During a little downtime Neeva saw the sheer joy in Madhe’s eyes and the smile on his face and playfully asked him when he planned on taking his daughter to the elephant park. Matter of factly and quite woefully Made simply stated that his two year old daughter absolutely loved animals and coming to the elephant park would be something that she would always remember but that a single ticket was the equivalent of two months salary and thus he would never be able to bring his family here.

Astounded; Neeva and I did the only thing people on their honeymoon do; smile, we bought Madhe and his family tickets to the elephant park. Madhe’s daughter paid us back with beautiful hugs and a wonderful smile. Seeing her smile from ear to ear made our hearts smile and I personally think we made out better.

Below are a few pictures of Madhe and his family

Every time we went up we always gambled at the Wild Wild West; a hole in the wall casino right off the boardwalk that you could easily miss if you were actually looking for the place. It had all of 10 tables and vintage slot machines that maxed out at all of five cents.

We would always get there a little after 2AM right at the shift change and play blackjack with this elderly old man dealer who had a grandfatherly smile but a boyish grin. But once the games got going he would start screaming the most entertaining phrases and school all of us on it’s meaning or his interpretation of them.

A few of my favorite:

“Monkey, Monkey, Monkey!” – Any card that is a 10 or higher use to have a monkey on the face of the card; it used to be yelled when someone wanted to take down the dealer and needed a ten or higher to win the hand.

“Need some penetration” – a term used right before the deck had to be shuffled to let the card counters know that the deck is low and it’s time to strike.

“Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” – Use to be yelled by this grandfatherly gentleman at the top of his lungs every time someone got blackjack. He said that on river boats in the early 1800’s after someone was beating the house to entice them to stay and play some more. I always asked him how people would get off the steam boat and he would just boyishly grin…

And without further a due the winners of our three contests

Winner of our Engagement Session Contest: Palak and Manan who won: a two hour engagement session,  a $250 print credit, on-line image hosting for 1 year and a DVD video Slideshow!

They had the cutest proposal story that just had to be shared: “Manan and I got engaged on December 3, 2011, on the night of our 8th anniversary. We had started dating when we were 15. A week before the 3rd Manan had told me that he was going to take me out for our anniversary and that it was a surprise. I didn’t take this to mean anything beyond what he said because he always does cute, sweet things on our anniversary. He came and picked me up, and we were off to what became an unforgettable night. As we were driving I noticed that he was following the signs to the Montgomery County fairgrounds (the first place we met) so of course I had to ask, “Why are we going to the fairgrounds?” Manan laughed it off as though I was crazy to think we were going to the fairgrounds on our anniversary date. Of course, that is exactly where he was taking me. When we got there, I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to be there (being county property), but he assured me everything was fine. As we pulled up I saw a pergola which was lit up. It wasn’t until we started walking towards it and got close enough that I saw how extravagant it was. While I was observing the pergola, the drapes, the blankets, the candles, the rose petals, the picnic basket, the champagne, the space heater (it was a chilly evening and Manan always thinks of everything!), and the sheer extravagance of the set-up, Manan grabs both my hands, so I turn to look at him. He says a few sweet words and gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him, and of course I said yes! After soaking everything in we finally sit down and have our picnic. Manan tells me he built the pergola himself and that he wants to put it in our future backyard as a memory of the night. It was absolutely amazing and intimate and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect proposal or fiancé.”

Engagement Portrait Canvas Winner: Lisa and Akhil:  who won a beautiful 16×20 Canvas a $480 value: This beautiful couple got married at the end of November with their wedding published on Maharani Weddings!

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Wedding Portrait Canvas Winner: Saira and Shekeab: who won a beautiful 16×20 Canvas a $480 value: This fantastic couple had a wonderful winter wedding at the end of December with their wedding soon to hit the blog!

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At first I was a bit hesitant, after all these delicate mammals do weigh over a ton and compared to us, where massive! But as soon as we jumped in the water all of our hesitations quickly melted away. Our dolphin, Sophie, first impressed us by her myriad of tricks. Backward flips, jumps through hoops and fast paced swimming around the pool. It was exactly how everyone described how the experience would be, soothing, relaxing and a lot of fun. Sophie kissed us, danced with us and took us for a swim.

If you haven’t experienced a swim with dolphins, we highly suggest you give it a go. Check out some of our images from our amazing experience in Cabo, Mexico!

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Once we got to her house she would make me a grilled cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off what was perfectly toasted. At the dining table while I nibbled on the greatest grilled cheese sandwiches ever she would ask me about my day and always without fail she would always ask me “have you failed yet?” in a loving sweet motherly voice, if I ever answered “no” she would replay “well you aren’t trying hard enough!”

It was a phrase than rang through my head all through high school and a phrase that always makes me smile even to this day. My aunt was always pushing me, even at the age of five (mostly to reach the toilet and not the floor) but she always pushed me to reach for the stars.

Every year around this time I sit down with paper and pencil in hand to make a list of goals for the year. But this year I wanted to first see what I failed at; the goals that I didn’t quite reach. After all we learn from failure must faster and easier than success. Of the 30+ goals I had; three weren’t achieved…yet.

We plan on getting the majority of our 2011 and 2010 wedding published and we will get at least two weddings published in print! – We didn’t realize how long it takes to get weddings published in print! About 70% of our 2011 weddings have been published with a few more this month and next and two print publications in the works!

We will implement time saving techniques to get our clients their wedding pictures faster and easier We sped up our post processing process (try to say that 5 times fast) making it MUCH faster; this year we averaged getting weddings completed in 3-4 weeks – and although we technically accomplished this goal we want to make our processes even faster and easier for our clients within the upcoming year. Neeva was scouring facebook liking, downloading and saving our wedding images that our friends and family took even before the cake was cut. We will work on speeding up our process even more while still delivering high quality work (obviously).

We will spruce up our editing room and add a bit of inspiration. – Something tells me that day old Chinese food and candy wrappers wasn’t what I had in mind; still working on it…I think I might have to transfer this goal over to Neeva…

With Love,

Sunny B) (the smiley face has sun glasses on…you know because it’s Sunny…I thought it was funny)

A picture of me and my cousin playing in the snow at the age of 5. Waiting for the snow to come this year…

To all of our 2011 clients, thank you. Thank you for allowing us to do what we love the most.  Thank you for believing in us and trusting us with your most important day. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to witness and document the start of your new lives, the joining of two families, the emotions, tears of joy and belly aching laughter. We wish you all a lifetime of love and happiness. Thank you for your unconditional trust, we are humbled and honored.

Cheers to an amazing year and an even better year to come! Wishing you all a wonderful and joyous new year!

Love,
Sunny & Neeva