New Beginnings...

It is with great excitement that I make my inaugural post on this new, most beautiful blog. Over the past few months, I have been hard at work on many changes, both professionally and personally.

First things first. I Do Click Wedding Photography is now Samantha Warren Weddings. This new name is a result of a major rebranding of my business that includes a stunning new website and this new blog. These two sites showcase my new logo and a pretty new purple color scheme (I should have realized earlier that black and blue are not ideal wedding business colors). What I love most about the new sites is that they allow me to showoff much bigger images than before and I think are thus more user-friendly. My new website also has some fun features, including a password-protected client access area where you can log in and see an images and information presentation about my packages and product lines, which is especially nice for my many out-of-state couples.

The concept for the new site design is based on my obsession with magazines. I delight in those few days at the middle of each month when all the new issues arrive in the mailbox and I can head to Paris in my Travel + Leisure or plan a fabulous dinner party (that may or may not ever take place) with Martha Stewart Living. I want my Website to evoke that same sense of inspiration and awe. In addition to getting to know the different types of weddings I document, maybe you'll get some great ideas for your own!

The site is divided into six sections (listed across the bottom of the site below the images) and several of them are commonly seen in magazines. When you hover your mouse over the section name, the image and information pages housed within that section become visible. "Features" showcases galleries of recent weddings that are especially unique and noteworthy. Weddings you might find on the cover of a magazine. "In Every Issue" includes several portfolios that showcase the different stages of the wedding day (ie. Preparations, Ceremonies, Celebrating, etc). For both of these portfolio sections, you can click the small purple dot on the left to see the thumbnails of the images in the portfolio, or at the bottom right of the page, you can select "slideshow" to view the images in a slideshow. Notice how big the images are!

"Special Sections" provides links to some recent wedding slideshows and give prospective clients a better understanding of how I cover an event beyond just a single snapshot. "The Masthead" is the area of a newspaper or magazine that typically includes details about who owns the paper, contact information, subscription rates, etc. I though this would be a fun heading for the information pages of my site, including my bio, testimonials, investment information, and client access. Meanwhile, the blog and connect links are fairly self explanatory and provide direct links to this blog and also to my contact page. Please revisit the site often, as I will be updating it regularly.

The decision to rename the business was a difficult one. When I began the business back in 2005, the name I Do Click seemed to fit. As a lover of language, I appreciated the double entendre of the name. But over time, I found the name becoming a bit too, well, kitsch. As an artist who uses the medium of photography, I do more than just click away. And the events I photograph are about more than just "I Do's." Instead, they are complex celebrations of love, respect and family. I think the new name reflects my artistry, while paying homage to what I love photographing best: weddings.

While I adore the alliteration of Samantha Warren weddings, the choice to use my married last name is also a symbolic one. As a published writer and photographer well-established in Maine before I was married, it seemed simpler to stick with my maiden name or a hyphenated version (DePoy-Warren) in professional settings. But my business was born out of my marriage; it was during our search for a photographer to document our day that I first fell in love with wedding photography and saw it as a viable careerpassion. And it is the joy my relationship with Kyle (my husband) brings me that sustains and inspires my commitment to celebrating my client's marriages through imagery. Furthermore, though Kyle is not a photographer, he is an integral partner in this business, whether supporting me emotionally as the business grows, staying up until the wee hours of the night chatting with me on the phone during a long post-wedding drive home, or making sure I have enough Goldfish and Diet Coke in the car cooler. I am honored to launch the new site and blog on our "fifth anniversary" Ky!

I hope you enjoy the new image and my images. With all the new changes, you may come across some glitches as the new site, blog and email addresses are implemented. Please let me know of these, and I will see to it that they are resolved. For the foreseeable future, my old site and blog will remain online and will direct people to the new pages. My old email address (sam@idoclick.com) will also remain active.

As excited as I am about all the changes with the business, there are also some personal developments I am eager to share with you. No, I am not pregnant. (Nor do we intend to be anytime soon. Sorry Cady!)

However, later this month, Kyle, I, Alder and Nikon will be moving from our home in Farmington to our new home in Portland. The new site and blog have our new address listed for correspondence. Our new telephone number will be posted as soon as we get it, though as always, you can contact me via my cell (207)491.5054. This move to Portland has been imagined for several years now. We appreciate the small town atmosphere of Farmington and we adore our little home here. It was our first home together, and we were married in the back yard so even the thought of selling reduces me to tears at times. I am grateful for all the encouragement during this moving process from my clients of past and present as well as the other photographers who I am in contact with. Many of you have offered to help us move or given us recommendations for everything from doggie day cares to dry cleaners in Portland and that's making the transition much more manageable!

That said, over the past few years, we've found many of our friends settling in Portland and so our free time often brought us there. It's a stunning city, with some of the finest eateries and activities we've found. In preparation for the move, Kyle recently took a job with an engineering firm with offices in S. Portland. You can click here to read a recent article in the Bangor Daily News about the very cool (and complex) project he is working to get permitted at the local, state and national levels. Can you tell I am just a wee bit proud of him!

Living in Portland will also allow me to more easily connect in person with potential and current clients. Though I have no intentions of opening a commercial space, I am looking forward to meetings in my home office space, where we can get to know each other (and Alder and Nikon) at the dining room table or patio set. The new location will also make me closer to clients and their celebrations in New Hampshire, Mass. and Rhode Island, where I sometimes find myself shooting. And with Maine's wedding season being primarily confined to May-October, my placement in Portland will also open me to more non-wedding related writing and photography opportunities, and I'll keep you posted on those.

This post is rambling a bit long, as my posts tend to do. But there is so much good to share with you! Please take the time to explore the new sites and do let me know what you think! As always, thank you for your interest.