Feelin' Resolute

(a Dole tribute)

Well, let's face it...when it comes to New Year's resolutions, they are so Out that they're just about back In again. And being ones who always like to stay on top of the latest trends, we thought we'd go ahead and list a few of ours! :)

Justin:
To wake up earlier: I can't believe how much more I get done when I wake up early. Plus, who knew the light could be that awesome in the morning! :-)

To always be armed with my camera: I did the the whole eight weeks we lived in London in the summer of '05 and because of it I was able to capture some pretty crazy pictures of London winning the Olympic bid one day and being bombed the next.

To go skiing and make it all the way down the mountain on my feet: neither of us has ever gone skiing and we're making this year the year we do it! Next year I'll go for the helicopter!

To start the official Justin Marantz bi-weekly poker night: who's in???

To find something to do with the massive collection of clothes I seem to be acquiring: dang, it's hard work lookin this good! :-)

And...To own all of the following: bose noise reduction headphones for all of the traveling we do, a dart board for the losers at the poker table, maui jim sunglasses because they're just that cool, an HD LCD screen...is 72in too big?? and...a Tesla Roadster

HAPPY 2008!!!

Mary:
To start reading ferociously: topping the list are "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" "The World is Flat,"
"The Purpose Driven Life," "Blink," and to re-read "How to Win Friends & Influence People" for, oh, the fourth time or so.

To clean out my makeup bag once and for all: Ok, so guys you aren't going to get this one but trust me the ladies will. How is it possible to a) accumulate that much makeup that fast and b) for the bag to get so darn messy no matter how recently you've cleaned it out? Well, in '08 I pledge to go in there with a blow torch if I have to, but it will be clean! Same goes for any of the remaining junk drawers and cabinets that have not yet felt my wrath.

To finally grow my hair out: I've been growing it out for the past two years and it has been going achingly slow...probably because I keep getting it cut. But I only have about three more inches to go and in '08 they're mine!

Gotta steal one of J's here...To FINALLY find something to do with the massive collection of clothes I seem to be acquiring: dang, it's hard work lookin this good! :-) (For what it's worth we've already donated over 30 bags to Good Will since November, but I think it's definitely time for another run!)

To drink even MORE water than I already do: Ok, I seriously already drink about 3 nalgene bottles full of water everyday, but in this dry New England cold it still doesn't seem to be enough.

And finally...To visit more blogs, more often: we get SO many awesome comments & emails from people just checking in with us and I resolve to be so much better about returning the favor! So if you read this blog (even if you've never left a comment before, do it now!), leave me your blog addy in the comments and I'll make sure to add you to my reader!

Have a very safe & blessed New Year!! And to all the people who read this blog, thanks so much for sharing our lives with us this past year. Here's hoping 2008 is twice as fun!!

Best of 2007!!!

Well I can't think of a better way for us to follow up the last post than by posting our picks for our best of 2007!!

Looking back over the past year, I can't help but stand in awe at all that's happened. Our business has really just exploded this year in ways we never could've imagined possible. Everything has been happening so fast and we've been doing all we can to just try to take it all in.

From speaking in LA & New York to shooting the most amazing, lush weddings ever (including one that took us all the way to Wales) to meeting some of the best friends we've ever had...if you would have told me this time last year that even half of these things would happen for us, I would've laughed in your face...sure I would've apologized because that's rude, but there would've definitely been some face-laughing :) God really must be working double over-time to be blessing us this way, and I'm sure he's due for a loooong vacation because of us. All things we do are through Him and because of Him.

We are so grateful to our friends and family for putting up with us and our crazy schedule that means we don't get to see them nearly as often as we'd like. We love you guys! Your love and support are our rock, our foundation, and you lift us up more than you'll ever know.

And then, of course, there are our clients...the BEST clients (ahem, friends) in the world!! Without you guys there would be no Justin Marantz Photography. We recently sent these out to all of our 2007 clients to try to thank them for everything they mean to us...I'm sure they didn't quite capture everything we would want to say, but hopefully they came pretty close! :) Thank you guys for becoming part of our family!

We already have some really exciting things lined up for early in 2008 including our PUG tour and a couple of other really BIG things we have up our sleeves that we can't wait to share with you!

Ok, ok... before I start thanking our manager and the record label let's get on with the show. Without further ado...here are our favorites from all of the weddings we shot this year (except, of course, where an NDA was involved) including one with the awesome Mr. David Jay, making up our Best of 2007!! Thanks so much for the memories! (And make sure to crank up the sound & give a lil love to Mr. Jon Bon Jovi!)

Celebrating Marriage...and the love for what we do

She clutched the hairbrush tight against her chest and leaned back to examine her progress. Her head tilted left, then right, then left again. "Hmmm..." she said in the lovely melody of a West Virginia sing-song drawl, "I'm not sure there's much more I can do to save you." He laughed his signature laugh and rested his chin in her outstretched hand. It was a good hand...a hand he had taken to have and to hold over sixty-two years ago...and he knew she would take good care of him.

When I was only two years old, barely old enough to even remember my grandpa, he was taken from us suddenly in the night. Two short years later- and many say from a broken heart- my great-grandfather was gone too. So being the ever resourceful little one that I was, I marched myself right up to our neighbor (who also happened to be the town's blacksmith) and informed him that I was officially adopting him as my new grandpa. He reckoned that would be alright, and just like that I was part of their family.

So I thought it was only fitting that while we were home for Christmas, I should take my new husband to meet my adopted grandparents, Dot & Glen. When the talk turned to the wedding I was ready, armed with an album of our favorite shots on our shiny new iPhone. I flipped through the pictures with ease...scrolling, tilting, turning and zooming to my heart's content. It was just about then that Dot glided (she's a true Southern lady, and Southern ladies glide... they never walk) into the other room and pulled out her own wedding picture. Justin managed to grab this awesome moment as two brides looked back on their day. The medium may be different, but the love and the memories are the same.

That got me thinking about this job that we do. Over sixty years later and a *picture* takes her right back there...to the place where they stood and said their i-do's, her mama's lace, and a boy who thought she could never look more beautiful than she did right then. A boy who is still thinking the same thing today. Every time we've stood in the shadows and watched our couples promise a lifetime of love, it never quite hit home with me that sixty years from now one of them may be holding up one of our pictures and going right back to that day.

And this is why we love what we do.

Last Minute Shopping :-)

Last Minute Shopping :-), originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

Bored!

Bored!, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

On our way home to WV and bored...prolly because this is all we see. 8
hrs down and only four more to go!

Ok I have a confession...

Ok I have a confession..., originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

Every year I watch It's a wonderful life (or at least some part of it)
and EVERY year I cry! It's the end that gets me when everyone shows up
to help George raise the money...and then his brother shows up. Gets
me everytime! So what's your must watch holiday movie? I actually have
a bunch on my list, but I want to hear yours first and then I'll share
mine. C'mon I'll show you mine if you show me yours! LOL ok go....

M:)

Sweet!! ([b]ecker's best of 2007!!)

Sweet! Our wedding is 2 for 2 for [b]ecker's best of 2007!! One of my bridal portraits was picked as one of his favorite relaxed portraits of the year and I just saw that a picture of our church was featured as a favorite detail. That's awesome!!

Ok, so some things just probably shouldn't be posted...

BUT WHAT FUN IS THAT?!? Long live Dektol!!!!

Holiday Par-TAY, PUG style!!

Tonight is our big end of the year holiday party for the CT PUG, and we are SO pumped to see everyone!! This has been such an unbelievable year for us and so much of that goes back to the incredible people of PUG. When we started this group this past January we had no idea everything that would come of it and just how important these people would be to our lives and our business. If you're in CT and you HAVEN'T yet made it to a PUG, then get your tushy on out tonight! We'll be chillin' at The Alley in Hartford starting at 6:30 and going til who knows when.

BETRAYED!!!!

Coach Rich Rodriguez is trading in his blue and gold for... well I guess blue and gold. There are no words...stunned, just stunned. Needless to say, there are a LOT of angry people in West Virginia (and beyond) today.

Hangin with Shyla is Sweeeet!!

Hangin with Shyla is Sweeeet!!, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

YAY!!!! Shyla is coming today!!!

woo hoo!! I am SO excited because our dear, dear friend and photographer superstar, Shyla, is coming out all the way from Washington state to play with us today!! She'll be chillin' at Chez Marantz all week long and I'm sure we're going to find ourselves in all sorts of adventures! I can't wait!!! She'll be leaving on a jet plane in just a few hours! So wish her some safe travels and a visit from the free-upgrade-to-first-class fairy!

We HEART Shyla!!!

95.7

95.7, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

My poor Justin is sick...and I think our thermometer must be too. It
said he was 95.7 degrees! J goes "oh great, I'm a radio station!" LOL

Lauren & Matt

Today we had a blast hanging out with two of our new clients for 2008, Lauren & Matt. These guys are two of the most adorable people you'll ever meet...the kind of people who make you feel like you've known them forever from the first second you meet them! They have SO much fun together and their laughter is so contagious. I can't tell you how many times today we all found ourselves cracking up hysterically!

We actually like to do several engagement sessions with our couples before the wedding because 1) we just have so much darn fun with them and 2) it really helps us get to know the couple and become friends with them. So this will be just the first of many shoots for Lauren & Matt, and we're already off to a killer start!

Lauren & Matt also have one of the coolest "how did you meet" stories I've ever heard and we have a whole themed shoot in Newport planned just for that. So make sure to stay tuned for future appearances from these guys!

P.S.: How HOT are these two?!

My new moose mug!

My new moose mug!, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

Yes it's a moose...not a reindeer. How do I know? Because I heart mooses (meese...moosi?)and I said so!! :) M

This is how it's done!

We got this email from Christy a couple weeks ago telling us that her goal was to raise $500 for Portrait House by the end of the year...and in the last WEEK she has sent in $650 worth of checks!! It's so awesome to see people setting these goals and totally blowing them away in such a short amount of time. If you head over to the PH blog you can see that Robert Norman has now more than doubled his original goal of raising $1000 by Christmas. This is how the Portrait House is going to happen...by individual people stepping up and taking it to the next level. So...are you in? :)


Check out how Christy is marketing this to her clients:

This just says it all...

From the pen of the late-great Eddie Adams

hmm....

Ok, so I was just in the shower getting ready for dinner with our wonderful clients-turned-friends-turned-designers extraordinaire (but of course still friends too!) Lisa & Rob...and I was reading the back of my conditioner bottle, as you do. In the directions it says "ALWAYS (under threat of death) begin regimen with TreSemme Anti-Breakage Shampoo." Huh...I wonder what happens if you don't start with the TreSemme Anti-Breakage Shampoo. Does your hair fall out? Does your head explode? Either way, I'm gonna listen to them. That's not the sort of thing you mess around with.

I AM McLovin!!!

Superbad is out on DVD today and WE were the first in line to get it! :)

Coming to a City Near You!!

Mary & I have the very cool opportunity to tour around to a bunch of PUGs this winter (lol I feel like we need T-shirts..."The Marantz World Tour 2008"...ooh and one of those double decker tour buses with a hot tub in it!) to talk about our business model and how important our friendships with other photographers (not to mention our clients!) are to that. The tour kicks off in January, and so far is going through March. Here are the dates we have set so far:

January 14th: Charleston, SC
January 15th: Raleigh, NC
January 16th: Asheville, NC

Feb 7th: Nashville, TN
Feb 8th: Knoxville, TN

March 31: Salt Lake City, UT

And we will also be in Pittsburgh and Boston at dates TBD!

We can't wait! We're so excited to meet a bunch of new people and hang out with some of our dearest friends again! And thank you SO much to all the awesome PUG leaders for helping us get this set up!! If you're near one of those areas, come to a meeting cause we'd love to meet you! And if you're part of a different PUG and are interested in having us come hang out, you can just shoot us an email and we'll see if we can get it set up!

k, it's Monday and you know what that means...off to the weekly board meeting!!

How to Create a Favicon

Here are the two lines of code that you have to add below the head tag... just change the url to match the place you uploaded the .ico file

It's the Back-YARRRRD Brawl!!!!

T-minus 2hrs and 25 minutes until kick-off for the Backyard Brawl! For those of you who DON"T know, the BB is the famous showdown (this year in Motown) between WVU and PITT who are a mere 45 minutes apart. This year marks the 100th brawl, but the stakes are much, much higher than bragging rights this year. With a win, WVU will all but lock it's place in the BCS national championship to be played in New Orleans on Jan 7th...and thus set couches a burnin' ALL OVER Morgantown tonight!! Oh how I wish we were there to throw some fuel on the fire!

Check back here for game updates!

"The Hundred Year War" - Lou Holtz - ESPN Gameday

- 3rd play of the game, WVU intercepts Pitt for 47 yards!

Blue & Gold(en retriever)

- Still 0-0 in the 2nd quarter, but Rivers just picked another one. WVU ball.

- oooooh... Pat White goes down... it looks like the team trainers are trying to pop his thumb back into place on the field... on national television!

- seriously! I could see that face mask from CT... a thousand miles away!

- TOUCHDOWN Mountaineers!! Back-up QB Jared Brown from 5 yards out. 7-0

"well his thumb came off... and they put it back on... so once he gets the feelin back we'll put him back in" - Coach Rich Rodriguez at half time. Rough game.

- ok...down by 3 going into the 4th... we can do this. Let's turn and burn!

- Devine just ran back the kickoff for 48 yards! And wait...who's that coming into the game.... could it be
YES!!! PAT WHITE IS BACK!

wow... not much to say.. final score 13-9. It is a dark, dark day in the Marantz household. Flowers in memorium of our national title dreams can be sent to our home address. :( :(

Excerpts from an Interview

Here are a few clips from an interview we filmed last week (more on that later!)...but we wanted to go ahead and put this part up because a lot of our friends are working on getting in shape this winter and we thought they might be able to use the recipe from Mary's Signature Salad! And if you're a big salad fan, you can also check out Steve's blog for another recipe from him.

btw...Don't you think my hottie wife should have her own show?? Somebody should call up Rachel Ray :)

Grocering!

Grocering!, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

Love & Family

These are some pics of a shoot we did last week for Michelle (another bridesmaid of Lisa!) and her family. You've got to love days like this!

Clients to Friends

The core of mine & Justin's business has always been about relationships- our relationships with other vendors, other photographers, and especially the ones we have with our clients. It is 100% because of these relationships that our business has been able to grow as fast and as much as it has in the past year or two. When I think about where we were even two years ago vs. where we are now, it's really overwhelming (in the best way possible) to realize all that's happened.

And ALL of that goes back to one important principle that has become the foundation of our business: our clients are our friends. We spend so much time just hanging out with our clients and really getting to know them. I gotta say, I don't know how we keep getting this lucky, but we have the BEST clients in the world book us!! And we just come to care for each of them so much that we could never imagine not keeping them in our lives once the wedding is over. So what's really great is when these clients turned friends of ours refer *their* friends to us and then the weddings are like a big reunion for everyone!

That was exactly the case this weekend when we shot Cat & Dan's rockin' wedding in Tarrytown. Cat was a bridesmaid at Lisa & Rob's wedding that we shot this past September and she & Dan booked us shortly after that. We just love all these guys so much, and it's so great to show up to a wedding and feel like you're already surrounded by old friends. They're the kind of people you hope you can always call friend!

One thing these guys definitely all have in common is that they really know how to put on a good party! These were two of the most exquisite weddings we've ever shot.

Meet Cat & Dan!

We had the adorable Candace Jeffery along to second shoot with us and she grabbed this super fun shot!

And Lisa & Rob!!

and of course lil' Louie!

This rockin' shot is owed to Miss Harris!

We call this one "receiving line"!!

Monday Board Meeting

Monday Board Meeting, originally uploaded by justinmarantz.

Monday morning = our weekly business meeting here at Justin Marantz
Photography where we write out all of our (big hairy audacious) goals for the week.....and
that requires a LOT of sugar n caffeine!!!