I contacted Amie about doing a short interview for the blog, and that’s below. But if you want to skip straight to ordering goodies, you can check out Enamor Weddings here.

How did you get into doing custom pieces for weddings?
I did a lot of DIY projects for my own wedding in September 2010 – table decor, reception decorations, my bouquet, and ring pillow. After the wedding was over I had this yearning to create more wedding related items. I would spend hours looking at wedding websites and would watch countless bride shows on TV. I was hooked! I decided to take a leap and open a second Etsy shop dedicated to wedding items in November of 2010. By January 2011, my shop went live, and I signed up to do a indie wedding show in St Louis, MO to see what feedback I could get from potential customers and professionals in the industry about my wares.I have been busy ever since making card boxes, ring pillows and cake toppers!

Where do you get your inspiration for pieces?
I love modern fabric patterns and colors, and the look of vintage textures and pictures. Each cake topper order is based on on photos the customer sends me. I love looking at photos of weddings, dresses, and colors on Pinterest.

Yours are some of my favorite cake toppers that I’ve seen (and I see a LOT of cake toppers), how did those come about?
I had painted a mini version of my husband and I to put on our wedding cake, and I got a lot of compliments from my family and friends about them saying, “they look just like you!”. I figured if I could paint us, I could paint others too.

Emily told me that she’d met you at a craft fair in Pittsburgh. How did you end up there?
My original business, enamor, is dedicated to hand painted and re-purposed vintage items. I do a lot of indie craft fairs around Michigan and surrounding states in addition to selling online. In April of 2011, I was a vendor at Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh. I paint all sorts of forest-type critters on clothing, bags, aprons and housewares. Emily had purchased a hooded sweatshirt from me with a whale painted on it from the show. Some months later Emily contacted me to see if I could paint her a Bride To Be sweatshirt with a deer on it because she liked the whale one so much! I was honored she remembered me and wanted something one of a kind for her big day.

When you’re not making pretty things, what else do you do?
I work full time with adolescent girls who have substance abuse, behavioral, and school problems at a boarding school. I plan all of their daily activities, and try to teach them once a month a craft, painting, or baking project. My two businesses are my “therapy’ from my day job!

If people are interested in getting some of your pieces, how can they do that?
The easiest way to order any wedding items is through my website, Enamor Weddings. Any questions can also be emailed to enamor_etsy@yahoo.com.

How far in advance would they need to order?
Cake toppers I allow at least five weeks to complete and ship, six if the order is international. Card boxes I need six weeks to complete and ship. Each set of toppers or a card box takes 10 plus hours of painting, depending on how much detail the customer wants. I would encourage anyone to order well in advance of their wedding, as I am just one artist and cannot do rush orders.

If you have a cool wedding product or service, and would like to be considered for an interview, get in touch at info@mooreclick.com

Amie Hackworth is also on Facebook, Twitter, and has a sister shop where she sells handpainted and repurposed vintage items at Enamor on Etsy.

I already do regular portrait sessions, which you can learn all about here. These generally take an hour or two, especially if we’re having a good time, and you get lots of fun photos of your family, or nice professional headshots for your business. You get the DVD of digital files, the online gallery, the whole shebang.

But maybe you don’t need the whole shebang.

Maybe you just want to have a nice portrait that you can use for your business site, or as your Facebook/Twitter/everything profile picture. (If you need convincing that this is a good thing to have, I can go all marketing department on you about the importance of having a great portrait to represent yourself out there on the internet.) This is exactly what mini-sessions are for. You get an edited portrait, that you can use wherever you like, for $50. Yep, I’m giving you guys no excuse to have a poorly lit iPhone self-take on your about page.

The fine print: Travel fees may apply for distances greater than 30 miles from me (which means Pittsburgh folks are generally in the clear, but it may be $55 for my Morgantown friends). Also, as a note to small businesses and people in bands, these aren’t group shots. If you’re looking for something similar (we just need one group shot, or one portrait to use as a promo), get in touch at info@mooreclick.com and we’ll work something out.

Find out more on the pricing page, under “But I just need one photo”, or get in touch if you’re ready to book. Also, if you want to get first dibs on future deals, you can sign up for the monthly newsletter.

Ray made an excellent lighting assistant.

Rod was behind me, trying to get a laugh out of the kids. I didn’t ask, but I’m not sure I really want to know what he was up to.

We took a few shots on the landing of the Gateway Clipper, which was technically unlocked. Which makes it technically, probably not trespassing. Probably.

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I’ve long complained that Cracked ruins my productivity, with its hilarious writing and its addictive list format (really, they could post “10 Worst Haircuts of the Ottoman Empire” and I’d read the hell out of it). My graduate thesis probably would have been written a lot quicker if that site didn’t exist. A few days ago, John (who writes for said time-sucking site) posted an open invitation for interviews. Since he’s written a few articles about weddings (“5 Questions You Need to Ask to Avoid Ruining Your Life”, “5 Reasons marriage Scares Men (Aren’t What You Think)”), and is getting married next year himself, I figured I’d send a few questions his way.

A proposal via comedy article is a little out of the norm (“5 Ways You Know its Time to Get Married”). Have any other cool ideas for proposals?

I’m a little odd in that category because I’m not the most romantic guy. All I can think of at the moment would be to key it on the side of her car. Maybe spray paint a threat on the trunk: “Think hard about your answer…”

What do you really like about weddings?

As I guy, I’m required by law to not like anything about them. And all joking aside, I can’t think of anything at all that I like about one. They’re showy. You’re stuffed into a room with dozens up on dozens of people you only see a couple of times a year (and there’s usually a reason for that). Everyone is dressed in outfits that are uncomfortable and hot. Kids are restless. Babies are crying during the parts where everyone is supposed to be quiet. The mere fact that there are parts that require complete silence. Everything has to be done in a specific order, and it all costs more than any average person can reasonably afford.

The whole thought of a marriage is just a complete nightmare to men.

What do you wish people would stop doing at weddings?

I wish they’d stop requiring set-in-stone traditions. Just let us show up in what’s comfortable, do the vows, and be done with the whole thing. I understand that there’s a production involved, and very few women just want to go to the courthouse and sign some papers. But turning it into a huge production on par with Broadway musicals, complete with props… that just seems silly and unnecessary to me.

Best advice you could give someone planning a wedding?

Let the bride do it all. This is her day. She’s the centerpiece. If she wants you in a bright pink tuxedo, you just nod and tell her that’s a wonderful idea. The guys are there to make the commitment and start their new lives together with their new bride. Women are there for the same, but the ceremony itself is important to them. It just simply isn’t the same for men.

Any great tips for writing toasts?

Don’t turn it into a standup routine or a roast. Most people aren’t naturally funny, and it just comes across goofy and awkward. Keep it short, sweet, and honest. You don’t have to be poetic. You just have to be real.

It’s easy for people to get wrapped up in the ceremony, and forget about the whole marriage part that follows. What’s your best advice for newlyweds?

Talk. All the time. If something is bothering you, the worst thing you can do is fold your arms, head to the bedroom, and shut the door. That’s not the way adults function, and it’s the quickest path to divorce. It’s what sets the ball rolling, and once that thing starts, it’s almost impossible to stop. Talking gets things out in the open. Most of the time, the other person doesn’t even know there’s anything wrong to begin with.

I also get a good bit of other photographers that read the blog, and most work from home as you do, so I had a few questions for them. What’s the hardest thing about working from home, and how do you combat that?

Keeping yourself ahead of your deadline is hard. It requires you to rely on your own willpower, which not a lot of people can do. It’s easy to get distracted. Those days that everyone has gone through, where they’re at the office, and they would give anything to just call it a day and head home… you still have those days when you work from home. And without a boss there to keep you on track, it’s incredibly easy to just walk away from your task and lay around on the couch.

The only way to combat it is to force yourself to grit your teeth and keep going. Set a schedule for yourself, and stick to it. You’re the boss when you work from home. Be as hard on yourself as you’d be on your employees. If not, it will fail, miserably, and you’ll find yourself having to take a real-world job, working for someone else. Most people need a boss because their willpower isn’t strong enough to work from home.

I’m a big fan of personal projects, as a creative process. What side projects are you working on now?

I’m writing a book right now, but that won’t be out of the draft stage for another couple of months. I’m hoping to have something to show people by the end of the year, but I’ve never taken on a project this big before. I have no idea how the timetables work.

How did you get into writing freelance, have you always worked that way?

Until Cracked, I always wrote for free. Just me and a website, doing whatever I wanted without the benefit of an editor. I sold two pieces to National Lampoon several years ago (those articles are no longer online — for whatever reason, they purged all of their older articles quite some time ago), but other than that, it’s always just been me entertaining myself and then showing it to other people.

When Cracked started paying me for my articles, that was my first taste of making money for writing. And when they offered me a weekly column spot, I was blown away. Still am.

Many thanks to John for doing the interview. He actually brought up some things about wedding-related hoopla that I’ve talked about here before, and that some other wedding photographers have gotten a lot of flack for writing about. It’s easy to get caught up in what you’re supposed to be doing, what people expect you do do, that other couple who is totally upstaging you with their wedding plans. If you wind up married at the end of the day, then you did it right. But maybe don’t take him up on that car-keying suggestion.

If you’re set on ignoring my language disclaimer, you can check out John’s tumblr, twitter, and articles on Cracked.

We went to the Amazon, the desert, the North Pole… okay, so we went to Phipps.

We wanted a few bridge shots, and Pittsburgh has no shortage of those.

It had to be done.

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There will be updates on what the business is up to, a heads up on any special offers we’re running, even some photo tips. You know, the usual fun stuff.

Now, some folks are particular about how they get their information. I’ve never been into RSS feeds, and would rather, say, follow someone’s Twitter to see when they update things. If you’re interested in keeping up on things, but really don’t want any more email in your life…

You can sign up for an RSS of the blog (actually, you can also subscribe to it via email, if that’s your thing.)
If you want photos and news delivered to your Facebook, you can Like the page on Facebook.
If you’re into Twitter, and a higher level of off-topic chatter, you can follow me at on Twitter.

So there you have it. For updates and special offers, you can sign up right here.

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They met at one of Ryan’s shows, so he wanted to bring the guitar up for a few shots. See, sometimes my work overlaps.

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