Right off the bat Regan’s reaction to seeing her ceremony site at Nanina’s in the Park all decked out for her wedding was a great moment. I barely had time to get my camera out of my bag when I arrived in time for this shot, but thanks to quick thinking and fast fingerwork I made it just in time!

Lucky for me I had to use the bathroom at some point, or else I never would have noticed the beautiful sofa they were hiding in there. After the girls were finished getting ready, I was sure to take Regan into the bathroom for this lovely bridal portrait… doesn’t she look stunning?!

The boys got ready in the Renaissance Meadowlands Hotel and then headed over to Nanina’s for a nice group shot.

We set up a quickie first look and then a not-so-quicky bridal-party portrait. Our spikey-haired little groomsman just did NOT want to smile for the camera, but I have to say, if I had known his pouty face was going to be this darn cute we would have settled for it a heck of a LOT sooner!

Already out of daylight to start, bride and groom photos were a little more of a production than usual. Luckily Nanina’s keeps some beautiful Christmas lighting up year round, so we were able to capitalize on the venue’s dreamy night setting.

The officiant for the vow renewal had some beautiful things to say for this couple… I don’t know how Regan’s eyes stayed dry through the whole thing, but once the waterworks started at the reception there was no holding back! We’ll get to those in a moment!

One great thing about having a first look is getting to enjoy your cocktail hour! It was a good thing for Regan and Davin, because theirs was one of the most elaborate cocktail hours I’ve been to! We also enjoyed their rosey reception decor!

Davin gave Regan an especially emotional hug during their first dance, combined with the look on her father’s face during the father-daughter dance – the photos spoke volumes about how much Regan means to these two important men in her life.

The best man gave a speech that brought Davin to tears – not an easy feat when you’re dealing with a veteran Marine/law enforcement agent.

In the short time after the speeches before we were scheduled to leave, we managed to close out with a few of our signature fun reception photos!

To Regan and Davin: I hope these photos are enough memory to last a lifetime, and never leave you wanting for Vow Renewal number 2, haha. That being said, it was a pleasure to share your day with you and we’d do it again in a heartbeat!

Venue: Nanina’s in the Park
Second Shooter: Jim Heine

As with every industry, a professional is always going to a nicer job of what they are hired for than you or your BFF are probably capable of doing yourself. They have the experience, tools, and know-how to really do it right! Hair and makeup are no exception, so unless you or someone you know is a licensed cosmetologist, please leave this important aspect of your wedding to a professional.

As a photographer, we get a lot of brides thinking that they will look perfect in their wedding photos because everything can be fixed in Photoshop, and while it’s true that there are certain processing techniques that we can use to enhance your appearance, there are some caveats:

1.) With a photographer delivering anywhere from 500-1500 photos for a wedding, doing extensive facial retouching on more than a few photos would be way too time consuming, so the vast majority of your photos will not receive that extra special attention.

2.) We DO need a starting point. We can’t just add eyeliner where there is none at all or darken and lengthen lashes we can barely see in the photos … it’s much easier to enhance/darken/freshen the great makeup that’s already there where necessary. And we’re not professional makeup artists either, so asking us to try to color in your face from scratch is probably not a great idea :-X

3.) Hairs fall out of place… it happens, we don’t always notice, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it later. However, it’s much less likely to happen when they are secured in place by a professional!

Finally, while it’s not a requirement, please consider professional hair and makeup for your engagement session as well!

Sean, who wears many hats as both co-owner/2nd photographer for the company, as well as holding up another full-time job, was unexpectedly offered a transfer to Denver, Colorado — something he had been dreaming of for as long as I had known him. I wrote a heartfelt blog to all my brides in the Northeast letting them know that I would be going with him but not to worry, as I still planned to work each and every one of their weddings. I was resolved not to leave a single bride high and dry without a photographer… and despite having to spend the better part of my year living with my mom in PA away from Sean — we made good on that promise.

We did have a couple of weddings that took place before the move, including Danielle’s beautiful waterfront wedding.

We also just adored Natasha’s Philadelphia wedding, where we were able to shoot at the famous Love Park and the Please Touch Museum.

As of April 4, 2011, Sean and I packed up our entire house, four cats and our giant American Mastiff Cheddar and drove across the country. We still had the house to sell in PA, and were stuck renting a small apartment with all five animals eating off a TV stand. Now we by no means could afford a plane ticket for each of the 28 weddings I had booked in PA this year, so Sean and I planned for me to move in with my sister in PA and stay there for large chunks of time with the highest concentration of weddings to reduce the number of plane tickets we’d have to purchase.

My first trip was just for one week, during which time I married off Jessica and Brad and Julie and Mike. The Luzerne County Courthouse made a great location for Jessica’s rainy wedding day, and Julie celebrated her nuptials at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn.

My second trip was from May 5th to May 16th, which allowed me time to shoot several engagements as well as Mallory and Will’s classy country wedding.

I got back just in time to second shoot my first Colorado wedding at the Omni Interlocken Resort Hotel with Jared Wilson!

June was a LONG month! I was in PA from June 2 to the 26th, so almost a full month away from Sean! Couldn’t complain about all of the beautiful weddings, though!

There was Andrea and Don’s vintage baroque peacock-theme wedding at Calarussos LaPalazzo:

Our amazing cancer survivor Willie and his beautiful wife Lili:

Katie and Darren’s Intimate Philadelphia wedding:

Amanda and Lester:

And Megan and Rob:

I was only back in Colorado for two short weeks when I had to fly back to PA for a whopping SIX weeks from mid-July to the end of August. My only consolation was that the weddings those months were completely amazing, and Sean was able to fly out to work a lot of them with me!

First on the list of the seven weddings I had scheduled for those months was Jenna’s Bank St. Annex wedding in Bethlehem, PA.

That was followed by Josette and James’ New York City royal wedding, with ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a reception at the Roosevelt Hotel!

Kelly and Joe were our next couple to tie the knot in Skytop, PA. The Skytop Lodge is a beautiful venue, and as close as you can get to an actual castle in the Poconos!

If I had to give an award for best details at a reception, it might very well have gone to Nicole and Jeff for their absolutely stunning Scranton Cultural Center Reception. Trusty Nay Aug Park was a lovely location for their wedding photos as well.

August saw a rainy wedding for Mackenzie and Dave, but they met it with smiles and laughter. Their intimate event at the Loft at Sweetwater chilled our fingers but warmed our hearts!

Naomi and Jen’s wedding marked two firsts for us, our first Jewish wedding and our first same-sex wedding. The more we got to know these two, the more we just loved their style!

Liz and Matt had a wonderful Hungarian wedding, and their photos by the lake at Mountain Spring Lakes Resort were definitely memorable!

I caught a short break in September, finally getting to come back to Colorado for a few weeks, but during wedding season there’s always weddings to be shot, and Amanda and Will’s wedding in Loveland, Co, was my second Colorado wedding of the year.

By this point I had finally reached Ascent status on Frontier Airlines, lol, and I was to enjoy FREE TV for all of my last two whole trips back to PA for you guessed it, MORE WEDDINGS. Erica and Greg’s mid-September wedding was an afternoon affair, but you never would have guessed after they blacked out the reception hall and many of their inebriated guests were blinded by the daylight on the way out! We thought Florentine Gardens was a pretty neat venue, too!

Then came our September 23, Sept. 24 double header, where Sean and I worked back to back weddings for Carolyn and Mike and Kristen and Tom. We just loved Carolyn’s Sottero Midgely wedding dress, and after being eaten alive at Kristen and Tom’s wedding, they popped our “Dougy” dance cherries!

I had four flights in October, which first allowed me to work Stef and Tim’s unique Manayunk Brew Pub Wedding.

And the following day I second shot Nikki and Bob’s big fat Greek Mendenhall Inn Wedding for Jim Heine. Always love working with Jim, and this wedding was a real blast!

Two more weddings closed out October, including Erin and Matt’s, our famous Alice in Wonderland couple! What? You didn’t recognize them without the pasty skin and orange eyebrows? LOVE Erin and the Matter!

Renae aka Mrs. Dreamer Bride was our awesome blogger bride for “It’s a Bride’s Life” and she’s blogged about us multiple times since we first worked together for their Longwood Gardens Engagement earlier this year. We’ve been so grateful to have her and Shamus as clients, and their Fall wedding at the Woodloch Resort in Hawley, PA, was just lovely.

November brought Sarah and Jason’s wedding, the best part of which was the reception! It was about one invisible-ball dance away from “Rave” status!

In December we shot our final wedding of the year for Eric and Sarah. It was an adorable little winter, chapel wedding in Brighton, Colorado.

When all was said and done, Sean and I drove my car back to Denver, completely worn out and with a new appreciation for one another. I’m so grateful to see his face almost every day, and extremely proud of what we accomplished together in 2011. I couldn’t have done it without him, or the awesome support of the most wonderful brides any photographer could have asked to work with. Thank you to everyone who made 2011 possible, and buckle your seatbelts, cause 2012 is here!

One thing I love about our bride, Amanda, is I knew she’d totally go for it! Heck, she trusted me to take the bulk of her bride and groom photos in an alleyway at dusk on her wedding day and it turned out great. I remembered her telling me at the end of her wedding night that she was so happy with me, she was going to let me choose any location I wanted for the trash the dress session she had coming up.

I’ll admit, I felt a bit of pressure to come up with something super-cool for her, especially still being somewhat new to the area, but I’d say this place certainly fit the bill!

The only drawback to the barn was that I had to drag poor Amanda out at 7 a.m. on a freezing cold day in late November for the best light. Sean had his money on her rushing herself and her numb little fingers back off to the warmth of her car after a short 30 minutes, but she hung like a TROOPER for almost a full two hours!

Just when I thought Amanda couldn’t get any cooler — literally and figuratively — she surprised me by squeezing through a serious gate in her wedding dress to get into the nearby homestead with us. Boy am I ever glad she did — those pictures ended up being some of my favorites of the day! By the way, how ADORABLE is she in these doorstep pictures?

A million thanks to my husband and the lovely bride Amanda for braving the cold, breaking and entering, and bringing the fun!

As expected, their wedding was nothing short of an absolute blast, and a great way to close out this year’s wedding season for Sean and I.

While I was riding over to the venue with the girls, Sean arrived to capture just a few quick shots of the boys before the ceremony. You’ll have to forgive the bajillion shots of this flower girl, but is she seriously not just the cutest thing ever?!

The ceremony site at The Meadows in Hellertown, could not have been more beautiful at any other time of year. I was so pleasantly surprised at the little bit of the Fall season that remained, even in Novemeber.

As usually happens with weddings, things were running behind schedule and the venue coordinator was already ready to serve dinner almost the minute I started family formal/bridal party/bride & groom photo time. To make matters more challenging, we were losing daylight fast, but somehow we still managed to come away with a few really nice shots. It certainly helped working with such beautiful subjects!

The reception at The Meadows was – all joking aside – the most INSANE reception I’ve worked all year. Try as I might I could NOT narrow down these photos any more than this! It would have been just painful to leave out these awesome moments, including the heartfelt first dance, the best man’s hilarious speech, and the borderline RAVE reception. WOWSER!

To Sarah and Jason: I look at you two and see a gorgeous laid-back girl coupled with seriously one of the most FUN groom’s I’ve ever met, and it’s easy to see the source of last weekend’s celebration. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for EVERYTHING, including your patience waiting on this blog – hope it was worth dealing with my finally-fully-relocated-butt all year!

Second Shooter: Sean Brimhall
Venue: The Meadows

I started off covering the boys getting ready.

It was a beautiful Greek Orthodox ceremony at the Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. I think this may be a record for the most ceremony shots posted in one blog — I can’t help myself!

After the ceremony we were able to sneak in just the littlest bit of bride and groom photo time. It had just rained so the sky was pretty dark, but with a little lighting we were able to come away with a couple of really nice shots for the couple!

The reception at Mendenhall was both classy and FUN! The gorgeous bride and her dad could really move, and the Greek traditions were the highlight. Venue staff was literally sweeping dollars bills off the floor all night!

To Nikki & Bob: It was awesome meeting you both! Thanks for having me along, and congratulations on the wedding!

Ceremony Venue: Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church
Reception Venue: Mendenhall Inn

For those of you who aren’t familiar, the site’s bloggers are among a very few carefully selected brides responsible for the blogs posted daily on the site’s homepage. Of the hundreds who must apply, only a few are accepted and active based on their awesome personalities and exceptional ability to convey a unique and upbeat message through writing. Having gotten to know Renae a bit during our last couple of sessions together, “exceptional” is actually just the word for her, and I’ve been so grateful to have her as one of my 2011 brides!

Renae’s day started at the Woodloch Springs Resort Community, where Renae and Shamus got ready in separate townhouses. I covered the girls, while Sean headed over to capture some shots of the boys.

I think Sean had a pretty good deal covering quite possibly the cutest ring bearer ever and the couples’ two dogs as well – who doesn’t just love pictures of puppies and babies!? Oh yeah, and the groom wasn’t so bad either

Being avid followers of my “Wedding Tip Wednesday” tips for brides, the couple decided to take a great deal of my advice, including opting for a “first look,” which we did on the nearby grounds at the Woodloch Resort. Afterwards, Renae had a second “first look” with her and Shamus’ two pups, and Sean was able to capture her priceless expression.

As per Wedding Tip Seven, haha, Renae and Shamus decided to travel just a short five minutes to a nearby watermill for some bride-and-groom photo time just before the wedding. Things were running a bit late, so it was a tight squeeze on time but Sean and I managed to get some really nice shots of this beautiful couple before heading over to the ceremony site. Great location choice Renae!

Out of nowhere it seemed the temperature dropped 10 more degrees on an already very cool day. As guests slowly filtered out to brave the cold in anticipation of the ceremony, the officiant conducted something called a “ring warming” where the rings were passed around in a small red bag for the couples’ guests to hold and say a prayer for Renae and Shamus’ lifelong happiness as a married couple.

The ceremony was beautiful, with a lovely fall theme and a rose-petal exit!

After the ceremony, bride, groom, bridal party and guests alike literally BOLTED back to the warmth of the indoors, only to have Sean and I drag them back out into the cold for their family formals and bridal party photos – fast as we could shoot them!

The reception hall was decorated in an afternoon-luncheon feel, and the view of the Fall leaves out the window of the resort was second to none.

After an awesome first dance as husband and wife, the best man and maid of honor gave some extremely heart-wrenching speeches. The second the best man lost his composure recalling what an amazing and dedicated guy Shamus is, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house!

People danced in celebration, and I must say, there were a few guests in the mix who could really bust a move! I can’t wait to share Tim Robinson’s video of the Thriller Solo!

To Renae & Shamus: Thank you both so much for having us be part of your day! You are some of the most genuine people I’ve ever met, and working with you has been a pleasure from day one. I couldn’t have asked for a better couple to have as clients or friends!

Second Shooter: Sean Brimhall
Venue: Woodloch Resort
Engagement Session: Longwood Gardens
Videographer: Tim Robinson
DJ: Joel Miller

Well, to all those who doubted, proof has finally arrived! Erin and Matt were married October 15, 2011, with the reception at the Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading, PA. I of course had the extraordinary honor of being their photographer.

Our day began at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel, where both Erin and Matt got ready. I flew this wedding solo, and this was my first attempt to capture both bride AND groom getting ready alone and with very limited time — we started with Matt…

Then Erin putting on her dress… her smile just lit up the room.

We managed to sneak in a few quicky bridals portraits … and before I continue to go on incessantly about how pretty Erin is on the outside, I have to point out how she is even more beautiful on the inside, so it’s no surprise she would end up with a guy like Matt, who would do anything for her… even let us glue orange eyebrows to his face!

The ceremony took place at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Douglassville, PA — what a beautiful church to get married in!

Erin’s veil got caught during the bubble exit and Matt didn’t realize so he kept walking… made for a hilarious shot! Afterwards we hopped in the limo to head over to Hopewell Furnace for some more photos!

Then came my favorite part of the day— bridal party and bride-and-groom time! We only had an hour total for these pictures, but as I’ve said in the past, I’d rather have one hour in a great location than two hours in a so/so location, and Erin and Matt definitely picked a GREAT location. I also moved INSANELY fast to get these pictures.. some of them weren’t even setup… just took them as we were walking!… I could barely keep up with myself, but I love the results!

The speeches at the reception were second to none, and the reactions from the members of the head table were absolutely priceless… even got a standing ovation!

I was only at the reception for a couple of hours, so people had just started to move around by the time I left, but we still managed to get some really nice shots!

To Erin and Matt: I just wanted to say that somewhere in the several months we spent planning Alice in Wonderland, and the many conversations Erin and I had outside of that, I learned more about you two than most, and Erin DEFINITELY learned more about me! Apparently, there is something about Erin that makes people want to spill their life-story to her even if they’ve only known her for as long as it takes to get through the checkout line at the grocery store, haha! I felt like I could tell Erin anything, and she has been SO much more than a client to me.

Matt, I am constantly amazed at how wonderful you are; if I had never met you I’d have doubted there would ever be anyone out there good enough for Erin, but I did, and you are not only “good enough” you are PERFECT for her, but I guess you knew that already, since you’ve essentially held onto her since high school! It’s for all these reasons that when my contracted time was up on Saturday, I stayed for your first dances and the cake. I could not think of a better wedding gift than your actual memories of the day, and I did it not just for being my clients and for doing Alice in Wonderland at my request, but for being my friends. Congratulations; you deserve it all and more!

Videographer: Well Spun Weddings
Getting Ready Location: Abraham Lincoln Hotel
Ceremony Venue: Immaculate Conception Catholic Church
Reception Venue: Sovereign Performing Arts Center
Dress: Casablanca Bridal

The light was pretty limiting in our first location, as the sun was just about to peek behind a giant mountain, so we went ahead and mosied on over to a much smaller park across the street. It was crazy how many different shots we came up with out of one simple stone structure.

After the park, Jourden changed outfits and we headed over to downtown boulder for the rest of the shots. As we were walking along debating what areas to use, I immediately fell in love with the series of colored buildings that I was able to make look exactly how I envisioned them in photos. It also helped that Jordan was easy to get a real laugh out of!

Afterwards we found even more great nooks and crannies around town, including more colorful walls, and the perfect construction site. Again, Jourden was a real natural at posing – I could seriously see him with a future in modeling!

To Jourden and Brian, thanks so much for coming out to meet Sean and I! It was a pleasure working with you both, and I hope you two love these photos as much as we do!

Having booked just a few hours of coverage, Stef and Tim forewent “getting ready shots” and I met the couple at the church just before their nuptials.

The park across the street from the church was very small, with challenging views from all sides… but it’s saving grace was these awesome steps I saw leading up to it! We also used the rest of the location as creatively as possible to make it look much grander than what met the eye.

The cocktail hour was out on the back deck of the brew pub, Stef was quickly bustled and we managed to snag another bride and groom shot with a view of the water.

The reception went off without a hitch, and I just loved the view out of the brew pub window!

To Stef and Tim, thanks so much for having me be part of your day… you and your families are a fun crowd and I had a good time being part of the action! Oh, and I must say, pub food – a very welcome break from the usual wedding meal!