We wanted to give a shout out for Mary G’s Floral & Gifts here in Little Elm.   Mary G’s is family owned and operated. She is committed to offering only the finest floral arrangements and gifts, backed by service that is friendly and prompt.  Because all of her customers are important,  her  professional staff is dedicated to making your experience a pleasant one.  Mary will always go the extra mile to make your floral gift perfect.

Mary G’s is located at 2700 E. Eldorado Pkwy., #205 Little Elm, Tx 75068 (972)292-0404 (877)299-0404

Visit Mary G’s on the web at  http://www.marygs.com/

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending Market Street’s Wedding Expo in Frisco.  I was asked by Michelle  DeCasse, Market Streets Floral Manager, to photograph some of the details of the Wedding Expo.  Below are some images of the weekend.

Here’s a detail image of a bridal bouquet made by Michelle and the Market Street models who did an awesome job!

Michelle Decasse - Market Street Floral Manager

Here’s some more of Michelle’s floral creations…

Some boutinerres…..

With Michelle in the floral department and James in the bakery, Market Street can provide brides with some incredible wedding cakes.

Market Street also provides catering services and have a  nice gift shop.

So, when planning your wedding reception, be sure to think of Market Street in Frisco!

We were very excited to find out that The Tribute, in The Colony, TX,  selected one of our images to use in their advertisement for the Spring/Summer 2011 edition of the Brides of North Texas magazine! The image they chose was a couples shot we took at Antira & LJ’s indoor wedding at The Tribute. The shot was taken between the ceremony and the reception using some cool off camera lighting for a dramatic effect with the beautiful sky. The advertisement can be found on page 100.

Here’s a shot of the magazine on top of Anitra & LJ’s wedding album.

Here’s the actual ad with our photo credits.

And here’s a shot of the magazine ad on top of our album of Antra & LJ..

If you’d like to see Anitra’s and LJ’s entire album, just go over to our website, Shanstar Weddings and click on Wedding Stories.

Oh, be sure to pick up your copy of Brides of North Texas magazine!

Wow, it’s been forever since we’ve blogged…but get ready!  There’s gonna be  lots of blogging in 2011!  It’s going to be a great year!

Anitra’s bridal session was at The Tribute Golf Course in The Colony, TX and she looked amazing! Here’s  one of her shots we captured.

Here’s a sneek peak at Audra’s bridal session at the Dallas Arboretum. I’ll be posting more imges from her session later.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of photographing Nichole & Russ’s outdoor wedding at Lake Texoma. The ceremony was held at the Prothro Center in Pottsboro, Tx. Audrey Herd and the Protho staff were great to work with. All the  flowers and decorations were beautiful! Robin McGee, the miniter of music at First Baptist Church of Sherman, TX, officiated the ceremony and did a wonderful job! 

Nichole & Russ were so fun to work with! I may have gotten carried away while preparing images for this blog post but I wanted to share some of the awesome shots I captured that day.

Russ getting ready…..

Nichole getting ready….

Here’s some individual shots of  them shortly after getting ready….


I love it when couples decide to see each other before the ceremony! It really sets the stage for some wonderful photographs and is definitely an emotional experience for the couple. Nichole and Russ decided to do this. Here are some shots from their pre-ceremony meeting.

Russ patiently waiting…..

The moment….I love both of their expressions!

Enoying their time together….

I really like this shot…..

The guys…..

The girls…..

The ceremony started and I noticed Nichole waiting for her time to come down the sidewalk. You can see how happy she is…..

Here was my view of  Nichole after she had passed by me….

I was able to capture Russ looking on towards his bride as she walked down the sidewalk. Love his smile….

Here’s a shot of Robin speaking to the bride and groom….

Here’s the kiss and the newly wed couple…..

Here’s some nice shots of them after the ceremony….

Another great one….

Some reception details….

Nichole & Russ had to have practised their first dance. They were incredible! Here’s a few shots of the dance…..

After the reception, Nichole & Russ left for a party boat at Highport Marina but not before getting rained on with bird seed! Man there was a lot of bird seed flying!

I headed over to Highport Marina to get a few shots on the party boat before they headed out. Here’s one of the shots I got…..

Nichole, I know the plans were to be out on the water in time to see the sunset but things didn’t quite work out. However, I was able to get this shot for you….

And finally, one of my absolute favorites of day……

We had a great engagement session the other day with Anitra and LJ at the canals in Las Colinas. They are such a great couple! I met Anitra and LJ through my friend Carolyn Brown of Weddings By Carolyn.

Here are a few of my favorites from their session.…

Looking forward to ya’lls wedding in August!!

For all the brides checking out our blog, we wanted to let you know that we are offering 3 FREE Engagement Sessions in March only. We want you to get to know us! In addition to the free engagment session, 3 lucky brides will also receive a free 8×10 print of their favorite image from the session. For any bride who receives one of the 3 free engagement sessions, if you decide to book us for your wedding, we’ll deduct the session fee from your package and give you some more products!

Here’s how this will work: Go to our main website, www.ShanstarPhotography.com and fill out the form on the Contact Us page.  In the Email Content box simply type: “Contact me for a FREE engagement session!” The first 3 brides who fill out the form in the month of March will receive the free engagement sessions!  If you just can’t wait, send me a text message right now to 903-267-1935!

Good Luck!!

We’re back! Starla and I had a wonderful time at the WPPI 2009 convention and tradeshow in Las Vegas!  It was our first time to go to Vegas. It goes without saying that Vegas is a lot different than Dallas, that’s for sure!

The convention and tradeshow was awesome! Monday morning, we attended a 2 hour class with Jim Garner, a very accomplished wedding photographer from Seattle. His class was on the Art of Story Shooting, a photography approach that captures the wedding day in a way that really conveys the couple’s love and emotion when translated into the wedding  album. It was a very cool class! We are very excited about implementing some of his ideas in our future wedding albums.  

Here’s a shot of Jim from where we were sitting….

Monday evening, Starla and I met up with Kevin Jairaj and Alycia Alvarez and helped them get set up for their 2 hour Rings to Rattles class, a fresh approach to photographing brides and babies.

Kevin and Alycia took turns speaking about their specialties. Kevin talked about his wedding workflow, his approach on engagement and bridal sessions, dramatic outdoor lighting techniques and so much more. Alycia spent some time talking in detail about her bella baby program. Both of them were terrific and it was very cool spending some time with them.

 Here’s a shot of the two of them…
Kevin has the heart of a teacher when it comes to photography. Here’s a shot of him answering questions after the class…

To sum it up, we had a blast! We have such a passion for photography and we went away from WPPI 2009 incredibly inspired! We are looking forward to this years weddings with a renewed desire to create awesome memories for our clients.

Here’s a couple of parting shots. I took this one from inside the Las Vegas airport. I never knew there were so many mountains surrounding Las Vegas.

Before we left, I thought I’d try out some of the posing techniques we learned at WPPI this year. This one worked out really well, don’t ya think?