Jodi Miller Photography by Jodi + Kurt | VA Wedding Photographers | Destination Wedding Photographers » personal

Peace, Joy + Love

Jodi — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:44:27 +0000

We hope everyone has a warm and lovely Christmas! We are so excited for some time off to spend with family and friends. Stay tuned next week as we’ll be sharing our year in review post to wrap up 2011. Cheers and much love to you all!

Holiday Sweetness

Jodi — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:00:06 +0000

One of the best things about this time of year is giving and receiving holiday cookies. One of my favorite cookies Kurt makes are Chocolate Peppermint Macaroons, they must be one of the cutest cookies and they taste like bite sized brownies. So, this year we decided to share the love and send some to all of our 2011 and 2012 wedding couples. We love all of our couples and wanted them to have one of our favorite treats during this holiday season! Last week we spent two full days making and packaging up macaroons for all of our clients…let me tell you, it’s a lot of work making these little guys for close to 50 packages! Since this was such a huge undertaking, we wanted to share the recipe with you as well (with lots of pictures!)

Step 1: Assemble all tools and ingredients…
1 scale that can weigh in grams
1 large mixing bowl (4 qt)
1 medium mixing bowl (2.5 qt)
1 medium whisk (and a lot of elbow grease) or an electric eggbeater
1 small whisk (if making chocolate macaroons)
1 pastry bag (14in.)
1 icing tip (U 9e)
1 medium mesh strainer
1 measuring cup or other medium sized container to hold pastry bag
2 sheets of parchment paper or silicon baking mats
1 silicon spatula or other mixing utensil
1 oven set at 350 F

ingredients:

50 grams almond flour
100 grams 10x sugar (powdered sugar)
70 grams egg whites or 2 egg whites
65 grams granulated sugar

optional ingredients:
1 small pinch sea salt
25 grams cocoa
1-2 drops vanilla extract
1-2 drops food coloring

Step 2 (Grinding the “flour”):
Blitz together the almond flour and 10x sugar in a clean coffee grinder or food processor, then pass through a fine to medium mesh strainer. Any large bits that don’t pass through return to grinder. I typically do this in three parts, since my grinder can’t hold it all at once.

If you are making chocolate macaroons, pass the cocoa (separately) through the strainer and mix with the almond-sugar mixture using a small whisk.

Step 3 (Prepping the pastry bag):
Place icing tip in the small end of the pastry bag. Grab right above the tip; twist and stuff, to prevent the “macaronage” batter from leaking. Put bag in measuring cup and pull the sides up and over.

Step 4 (Meringue):
Making meringue can take a lot of work if done by hand, though the advantage is, it is very hard to over mix. Make sure to have egg whites at room temperature.

Try not to have any yolk in the whites when separating.

Prep your sugar with a pinch of salt.

Start by placing the whites in the medium bowl and whisking, then slowly add the granulated sugar and optional salt. The slower you add sugar the less whisking you will have to do in the long run.

I add about 1 teaspoon of sugar every 30 seconds. It’s okay to take small breaks from whisking, though don’t rest for more than 30 seconds.

Usually when I run out of sugar I’m close to the soft peak stage (left image). Once your meringue is taking shape, pull the whisk up and out to see how strong your “peaks” are – soft peaks will flop over immediately, stiff peaks will look like the top of a Hershey kiss (see right image). Add vanilla extract or food coloring in between the soft and stiff peak stage. Once your peaks hold a good shape, stop and immediately move on to Step 5.

Step 5 (Folding):
Fold meringue into the almond-sugar mixture in three steps using ⅓ of the meringue each time. The 1st folding is more like mashing, the goal is to “wet” as much as possible. Scrap the spatula if needed. The 2nd folding should be a bit more gentle, make sure to scrap the sides down and the scrap the bottom of the dish.

The 3rd folding (left image) be gentle with the batter, literally fold the batter over the meringue trying to keep as much air in the batter as possible. The final batter (right image) shouldn’t have any streaks of meringue or any dry spots.

Once finished, scrape immediately into the pastry bag, twisting the bag above the batter fully enclosing it.

Step 6 (Piping):
Macaroons can be made in most any size you want. I typically aim for a small to medium size, so I pipe a blob of batter with a diameter of about 1 inch. My technique: pipe straight down, gently squeezing the bag, till it reaches the right size, then release pressure, move onto piping the next one. Give about 1 inch space between each macaroon, because after piping you will pat the bottom of the sheet pan till they spread out and have a smooth top.

Step 7 (Waiting):
Depending on how humid your kitchen is, will depend on how long it takes for the macaroon’s tops to dry. On a normal day wait 10-20 minutes, then bake. I’ve noticed when I make chocolate the cocoa acts as a drying agent so I never have to wait before baking them, regardless of humidity.

Step 8 (Baking):
All ovens hold temperature and heat differently, so set the temperature to 350 F and adjust if necessary. Have 2 oven racks set in the middle and lower shelf. Place the first tray of macaroons on the middle shelf and bake for 6 minutes, then move it to the lower shelf baking for 5 minutes. Be sure to switch the placement of the tray when moving the tray down a shelf. So the macaroons that were closest to the oven door are now the furthest in the oven, so that they bake more evenly. Times may vary on your oven – to test if they are done baking, gently press on a the top of a macaroon, it should be firm and not squishy. If after you take them out and they start to look speckled, they probable haven’t baked enough; so if it’s only been a couple minutes, return the oven for 2-3 minutes.Let cool on pan for 10 minutes and gently transfer cookies onto a cooling rack. Store in an air tight container, refrigerating for up to a week or freezing up to a month. When defrosting let stand at room temperature – do not take off the lid till they are completely defrosted.

Step 9 (Icing):

Ganache Recipe:
115 grams semi-sweet chocolate chips
33 grams or 2 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon corn syrup (to prevent crystalization)
45 grams water (or coffee for a mocha ganache)
1 drop of peppermint extract
1 pinch sea salt (optional)

Put all ingredients in a pan.

Warm over low heat till melted.

Let cool and refrigerate 1 hour, then use or refrigerate up to 2 weeks.

Put a dab of Ganache between two macaroons and smoosh them together till the icing comes to the sides.

To add a little more crunch to your macaroons, you can cover the sides in crushed up candy canes.

Then eat.

These are the little packages we mailed out to clients. We also made a vanilla macaroon with jam…delish.

Recipes were adapted from www.davidlebovitz.com.

Christmas at The Lady Jane

Jodi — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:56:49 +0000

As most of you know I absolutely love Christmas! I love the music, the decor, and the atmosphere of the season. So, we just had to share with you what our good friend, Sara of The Lady Jane, has going on in her lovely shop. You may remember our post back in the summer when her shop officially opened in downtown Harrisonburg, Virginia. Well, this time her shop is completely decked out in holiday cheer. It’s like being transported into a place where Christmas lives up to all of its expectations. So for those of you who still have shopping to do (or those who haven’t started), make sure you swing by her shop…she has some great vintage finds and some cute holiday decor! Oh and be sure to tell Sara we sent you

love that she decorated her tree with teacups and saucers

we picked up one of these tree toppers from The Lady Jane and LOVE it

help heal Isaac… | personal

Jodi — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:30:38 +0000

Many of our posts are filled with young couples and thoughts of love, but today we wanted to talk about something else, something that has really weighed heavily on our hearts lately. There is a natural connection or bond that can occur between us as photographers and our couples, it has elements of friendship and a partnership; but it is best described as a feeling of being in the same boat, where you will either sink or swim together on this journey of a wedding day. There is a great amount of trust that is formed over this “connection” and continues past the engagement or wedding day. As many of you know, we are recently married (almost a year exactly!), and we too have felt this connection with our wedding photographers, Stephanie and Isaac of This Modern Romance. They have been a continual source of encouragement to our marriage by the beautiful work they created on our special day. It acts as an everyday reminder of the love we share as husband and wife, seeing our pictures throughout our house or on the screen saver of our computers. We have been so blessed by our photographers, and that is why we want to do something for them as they are in so much need of it now. Recently, Isaac has undergone intensive surgery removing a massive tumor from his brain. After the surgery, he experienced a stroke and is now having difficulties with recovery. As wedding photographers ourselves, we can’t even imagine what they are experiencing with this tragedy, not only for Isaac’s health, but also still maintaining their business and workflow. So, we ask that you pray for the two of them and God’s intervention and also, if you feel called, to help them financially through Isaac’s long rehab process. For more information on Isaac’s story or if you’d like to donate financially to Isaac’s recovery, please visit their site.

As many of you know, we haven’t posted our wedding photos, but trust me, they will be coming to the blog in just a couple short weeks (we’ve anxiously waited a year for this!). We’ve been holding out for an exciting publication to be released! So here’s just a sneak peek…

a peek into our packaging…

Jodi — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:31:31 +0000

Since we re-branded a couple weeks ago, we’ve had to change over all of our packaging…meaning purchase all new materials for everything that goes into our business (business cards, forms, folios, print packaging, tissue paper, boxes, bags…you name it!). I’m so excited I can finally share a bit of our DVD packaging with you. Ever since we started our business we have always invested in nice folios for our client’s DVDs, since every single client receives a disc of high-res files. Well, many of you saw our wedding invitations last year, so after slaving away with those (thank goodness they are DONE!) we thought we’d try to incorporate a similar, yet more refined approach into our business packaging. Kurt, my super crafty-creative-amazing-wonderful husband, made all of our client folios for this year! He’s spent so many months refining his bookbinding skills and we’re so excited we’re able to include custom made folios into our business. Not only that, the lace flower is also custom made by my amazing sister-in-law, Lynn of Sunshowers and Rainshine…I adore them!! So, enjoy a peek into our DVD packaging

New Look!!

Jodi — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:44:05 +0000

We can’t believe it has FINALLY happened…our new logo!!! We’ve been working on this since January and we’re excited to reveal the new look!

We’ve been working closely with Bill Main to develop a new logo/brand for our business. Bill’s a creative genius and we couldn’t have chosen a more perfect designer for our logo. We shot a mini-session with Bill and his wife, Christina of Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe, while out in California for our engagement session in winter 2010. Both Bill and his wife are unbelievably creative and talented artists, we knew we had to use him for our re-design. We were drawn to Bill’s amazing illustrations and his “hand drawn” aesthetic. We wanted something that resembled a hand-sketched look that was a bit unrefined. We also wanted to incorporate something that reflected our vintage aesthetic (hence the cameos!). Anyone who attended our wedding knows my love for cameos (they were all over the place, including our invitations). We are obsessed with these cameos Bill designed…we love that they are a modern take on the antique cameos and that they not only represent us, but our clients as well. Anyways…we hope you enjoy the new look and photogs, if you are in the market for a new logo design consider Bill!

Christina runs Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe, a cute bakery out of San Pedro, California. Visit her Etsy store for edible decorations!

The Southern Experience | workshop

Jodi — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:47:46 +0000

ATTENTION photographers…bookmark your calendars, a workshop is coming your way! Jodi Miller Photography, Kellan Studios + The Beautiful Mess have teamed up as Venn Workshops to host The Southern Experience THIS August. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter + follow VennWorkshops on Twitter to find out more information. Registration begins in April. Get excited, it’s going to be epic!

Invitations | our wedding

Jodi — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:20:34 +0000

Wow…I can hardly believe it’s almost October 15th!! We are incredibly excited to FINALLY make this wedding happen…so much planning, details, and work has gone into our wedding already and we still have LOTS left to do…but, I must say, aside from all of the extra crazy wedding details, we are just ready to be married! One HUGE weight that has finally been lifted off our shoulders has been our wedding invitations…brace yourself…our invitations are the epitome of non-traditional. I knew once we got engaged that I wanted something new and creative for our wedding invitations, something that hasn’t been done before, but also something to reflect the style of our wedding and allow our guests to have a “sneak peek” into the actual day. We wanted our invites to be personal and completely handmade and really give our guests something special.

We went through sooooo many templates before we were satisfied with the final outcome…seriously, we worked on this for months and months, but didn’t actually come up with the actual design until July. So without further ado, we present to you our wedding invitations…a labor of love

We constructed our invitations out of thick board, burlap, twine, and these cute cameos we purchased from PoppyLovesParis on Etsy. Kurt went through tons of glue cans to get this burlap to stick…

We glued blue envelopes, purchased from the Paper-Source, on the inside of the invitation. I cut off the flaps of the envelopes then glued strips of doilies on the inside as an extra detail.

Our inserts were somewhat of a trial, as I had them printed and then coffee-stained, but they unfortunately didn’t turn out how I envisioned, so the inserts were printed on cream paper purchased from the Paper-Source. A special thanks goes out to my friend, Bee, for helping with the wording

We had Kurt’s brother-in-law, Chris, design our map

Oh yeah…we included a DVD…scroll down to read more

This is just a small stack of the 74 invites we created!

Each guest received a different cameo…these cameos will also make another appearance at our wedding in another fun detail

and yes…the packaging and the postage…oh my! We found these kraft mailers which fit our invites PERFECTLY! The labels were made out of vellum paper and then transformed into a sticker using a Xyron machine. I then used a Martha Stewart edger punch (LOVE her crafts!) to add a little embellishment on each of the addresses.

and last but not least…our invitation film!! When we got engaged we had toyed with the idea of doing some sort of stop-motion film for our wedding invites, we didn’t actually expect to create one…you know with all of our extra time …but we did! We spent hours and hours on this film, that Kurt and I created ourselves…we hooked up a wireless remote to our cameras and clicked away…again we wanted something to reflect the style of our wedding…ENJOY!

jodi + kurt
wedding invitation
oct. 15, 2010
music: vampire weekend, m79

The French Laundry | Travels

Jodi — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:27:50 +0000

Kurt + I have safely made it back from Cali! We had such a BLAST + are excited to share our adventures with you! During the first part of our week we were fortunate to dine at the acclaimed French Laundry. The French Laundry is nestled within the charming, quaint town of Yountville…actually three Thomas Keller restaurants + bakery are located in this small town. We were fortunate to grab some pictures of TFL during the day while the sun was still shining before our evening reservations.

TFL has their own garden across the street. The garden is filled with beautiful vegetables + herbs all used within the restaurant.

Our reservations were in the evening, so we didn’t exactly have the best lighting for pictures (as we didn’t want to carry flash units + tripods into the restaurant ). We tried our best with the small candles we had on our table… We were also in a room dining with about 15 other people, so I’m sure pulling out our massive cameras for each course was pretty humorous for the other diners.

We started off our meal with an amuse-bouche, Gruyére Gougéres (a.k.a.cheese puffs), which were so light + airy. We also were given Salmon Cornets…which was Thomas Keller’s play on a savory ice cream cone (not pictured).

Our official first course was “Oysters + Pearls,” a “Sabayon” of pearl tapioca with island creek oysters + white sturgeon caviar…which was absolutely divine! We have both never tried caviar before + we were pleasantly surprised with the outcome! Apparently the caviar is a signature dish of TFL + has been on the menu from the very start.

For our second course, I had the “Sacramento Delta Asparagus”, essentially mustard beignets, pickled onions, frisée, garden blossoms, + a hen egg emulsion. Kurt had the foie gras (though I had about half of it!), which was absolute perfection! Kurt + I LOVE foie + jump at any opportunity to have it The foie gras was so buttery + it just melted in your mouth. His foie was served with three different types of salts from the Philippines, France, + Montana…all different strengths of saltiness. We were also served brioche at this point in our meal…which was the flakiest brioche I’ve EVER had…amazing!

For the third course, I chose the Japanese Hamachi, while Kurt had the Fluke

Our fourth course was the same…a Scottish Langoustine “Boudin” (a fancy name for sausage ) with English peas. The next course I had the quail with black trumpet mushrooms, while Kurt dined on the “Rouelle de Tete de Cochon” (pigs head)…not pictured

We both dined on the “Calotte de Boeuf Grillée,” which was probably the most succulent piece of beef we’ve ever had. We finished our meat courses with a “Pisco Sour”–Persian lime sorbet, frozen marshmallow, + Angostura bitters to cleanse our palates for the final courses.

The next course was the cheese plate…one of our favorites, we LOVE LOVE LOVE cheese. This particular cheese was a Manchester, with apricot membrillo, fennel bulb, pistachios, arugula, + a 12 year balsamic vinegar (Kurt asked the guy who clears the crumbs from the table the balsamic age + he knew!)

We were then offered coffee + tea for our remaining courses. The coffee was some of the best I’ve EVER tried, they probably have a special place where they grow TFL coffee beans They served my coffee with steamed/frothy milk + white/brown sugar cubes. Oh…and each course’s plates + utensils were completely different from the next + are designed with the food in mind. The utensils were especially notable, as they are handcrafted in France.

Our dessert courses were glorious! Kurt had the Peanut Butter “Bavarois,” which included a crunchy feuilletine, maralumi milk chocolate “whip,” + banana sorbet. I had the Bakewell Tart, which was a tart with huckleberries, marcona almonds, + crème fraîche sherbet.

They brought out some additional desserts + treats for us to finish our lovely evening. We couldn’t remember what the first complimentary tart was as it wasn’t on our menu, but we finished our evening with a plate full of candy truffles. The colored/chocolate truffle (in front) is citrus flavor. To the left we have the white/red truffle, which literally tasted like Big Red gum . The rest of the truffles included green tea, chocolate with gold (yes! real edible gold!), peanut butter, + hazelnut.

Finally, they left us with some parting gifts, little bags filled with the BEST shortbread (we snacked on these the rest of the week) + of course, our tab…an actual laundry ticket (I love the wit!)

And if that wasn’t enough…our head waiter asked if we wanted to see the kitchen, knowing Kurt was a HUGE Keller fan + a culinary buff! We got a little more insight into TFL + found out 15 chefs work in the kitchen each night. We watched them hard at work + snapped some shots of the pristine kitchen (one of the cleanest kitchen’s I’ve seen!). They even have a TV mounted to the wall that is connected to Keller’s Per Se restaurant in NYC so he can communicate with both restaurants + make sure everything is running smoothly…so we saw those chefs hard at work as well! What a treat!!

The French Laundry was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. We were thoroughly impressed with everything from the exquisite food, to the artistic plating, to the service (we had about 10 people waiting on us throughout the evening + they all knew everything about TFL + the ingredients in each course). We are so grateful for beautiful food!

Out of Office + Wedding Sneak Peek!

Jodi — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:36:21 +0000

After a busy 2009 wedding season, we are FINALLY able to take a vacation! From February 20-27th we will be out of the office, since we will be in CALIFORNIA!! We will try our best to respond to emails while out there, but ideally we really just need a week off! After we got engaged + booked our photographers we decided we wanted to take the opportunity to have our own engagement pictures taken, but in Cali So with that said…you’re probably wondering who is going to photograph OUR wedding? (trust me, this is THE question all of our clients ask us). Though it was such a hard decision to make, as there are sooooo many talented photographers all over the US, we knew all along that we wanted Stephanie + Isaac of Stephanie Williams Photography to photograph our wedding. I have been following their work for sometime + was just in awe of their imagery + style. Their work is absolutely gorgeous so if you have a chance, you MUST check it out! We are absolutely thrilled to be working with such talented photographers this week + finally having our own e-session. It’ll be interesting being the subjects in a photo, rather than the artist behind the camera.

Anyways…this week will be full of adventures! We are flying into San Francisco + eating at some amazing restaurants in Yountville! As Kurt is a culinary buff, it only made since for us to stop into the French Laundry + Bouchon while we’re out there! Yes, I said the French Laundry!!!!! We are still speechless that we were able to get reservations to such a world renown restaurant! We will most definitely be taking pictures of each course. We will then venture down to Orange County which is where our e-session will take place. We will wrap up our week with a photoshoot with the fabulous couple Christina + Bill in San Pedro on Thursday (of course we have to use our cameras while we’re out there!). Needless to say, it’ll be such an eventful week!

Finally, I wanted to wrap up this post with a “sneak peek” into our own wedding. We wanted everyone to have some insight into our planning process + what we envision for our own wedding. Being wedding photographers, our wedding will most definitely center around the details! From now until October (our wedding!), I will try my best to blog about our wedding + give more “sneak peeks” so you can see how wedding photographers plan a wedding! So with that said (thanks for bearing this long post!), here are some snapshots into what our wedding will be like:

Crème de la Crème Vendor! | Featured!

Jodi — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:54:37 +0000

We are thrilled to announce that we were asked to become a Crème de la Crème vendor on The Bride’s Cafe! We have been HUGE fans of Janie Medley, a fabulous florist in Richmond, and The Bride’s Cafe for sometime, and are honored to be apart of such an elite listing of wedding vendors from all over the nation. We HIGHLY recommend any bride to check out TBC for creative, modern, stylish wedding ideas and inspiration. I have gained so much of my own wedding inspiration by spending hours on the site…so, go check it out!

Named One of the Best Virginia Vendors of 2009 on OneWed.com!

Jodi — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:58:41 +0000

Hey everyone! We found out today that we were named one of the Best Virginia Vendors of 2009 on OneWed.com! We are absolutely honored that OneWed.com chose us as a top vendor. Thank you to all our clients who submitted fabulous reviews for us, you all are the best!! Happy Wednesday!!

Me + Kurt | Engaged!

Jodi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:07:07 +0000

I normally don’t post personal stuff on my blog, but I’m just soooo excited that I wanted to share some BIG news with all of you!

Drum roll please………I’m ENGAGED!!

The big day happened on Monday evening at an apple orchard outside of Charlottesville. Everything was absolutely perfect about it…the weather, the location, the delicious apples!! We had wanted to go apple picking for sometime, since we both LOVE the Fall season & every activity involved with it. It happened very simply, nothing too extravagant by any means (which is definitely us). I was trying to pick an apple & I turned around & he had the ring out. :-) It was very much spur of the moment & happened when it felt right to Kurt (similar to a Jim & Pam engagement from the “Office”…for those of you who know what I’m talking about ). Luckily, we brought along our camera, which we normally don’t leave behind, & snapped pictures afterwards. If you’re wondering about the pictures of us together, we didn’t have another photographer following us around (too bad!), that was the work of our trusty tripod, which we NEVER use & was sort of a pain to set up for those pictures

So to all of my 2010 clients, I’ll be in the same boat as you…planning a wedding!! Anyways, please stay tuned for some exciting new things happening with Jodi Miller Photography. There will be LOTS of updates coming in October, so check back frequently to find them out!

Enjoy a couple snapshots from our engagement!