Congrats Michael and Annmarie for a perfect wedding day from start to finish.  You guys are such a sweet couple and I can tell you will have a lifetime of awesome times ahead.  What a very spectacular day, even with the heat (it was over 100 degrees this day) you would have never know it, everyone had a great time and a huge smile on their face all day long.    We got to shoot at some of our favorite places all in one day which was just amazing, the day started out at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga where Annmarie and the girls got ready in the bridal room.  Annmarie had the most amazing veil, words can’t describe it you have to see the slideshow below.  The ceremony was at the Villa at the Oval gardens.  It was great to work with Kathleen and her crew who always put together a flawless event.  After the ceremony we had some good time with Michael and Annmarie to walk around some of the grounds at the Villa for photos and family pictures.

The reception was at the St. Claire hotel in downtown San Jose (which is where Annmaries parents were also married) and Hilary out there did a great job making sure every detail was attended to and went according to plan.

We got to shoot at some great places but the people are who always make a great wedding.  Both families were great to work with on the day and they really had the “A” team of event professionals working the day.

Here are some of the people who helped make the day great:

Wedding Coordinator:  Amazáe Special Events – Agnes

Video:  A Video Reflection – David and crew

DJ:  Los Gatos DJ – Cassie and Dan

Congrats again guys!!! Here is the slideshow:

Wedding at Villa montalvo and St. Claire Hotel from mark stagi on Vimeo.

– Mark

It is with great excitement & joy that I get to announce to everyone our newest addition to team Stagi! Our business has been growing over the years and as most of you know our family is growing as well. Our first baby (Faith) is already 10 months old and almost walking. She is already standing and about ready for her training on holding reflectors, she will be my little lighting girl She hasn’t quite got her camera skills down yet but I am sure that will come soon! So now that Faith almost has the lighting skills ready, I figured it was time to get someone trained up for some of the post production work and album design…………

Drumroll please…… our first photo of our newest little baby Stagi on his/her way!!!!!

I feel very blessed to have another baby coming soon. It is such a huge gift from God, and we are all very excited for the new journey to come as a family of 4, actually really 6 if you count Lucky and JJ my studio cats. He/She won’t be coming until February but as always I will be sharing the major news with everyone on my blog and facebook.

Exciting times are coming!!!!!

– Mark

oh and here is little Faiths happy reaction to the news:

Our neighborhood has a 4th of July every year where the streets each build a float based on a theme and compete for the best float. Last year was my first year to see the parade and I was pretty amazed by the detail some people put into their floats and how festive the entire neighborhood was for the party. It is great to see little kids lining the streets with their flags and people hanging out in their driveways with other neighbors and friends. There is a great sense of community around here and it is really great to see everyone all get together.

This years theme was disneyland and there were some very cool and creative floats. The floats were:
“Pirates of the Caribbean”, Montalban Drive
“Toy Story”, Lower Puerto Vallarta Drive
“Disneyland Before And After”, Monteval Lane
“Classic Disneyland”, Upper Puerto Vallarta Drive
“Adventureland”, Monteverde Drive
“Tiki Room”, De Palma Drive

All of them were good and some had some great acting. The Indiana Jones float had a Indy running around whipping people and then going for a treasure on the float that launced a huge rock off the float towards him, it was classic!

Here is a slideshow of a few highlights of the parade:

4th of July Montevideo parade from mark stagi on Vimeo.

I had a few faviorates

We have been so busy shooting the past week that we haven’t had much time to blog, but we are putting the final touches on lots of portrait sessions and weddings and will be updating the blog over the next few days with lots of new stuff! We also got to check out our neighborhood 4th of July parade again this year and captured a few images of some of the cool floats. I’ll post a slideshow with some of the highlights tomorrow.

We also have a couple of days still available this month for our Lifestyle Family Portraits, check out our new website at: http://www.stagiportraitlife.com for some of our recent work and contact us to book a session.

– Mark

The other day I started looking at my calendar full of so many tasks and started to think about how much time I spend actually photographing. Right now during the busy summer wedding season we do 1 or 2 weddings a weekend, and 1 or 2 portrait sessions so about 2-3 days during the week I am photographing. The rest of the days my calendar is packed full with client meetings, marketing, accounting, getting orders prepped, photoshop and many other random things you find yourself doing as a small business owner. And while most of these are needed to run your business some can wait a bit.

I love the art of photography, it constantly inspires me to be creative and get out and shoot. This month I am going to commit to shooting something every day. I might even get out and shoot some things I haven’t done in a long time like some landscapes or work on my own art projects!!! I’ll post a shot from every shoot (not that day, but maybe in a week i’ll post a shot from yesterdays shoot and then try and keep up a shot every day on the blog)

Every day is a gift and I am thankful to have the opportunity to do something I have a passion for. So watch out for a ton of images coming soon

– Mark