Wish Upon A Wedding was founded in San Francisco, CA, in January of 2010, by a group of wedding and business entrepreneurs and is America’s FIRST nonprofit wedding wish granting organization, producing weddings and civil union ceremonies at destinations across the United States for individuals facing terminal illness, regardless of sexual orientation. The organization is rapidly expanding with new chapters coming online quickly. For the many ways you can help please visit their website.

We also had a little fun with Sasha in San Antonio.

Jennifer Ramirez-Jasiczek, Sasha Souza, Yours Truly (and the lovely Wendi Poole behind the camera)

Lacey Seaton, Purple Chocolate Fish Design for graphic design and web layout;

Charles Cornell, coder extraordinaire, for endless hours of website development, blog customization and unending patience with us;

NuRelm, for awesome web hosting services;

Rebecca Grinnals, Engaging Concepts, for the inspiration and motivation.

We invite you to take a look around and please leave us a comment letting us know what you think!  Can we rest easy tonight or should we go back to the drawing board?

Wendi & Denise

Dear Friends,

Although Wendi photographed her first wedding while she was still in high school, 2009 was our first full year in business under the Thompson Poole brand. During a weekend planning session in 2008 we kept asking ourselves over and over again (to the point of being annoying) why we wanted to start this business. For Wendi — why weddings instead of solely focusing on her commercial and editorial work? For Denise — why take on a business venture with two young children? By the end of the weekend our answer was crystal clear — story and meaning.

As a trained photojournalist Wendi is a storyteller at heart and weddings offer the perfect story with a defined beginning and end and a host of characters, emotions and action. But, most importantly, in the end she delivers a body of work that has meaning for our clients and the work carries on for generations to come. You rarely have that impact with commercial work.

And what can we say about Denise? She’s been a card-carrying member of the Wendi Poole fan club since May 26, 2005 when Wendi captured the most amazing images of the birth of her first child. Due to the side effects of anesthesia from an emergency c-section Denise barely remembers the first time she held her son, but that moment is perfectly preserved as seen through Wendi’s lens. Knowing first hand the joy Wendi’s work brings to the lives of her clients and Wendi’s absolute commitment to delivering only the best products Denise jumped at the chance to be involved in all the wonderfulness that is Wendi Poole.

Once we gave the green light to launching Thompson Poole we made a promise to hold true to our principle of storytelling and seek out clients that “got it” – clients that wanted more than a few hours of coverage and a CD of images. When you’re eager for your new business to succeed it’s really hard to pass up those quick “shoot and burn” clients and on many occasions we questioned whether we were doing the right thing. But, then, came that magical moment of meeting the ideal client and then the next one and next one and so on and we knew deep inside we were on the right path and it was worth the wait.

Even in our wildest dreams we could not have conjured up a more perfect list of clients, supporters and friends. Our clients have been fabulous to work with and their kind words have touched us in a way we can’t adequately communicate.

To all of you who have made this possible, we say thank you!

Warmest Regards,

Wendi & Denise

p.s. The fabulous card shown above is a hand-sewn, custom design created by the very talented Sandy Waltuck of Paperoot. We highly recommend Sandy for all your paper needs!

I love this group and what they are doing. I encourage you to volunteer, make a donation or take one of their Girl Start for Grown Ups workshops.

Dissecting fish. Smelly!

Extracting DNA. CSI is one of my favorite shows so this one was cool to me.

Playing “Cheese or Disease” during the general session.

Learning how to fuse pipe with the gas company.

Learning how to take some one’s blood pressure. I always lose count.

Slap games! Remember these? Takes me back to recess.

Wendi

This is the only photo I took of my baked goods that I showed. My Hostess cupcake.

It was kinda neat that I went up right before dinner, too. I have been doing a lot of food photography for San Antonio Magazine and love it. Be sure to check out the March and April issues. You might recognize a byline or two.

Also, the SWPJC has a special place in my heart because back when I was 16 I attended it for the first time and that was when I figured out that I was supposed to be a photojournalist. I can’t count the amount of amazing things that have happened at or through this conference. You can’t forget Babe’s Chicken Dinner House either.

Wendi

Check it out.

Steve works at our church and I photographed their wedding at the first of the year. Steve is a funny guy and his dad seemed pretty cool at the wedding. Little did I know how cool until I read this post. I don’t think you have to work at the church or even go to church to see the humor in these e-mails he sent to the staff.

Thank you Steve and Steve’s dad for making me laugh when one was needed.

Wendi

A very funny site.

I can’t help but laugh at cats doing funny things.

Wendi

The second group of photos is from Joel and Nancy’s in Helotes, Texas. Despite a chilly rehearsal, the wedding day turned out beautiful and warm enough for everyone to party all night.

Congrats to both couples!

Wendi