BLOG – Page 42 – the latest in-studio & on-location MO, IL and beyond

August 31, 2017March 23, 2018

| Styles & Smiles | Consignment Boutique Mt. Zion, IL | Small Business Features |

The Details: Styles & Smiles Length of time in business: 2 Years

Hours: Tuesday – Friday: 10:00am-5:00pm Saturday: 10:00am-4:00pm | Location: 205 Debby Drive, Mt. Zion, Illinois

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Tell us about your business….what do you do? Styles & Smiles is an upscale clothing boutique featuring new and gently loved apparel, shoes, purses, and accessories for men, women, and children.

What makes your business unique/special? Styles & Smiles is not just another resale shop. We take pride in making the client experience one they will not forget. We personally assist you with all of your fashion needs and will help you find the perfect outfit for any occasion. We provide style with a smile!

What item/service on your menu or in your shop do you just love and think everyone needs? Name brand clothing at an affordable price and top notch customer service.

In what way have you gone above /beyond in the past for a customer? We appreciate our client’s demanding lives and never hesitate to come in early or stay late to help accommodate their schedules. On occasion, we have even delivered! We also work closely with local charities and donate a great deal of clothing to help support causes such as the Cinderella Project and Northeast Community Fund.

What was the coolest thing you’ve ever had a client do for you? My clients are amazing. One of our special clients, Shirley, brought me an amazing gift one day, a guardian angel. It sits right in front of my store.

What tool/equipment/or other vendor could you not imagine doing business without? Why? I can’t imagine business without our customers. THEY are our most important vendor! Without them, we would not have the awesome styles and great inventory that we do!

What other local businesses do you love? Why? I can’t imagine a day without Krave or the Black Iron. We love our iced coffee drinks and sweet treats! They keep us energized and help keep a smile on our faces!

Introduce us to your STAFF: Lori McDaniel is our styling and marketing expert. Lori is a Decatur native and a student at Millikin University. She has extensive background in sales and marketing and flair for design… AND… Lori is an energizer bunny!

Tell us about you? Why did you choose to do what you do? I am recently retired after years in the world of finance. I Love style, I love to shop, and I love to make people happy. I have always wanted to own my own business, so when the opportunity came up to buy Styles & Smiles, I thought it would be a great way to fulfill my dream, so here I am.

What are you passionate about outside of your business? My three grandchildren, Avery, Piper, and Jace, and my children, Clint and Nicole are the loves of my life. When I am not at the store I am enjoying time with them.

Describe your perfect day… My perfect day would be waking up around 7am to a beautiful sunny day, enjoying a cup of coffee, and chatting with my daughter and grandkids about what we should do for fun. I would bop into the store and see that it was in great hands with my staff, so if I wanted to check out and go fishing or to the zoo or park, I would. About 6pm, settle back at home and hang out with the kiddos, enjoy all the love and the laughter, then sit back and say, “yes, life is good.”

See the latest news and items available from Styles & Smiles HERE.

See our other past small business features to connect with more businesses in our area:

See more on our Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter @sjanephotog, Instagram @sjanephotograhy, and Snapchat @sjanephotog

If you’d like to have YOUR small business featured for FREE on the SJP blog (or know a small business we should feature) you can find details HERE! These features are 100% free and we’d love to feature you next.

August 29, 2017

| Morgan | Illinois Festival Junior Miss 2016 | Pageant Photography | Decatur, IL |

Today I’m excited to show off the lovely and talented Illinois Festival Junior Miss 2016, Morgan! I got to meet Morgan when she came along to Payton’s BFF session day this year and was thrilled when she was so excited about that image and experience that she wanted me to create her pageant images right at the end of the reign.

For pageant gals we usually want to accomplish a few things at their session. We need to create a beautiful headshot image first.And while it often has strict specifications for sizing, posing and backdrop for uniform appearance in programs, it should also capture and show off each girl’s unique personality… that’s not always an easy task with a simple head and shoulders shot but I love the challenge. For morgan, beauty lighting was a MUST – look how flawless she is! This let her eyes and smile SHINE brightly while keeping everything else soft and simple and I love our final result.

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Next, we often want to show off they lady’s talents, philanthropies or crowns! We managed to do all three in a few combinations with Morgan here. Clearly her talent is dance and I swear I was giddy and impressed every time she went up on point (in a variety of different poses).

And finally it wouldn’t be a pageant session if we didn’t show off crown, sash and dress! How gorgeous is that royal blue dress on her. It was such a perfect look we had to do a few more headshots with it too.

My favorite part of Morgan’s Premiere (when we showed her all her images on our movie screen) was both her and her mom’s reactions to everything and their excitement about, not only these images, but working with me again when it’s time for her senior images soon. I had a blast with her for this little session so I know we will have so much fun on her full senior session (something epic for that dance talent will be needed don’t you think?!?!).

August 24, 2017August 24, 2017

| Payton | Argenta-Oreana High School Senior Model | Class of 2018 | Decatur, IL |

The first of our class of 2018 senior model s to make their debut on the blog is our very own Ms. Payton!

2017-08-17_0003 You may remember her first moment in the SJP spotlight way back for her sophomore year prom when she won the Neuhoff media prom package which included a prom-day shoot with her date Austin (and we included him in a few of her senior portraits too)!

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From there it wasn’t long before Payton was working as my assistant and modeling for me on a few projects including our parachute dress class in downtown Indianapolis with the Reset Conference. She’s even charmed our own little #BabyB and got to be her swim lesson teacher at fairview pool this summer!

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So basically Payton has become a pretty awesome part of the SJP family (at home and work!) so it seemed fitting she be the first one up on the blog to kick off the class of 2018’s senior year.

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Do you guys remember the ‘trash can image’ ?!? Austin joked when we got out of the car at the park that we had a great location right by the dumpster soooo I accepted that as a challenge to create something fun by it and this was the result:

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Things have been BUSY around here all summer and I have SO many awesome things to show you from all our seniors… so let’s not wait! Check out all of Payton’s favorite images right here right now.

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This year Payton was even named All American Cheerleader! Big congrats for kicking off your senior year with such an achievement.

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And don’t forget to head over to her facebook album to give her some love.

August 22, 2017

| 2018 High School Senior Models | An Unforgettable Experience – The Group Session | Decatur IL |

It seemed fitting to kick off back to school week around here with a little peek at our 2018 senior models. I’ve been working all summer with these amazing seniors and will be sharing each and every one of them with you individually very soon. But to start, I’m excited to show off what we’ve done with them together so far.

Our senior model experience has grown and changed every single year I’ve done one. It has grown from a year with just two lovely models, then jumped up to seven and now this year we have our largest group yet with 13 from six different schools! Not only have our numbers grown vastly this year but the whole experience has.

You’ve likely caught bits and pieces of our models experience through our social media posts but today we lift the veil so you can get a close look at what it looks like to be an SJP model.

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We meet each of our models and kick off their model experience with what I call their FIRST LOOK debut session. While this includes an interview with them and their parents so we can all get to know eachother a bit, it also marks their first time (for most of them) in front of my camera and gives me a challenge. Most of my sessions are 2+ hours but here, we have 5 MINUTES. Yup, just five minutes after only chatting with them for about an hour to TRY to produce images they’ll love to show off and share with friends from the start. It’s not easy, but I like to keep myself on my toes. And this gives each model a little taste of what it’s like to work with me so we know they are 100% comfortable before we dive in. You might remember seeing the model team’s first look images here!

But up next is when the real fun begins… each year I come up with a new semi-styled group session where ALL the models get together for one big session together. This is a time for them to get to meet each other and have a little fun together, there are gifts (I mean who doesn’t like gifts?!!?) and this year there were unruly balloons too! Here’s a look at our past group sessions of the class of 2016 (homemade dresses in the snow) and the class of 2017 (floral crowns thanks to The Secret Garden). This year we went for something with a little urban elegance with a little black dress look around downtown Decatur.

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The wind made work with the balloons a little challenging but it was fun!

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Not only do we want to create some group images at this first session together but, of course, we want everyone to have a little moment of their own in the spotlight. This year that presented a unique challenge because even just 5 minutes solo time each is over an hour of shooting time AND all with each of them having an audience of 12 other seniors PLUS their parents haha. Nothing gives them a more accurate ‘model’ experience than having to pose and be in the spotlight in front of 20 other strangers watching them! If you happened to be downtown on that day you surely noticed our stylish mob.

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senior models, decatur il, senior photographer, decatur il photographer, urban images, Stay tuned in the coming weeks for a look at one of my favorite parts of our model program, the BFF sessions and the newest addition to the model program for the class of 2018; our POP UP sessions!

And don’t worry future classes, our program for next year is already in the works and looking bigger and better than ever yet again. You can already get your applications in (they’ve been flying in already for the last month) by going to www.sjanephotography.com and clicking BECOME A SENIOR MODEL.

August 17, 2017August 17, 2017

| Liz & Justin Conn | Millikin Homestead Wedding | Decatur IL |

Today I’m beyond excited to share Justin and Liz’s wedding day with you. I met Liz’s momma YEARS ago when we first moved to Decatur and I worked with a local Mary Kay line to create headshots of all the ladies and I was thrilled when her and Liz got back in touch to tell me that she was getting MARRIED and they wanted to talk to me about photographing the big day. I cannot tell you how sweet these two ladies are and their close relationship reminds me so much of my momma and I every time I see them and watching Liz and Justin come together so full of love and joy was just amazing.

These two have no shortage of people in their corner and friends and family gathered together and stood by their side to share in their joy together on an absolutely gorgeous day this May.

After the session Justin and Liz (and us) got away from the hustle and bustle for just a bit to head over to the beautiful Scovill Gardens and the one special request Liz had was to work in some smoke bombs in someway so, of course, we obliged and it was so much fun.

And then it was time to party! I can describe the epic fun had at this reception with just a few words for you… donuts, caricaturist (yes I had to google how to spell that dang it), locked up toss bouquet and arm wrestling! This was no ordinary reception you guys, we had a blast. But with all the fun and games one of my favorite parts, as always, was the speeches. There was laughter and tears and so so much love.

Congratulations you two, it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of your big day.

Wedding Venue: James Millikin Homestead

Reception Venue: Mt. Zion Convention Center

Dress: Michelle’s Bridal in Urbana

Cake & Cupcakes: Three Twigs Bakery

Select Decor (including the altar, ceremony doors, cake table, and dresser for cupcakes): Rustic Love Rentals