Shannon Stanfield

Another short post this week - it's too COLD to get out and do anything!

When Mr. Smith and I got married we hired Shannon Stanfield to be our wedding photographer (and by "hired" I mean my parents found him and paid him, I just said "ok" to him and his work). He was a freelance photojournalist just starting his work as a wedding photographer. I was one of the first brides he did, and he always promised his brides free sitting fees for their first baby's photos (I never got to take him up on his offer, humph). But we always kept up with each other over the years - when we returned to Knoxville he got in contact with me and offered to give me back a photo album from my wedding that he'd used for years as a demo album. His work had progressively gotten more advanced over the years, and he didn't need it anymore. He did family photos for a Christmas present for Mama and Daddy a few years ago, see how nice his work is?

LOOK HOW CUTE BABY MAX IS!!!!

About a year ago, I got word that he had died from cancer. Cancer sucks, ya'll. I was real sorry to hear that. About a month ago, I got a Facebook friend request from his widow clearing out his estate. She offered to give me one of the other demo pieces he'd been using - one of my very favorite photos from our wedding that he'd had mounted up on foam core. (Ahem.... Mr. Smith isn't in the photo OOOPS).

i had tried to get the girls to do this the day before but no one wanted to lie down on the ground in their outfits. i pulled the 'it's MY day' bridezilla card after the reception and made them lie down because we all knew no one would re-wear their bridesmaid's dress (who are you kidding with your 'you can hem and wear it for easter talk'). my mother had reminded me (ahem, informed me; who knew you were supposed to have a special dress on to leave the church; i was the first of my friends to get married and had no idea about things like this - we forgot RINGS, ya'll - they were delivered to the church on our wedding day!) that i needed a dress to wear out of the church, and having yards of leftover material from bridesmaid's dresses that my saintly mother made (seven bridesmaids, ya'll) i hurriedly made this dress real quick. the picture is neat, isn't it? we're all matchy-matchy! (but in a good way)

Actually - the dress has a funny story. I was in a hurry to knock the dress out and I had to cut it out of a pattern that was too small. I didn't bother measuring (P and S; MISTAKE) and just whacked it out bigger than the pattern and sewed the whole thing together. I was so upset when I realized I'd wasted all that time sewing a too big dress, my father tried it on to get a laugh out of me. It worked.

me and dipsey in our matching dresses. in order to save time, i cut the straps i'd made in the first dress out and put them in my new, smaller dress. daddy made me make him new ones for his dress. and gran re-hemmed my dress for the big day - i did a quickie crap job in this photo.

But back to Shannon! This display piece is HUGE. I took a photo of it on the china cabinet so you can see the scale:

a photo of a photo, how arty

Thank you, Dana for getting Shannon's piece to me! I love it very much!

Two odds and ends to leave you with:

mr. and mrs. mason made corn fritters and they are to DIE for, i ate three and didn't even bat an eye.

electroinics, anyone?

Stay warm, everybody! Over and out!