Just A Little Trip To Las Vegas
We were approaching what was to be the end of my in-law’s visit with us. It was nearing three weeks and this was after a relentless begging campaign to get them to stay beyond just two weeks. They are fabulously awesome people. I’m not just saying that because my father-in-law helped me with tearing down sheetrock, re-doing electrical, replacing sheetrock and putting up a new tile backsplash, as well as replacing my kitchen sink and faucet. Or because my mom-in-law helped out tremendously (ok, totally, completely 100%) with my kids and their school work and afterschool activities so I could get these renovations done. But they fill my kids up with so much love that it’s just incredibly wonderful for me, as a parent, to know their souls are being filled with this goodness. And so, when they offered to stay a little longer if I wanted to join my honeys on his business trip to Las Vegas, there really wasn’t any hesitation.
I flew standby, so I was literally the last person on this plane and so very thankful to not only get a seat on the same flight but to also get an aisle seat. Which meant I had my own armrest!
We stayed at the Aria hotel, which was pretty fancy. Curtains opened and closed with the touch of a button and it had a minibar stocked like nothing I had ever seen. It even included gummy bears. I didn’t realize how many conventions go on daily in Las Vegas, but there were folks in suits with hanging badges everywhere.
Monday evening, I had the pleasure of dining at Del Frisco’s with a dozen good folks. The crab cakes were heavenly. Above is the James Bond table that we got to see open up with the touch of a remote button. A normal table slowly raised up to reveal a couple dozen bottles of Goldfinger wines.
On Tuesday afternoon, I got out of the Aria and headed to the MGM Grand. It was a lovely day out for short sleeves and mucho vitamin D.
The casino was filled with so many machines and nonplussed people dropping in coins. I walked through a labyrinth of corridors before I finally made it to my destination. WPPI. This is a photographer’s Mecca. Especially for wedding and portrait photographers. For weeks I had received emails from all of my vendors alerting me to their booth locations in this annual conference. And for weeks, I had read them and sighed as I knew I would not be going and then hit delete. So I walked in with no game plan, other than to try to see every booth in both ballrooms and to grab contact and pricing info on new products. Miller’s Professional Imaging is my go to lab for prints and canvases. Their product quality is phenomenal, but their attention to detail and customer focus is off the charts amazing. And I don’t know why I found it surprising, but their customer focus and genuine friendliness and caring in their booth was no different than online or over the phone. I know I will be designing and ordering a sample album from them after my next wedding in two weeks. Can. Not. Wait.
Miller’s also had some pretty awesome frames that I liked. And for those of you who order your own digital prints, please consider ordering them from Mpix. Mpix is the consumer side of Miller’s with the same fabulous print quality (because they use the same machines/printers). I don’t get any kickbacks from Mpix or Miller’s for referring folks to them. I just think they’re that awesome that you shouldn’t trust your images to any other company (I won’t name drugstores or warehouse stores with memberships, but please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don’t inflict the torture of bad color casts and quality on your future generations for the sake of saving a few pennies).
I got a whole hour and a half on the floor of these two ballrooms before they were closing up the doors for the day. Ninety minutes to practically sprint through hundreds of vendors’ booths and ooh and ahhh over new products that will either make my heart sing. Or my clients’ hearts. I walked out with free gifts (for myself AND a few good friends) and my mind spinning with new ideas and things I want to put into practice. And with that, I walked past the magnificence of New York New York casino and hotel and back to our room where we rented Ocean’s 11 through Amazon before falling asleep to catch an early bird back home.
You can see more of my images from this little trip to Las Vegas by clicking over to my instagram account. I had my phone out much more than my camera.