wonderful wedding and I always love a trip to one of my favorite cities, Boston. It was a pleasure photographing you Tripp and Brooke!

{Greg & Colette E-Session}

I love shooting in new places and I had the opportunity to do that with Greg and Colette. We did their engagement session in Santa Barbara. It was such a beautiful day which we filled with plenty of laughs, good conversation and fabulous photos. Greg and Colette are a hoot and holler to be around. They are hilarious and together I seriously think they could conquer the world! We spent part of the day up at Westmont College, where Greg and Colette met and became good friends. It wasn’t until after college that just being friends wasn’t cutting it anymore. So naturally they fell in love. If you have not been to Westmont you should know that it has a beautiful campus with neat earthy feel with lots of tall trees. They actually had this area with strings of hanging pine cones. I was a little obsessed with these (poor Greg, I think he thought I was crazy!). After spending time on campus we grabbed smoothies from one of Greg and Colette’s favorite places and then we headed to the beach for just a few quick photos. I really enjoyed this shoot. I was able to really get to know Greg and Colette much better and we just had a ton of fun together. Engagement shoots are so important because they don’t just serve the purpose of photos but the e-session really gives me a chance to get to know the bride and groom and they get to know me. E-sessions also give the bride and groom a chance to see how I shoot and how we will be working together at the wedding. It’s an ice breaker and a great warm up before the wedding!

I'm pretty sure God is just as humorous as we are :)

{The McKee Family}

This past family shoot was so much fun. I have to say this now (before I forget), Rachel’s kids are the first kids under the age of 5 that did not drop a single tear or commit an act of frustration through the entire shoot!! LOL I was so impressed by them. They were upbeat and loved the camera, not to say most of the kids I photograph don’t. But usually within a 1-2 hour shoot the little guys get “over it”. So round of applause to you McKee family! Rachel brought this really neat old chair that we incorporated into the shoot to set a homey atmosphere out in nature. We also used a sweet little chair that Kaeylin sat on which was Jeremy’s (their Dad) chair when he was a kid. I love using props or other creative extras that have meaning to my clients. Rachel and Jeremy brought along Rachel’s brother and Mom as well and it was really fun to have the whole family there. It was a fun shoot guys, thanks again for being amazing!!

This is one of my fav shots of the day!! Poor little guy kept getting gnats flying by him and he got one on his nose so he kept blowing air from his nose to get them out (it was so cute)! Here Mom and Dad are doing it with him and sweet little Kaelyn is looking right at me :)

{Calvary Senior Girls}

{Calvary Senior Girls}

This shoot was just before summer so I am quite late on this blog post (sorry!) but none the less I wanted to put some photos up these fabulous girls. My cousin leads a Bible study for a group of then high school seniors and now officially college freshmen. These young ladies were so fun to be around. Their young energy and enthusiasm was ultimately contagious! Seeing these ladies and hearing about their plans for college and their future kind of made me miss my high school days. I went to high school at Villa Park. I feel like I was just as busy then as I am now. I filled my high school days with high school and club soccer and volleyball. I was also on ASB and was the president of the Associated Women Students club. Between dances, football games and just hanging with friends on the weekend I was a very happy girl. As I have mentioned in past posts I am confident to say that I have the best friends ever. There is a group of us from high school that still has dinner, weekend runs to Palm Springs and Vegas and enjoys the occasional cocktail and piano bar night out. We have such a special bond and it is so neat to see such long friendships continue throughout the changes and chapters of our lives. I am so excited for these amazing young women that are just starting out on their newest adventure! Good luck ladies!

{Ethiopia}

There are photos at the end of this post, not many. I haven't had much time to do a lot of editing but I promise I will have more photos up soon along with more detailed stories from my trip!

I have to apologize for the late blog on my trip to Ethiopia. I have been extremely busy with wedding season and Holiday card photos so I am a little behind. I also wrote a full page on my trip and it somehow mysteriously disappeared from my computer so here we go… As many of you know, I spent about a month in Ethiopia this past summer. I was fortunate enough to be able to join a missions team from Vanguard University here in Costa Mesa. Although I have been out of college for 3 years, the team made me feel extremely welcomed and right at home! There was also another girl who is about my age that joined the trip as well. All together we had 14 people on our team and we were so blessed to have 2 local Ethiopian pastors (Belay & Tsegaye) join us for the month as well. They were so helpful with translating and getting around town and they became dear friends of ours!!

We spent the majority of our time in the city, Addis Ababa, and we stayed in an area called Mekanisa. We stayed in a couple of different “guest houses” which are basically large homes with bunks in the bedrooms, kind of like a homey hostel. We loved the guesthouse that we stayed at the longest, it became our home!! We also loved the guest house owners who were so sweet and welcoming. So I want to tell you everything about my trip but I will keep it brief and give you an overall look at the trip and I can blog specific parts and events down the road. For the most part we spent our time at an orphanage called A Hope, which is an orphanage for HIV positive kids. There are two separate orphanage houses located about a mile apart, Little A Hope (kids infant-7) and Big A Hope (kids 8-18). We spent most of the time at Big A Hope where I was able to connect with many of the kids but 2 little boys in particular. Their names are Abdilazizis and Metasenute. We played with the kids almost everyday (they love soccer and basketball), sang songs, did crafts and danced!! Then we put on a “VBS” (vacation Bible school) and an Olympics. On our final day with them after being there for 3 weeks we took them on an AMAZING field trip to a town 3 hours away called Sodere. Sodere has hot springs and a huge Olympic size pool and also a shallow pool that are naturally heated. All of the kids went swimming in the little pool and we swan with them, I tried to teach the boys how to swim J, and we spent the whole day in the sun. It was so amazing because the kids really don’t get to leave the orphanage except to attend school so it was a big deal to them. They also don’t have many swimming pools over there so to see a pool and get to swim is something that many Ethiopians never have the chance to do. It was this day on the bus ride home, with a little 9 year old Abdilazizis curled up on my lap taking pictures with my camera out the window, that I had an ache in my heart because I didn’t want to leave and I new our flight home was only days away. Everyone at A Hope put on a goodbye show for us, which included songs, cookies, big smiles and really sweet notes that some of the kids wrote/drew for us. I think of these kids daily and pray for them and I miss them so much!!

When we weren’t at A Hope we were keeping busy doing many other things. We put on a 3-day VBS for another group of kids that have families but come to a childcare-like center. We also spent a Saturday at a place that offers care for HIV positive children that are “half-orphans” which means that they live with extended family. These kids were so fun to sing songs with and act out plays from old Bible stories. I fell in love with the youngest boy there. He is only 3 and he might be the only chubby Ethiopian I saw on the whole trip! He won me over when I saw him approach the van as we drove in. He was running up limbs flying, with a smile from ear to ear and dressed in baggy jeans, a lime green t-shirt and an amazing jean vest!! His name is Mohammed but they call him “Do Jo” which I think means chubby J. He was awesome and he became my buddy for the day! I hated having to say goodbye when I knew we would not have another chance to visit that particular place. Meeting new people and kids and then being forced to say goodbye became a trend that I was not a fan of. That was probably the hardest thing about this trip. I would connect with certain kids, young women and ladies that ran the orphanages and then I would have to say goodbye and this pattern was paired with many tears on both sides of the goodbyes.

We visited one other orphanage called The Joshua Academy, which was 2 hours out of the city in more of a desert landscape. These kids did not have HIV, but they also don’t have families for many different reasons. There were many kids at this orphanages and the orphanage was set up with small houses (more like apartments) which all had housemothers. I really connected and spent many hours talking with the Esther, the woman who runs the Joshua Academy and oversees all the housemothers. Esther is the sweetest lady and she has been blessing to those kids. She is Ethiopian but had lived in the US for many years with her daughter. She felt God tugging at her heart to travel back to Addis and work for this orphanage and so she did. She left her home, her daughter, her grandchild and followed the path God laid out for her. She encourages me to sacrifice things I may not want to in order to head in the direction God has for me even though it may not be the path I have in mind. I am so thankful with my time spent with her. I of course spent tons of time with the kids too and once again one of the boys and I became good pals. I think God is insisting that I go back and adopt 10-year-old boys once I am married and ready! But this boy Oschalo he found me. We were taking a walk around the orphanage and somehow I walked into some bush and got about 30 thorns stuck in my pants and it was itching instantly. This quite timid boy who had been following me on the tour, and which I might add didn’t speak a lick of English!, stopped me and started picking out each individual thorn. He smiled at me while he did this and it was like we were having a conversation without words. It was a moment of kindness that was so amazing. So naturally for the next 3 days we played soccer together, took pictures and had sprint races! Which led to every boy there wanting to race me as well. So needless to say I got some good workouts in!

One of the other places we went about 3 times was a place called the Debora house. I saved this for last because I am dying to go back there. Debora house is a home where about 20 girls live. They are mostly about age 15-21 and they have all come from the streets or have decided to run away from home or they don not have families anymore. They have a housemother that lives there and they all work or go to school. It is really just a family that is created in that home. The housemother is a Christian and most of the girls are as well. It is incredible hearing their stories and how they came to know the Lord and how he has saved them. The girls are so smart and beautiful. They are close in age to me (well, kinda… 26 is close enough to 21 right?), which made it easier to relate with and understand where they are coming from, what they like and just talk as friends. Saying goodbye to these girls after spending about an 8 hr day together and night out at dinner followed by singing, dancing and just hanging out was so hard to do. I really don’t think I have tried to hold back tears more than I did that night. As the housemother prayed for our safe return home one of the girls was griping my hand so hard and I could feel her tears of sobs falling onto my hand and it just made me so sad that our connections and friendship was so short lived. I pray that those girls keep pressing on and continue to learn and grow and become strong Ethiopian women that can be examples to other young girls out there.

I know I need to wrap this up or no one will want to read this post! Basically God really blessed me with this trip and it has opened my eyes up to so much more than I could have ever imagined. I do plan to adopt down the road. I do plan to head back to Addis, God willing. I am praying that I will have tons of weddings booked in spring and fall so that I can leave the end of July and all of August open for a trip back to see all my new friends J! The kids I met there and the special people I connected with all have a permanent place in my heart and I think and pray about the daily. God has his hand on those people and that nation and they are so special.

Thank you for stopping in! Have a blessed day! PHIL. 4:13

{Chris & Libby Wedding}

This might have been the best designed wedding I have ever seen. Everyone needs to meet the genius behind the veil that designed and planned this entire wedding! Please meet Libby! She made all the girls hair pieces by hand from pieces she ordered from etsy.com. She also made all of the seating assignment tags (cutest idea ever, check out the birds below). From detail to detail Chris and Libby's wedding was made to reflect them and their fun creative awesome selves. They were such a pleasure to photograph and I had so much fun at their wedding I felt like I was barely working :) Big thanks to Amy Clarke who did a fabulous job on Libby and the girls' makeup and to Melody Rachunok for the doing a fab job on the hair. It was love at first sight when I saw the venue, The Mitten Building. With so many great places to shoot and such a fabulous couple this wedding was by far one of my favorites of the year. Thanks Chris and Libby for being such an amazing couple and now such great friends.