Because one of the strongest aspects of our style is presenting each couple’s unique personality and relationships, we had no intention of using models for the shoot. With much luck, we came across Steph and Jeff (a real engaged couple), and they were more perfect than we could have ever imagined. Not just in appearance, with Jeff’s stunning blue eyes and perfect Wesley build and Steph’s thin figure and long blond hair, but in enthusiasm, drama and everything else needed for an amazing shoot!

We did the scenes from the shoot near Estes Park, CO, in no particular order but we’ll start with some from Buttercup and Wesley’s first meeting on the farm.

The next scene we set out to accomplish was a shot of Wesley climbing up a cliff using a rope to get to and ultimately save Buttercup from the evil prince Humperdink. With even more luck, Jeff happened to be a rock climber by hobby, and we can honestly say there are no illusions involved in this scene… he is really dangling over this cliff with the rocky rapids below!

The next shots you are about to see could not have been accomplished without lots and lots of help from Owner of the Bridal Loft in Thornton, CO, Vicki Middeker. She not only provided Buttercup’s entire wardrobe, but just happened to be the proud owner of Charly, who is both a Parade Horse and a U.S. Marshal! Meanwhile, DebBee’s Garden in Thornton was responsible for Steph’s absolutely perfect wildflower bouquet!

Karessa Lauvergeon from Lotus Salon in Thornton did a fabulous job transforming Steph and Jeff into Buttercup and Wesley with her awesome hair makeup skills. And what would the shoot have been without my better half Sean second shooting and assisting with everything from scene setup and take-down to lighting to planning and even pyrotechnics for the final scenes (yep, you read right!)

The last details from that set were from the battle-of-the-wits scene, where Wesley beat out the Sicilian in order to win back Buttercup.

We ended with scenes from the fireswamp we could only HOPE to have accomplished as well as we did, and it was just one of those things I personally would have never dared to even consider doing if Sean hadn’t come up with it and assured me we could do it in a way that did NOT involve accidentally lighting our couple on fire or anything else for that matter! I still can’t believe we pulled it off! And I know what you’re wondering, and absolutely NO Photoshop was involved!

To everyone who took part in the shoot: from all the prep-work, logistic and scheduling challenges to actually getting snowed out during attempt one of the shoot and having to do it all over again, I couldn’t have asked for a better, more supportive group to accomplish this with. You shared in our passion, excitement and even our disappointments and we owe each of you a great debt of gratitude for your large role in making all of our visions come to life. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge everyone one last time!

The Bridal Loft: All Wardrobe and Parade Horse “Charly”
Lotus Salon: Hair and Makeup Styling by Karessa Lauvergeon
DebBee’s Garden: Wildflower Bouquet by Debbie
Photography: Lauren & Sean Brimhall
Bride & Groom: Stephanie and Jeff, wedding date June 16, 2012
Shoot Locations: St. Malo’s Chapel and the Highlands Presbyterian Camp & Retreat Center near Estes Park, CO
Planning/Conceptualization: Lauren Brimhall Photography

*Original Hair and Makeup for snowed out shoot (not pictured) by Bella Cappelli Hair Studio

Photos of Sean and I by Jim Heine For more tidbits from the full shoot of us, click here!



Edited to Add: After the initial booking meeting, all solicited timeline/location advice will be provided via email or phone communications. If in-person wedding planning meetings are required, please consider hiring one of our recommended wedding planners!

The couple had a quick outfit change, and I thought dress number two was super-cute! Shannon and I spent 15 minutes trying to get a knot out of the chain of her pretty pearl necklace that went with it. With no luck, I decided to loan her mine – lucky I had it, since it’s the only piece of jewelry I wear every day… it’s my key to Sean’s heart

Leave it to me to go crazy with photos of a random little red pricker plant we found in the field. I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the wind was absolutely INSANE during the whole shoot. Shannon actually needed to hold the plant still (prickers and all) for me to get the ring shot!

With a few minutes to spare left in the shoot, we decided to go back to the vintage pickup truck we found earlier. Sorry for the overkill, but there was just no end to the possibilities for shots with it, and I was loving every one!

To Shannon and Jon: You two were an absolute blast to work with. You are such a thoughtful and fun couple, and I for one had a lot of fun bringing that out of you guys with my unconventional directing style. I’m so lucky to have you both as clients, and can’t wait for your wedding in August!

The next location I had really wanted to use involved some Aspen tress that still had snow around them. What I didn’t realize when we got there was just how MUCH snow we were talking! It was deceptively deep, but Diana was a real trooper and the couple braved the knee-deep environment to make my vision for these shots really come to life. The way they toughed it out, you would seriously never guess these two were just visiting from sunny Florida!

The fact that Diana and Andrew were up for anything made just about every photo in this set possible, including these next two where I asked them to brave a slippery all-mud trail AND climb a super-steep hillside! Apparently getting up was easier than getting down, and Diana looked intimidated in her treadless boots and ended up having to walk ALL the way around to find a way off that mound!

Our last stop was a small town buried deep in the mountains. We really loved the colors of it, not to mention that old country charm! We only had about 15 minutes left before the couple were scheduled to turn into pumpkins in time to catch their dinner reservation, but I’m glad we were able to get just a handful of photos in the town before heading back.

Diana and Andrew: It was SO fun working with you, my only regret is that you’re already married and I missed out on being part of what I’m sure was an extremely special wedding day. I hope these photos do justice to the beautiful dynamic of your relationship one year later, and successfully commemorate the fond memories we made together on Thursday. Wishing you many more anniversaries of celebrating life, love and all that great married stuff!

It’s letters like these, as well as reviews like the ones we’ve generously received here that are the reason we do what we do, and why we push ourselves to capture every possible moment at every wedding as if it was our own memory at stake. All my love goes out to our brides, past, present and future – thank you for making this such a rewarding endeavor!

So without further adieu here are five great reasons to have a winter wedding. Please let us know if we’ve missed one!

1.) Vendor Availability: That venue you’ve been dreaming of, the photographer you’ve been admiring, and the wedding planner you have just HAD to have ever since you found her blog are all MUCH more likely to be available for an “off season” wedding date! No settling for your second, third and fourth choices – the wedding world is your oyster!



2.) Better Rates: Some venues offer cheaper rates for off-season dates, and even some photographers will occassionally* offer a winter discount. When your budget isn’t quite in line with your high-end taste, instead of having your heart broken as you let go of one wedding dream after another, consider a winter wedding.



3.) More unique wedding photos: Because a much fewer number of weddings take place in the winter, your photos are by default going to be more unique featuring that winter wonderland feel. Take how you were envisioning your wedding photos and then picture them with a snowy white background, and a beautiful fur shawl. I’ll bet that at least one in five of you have been moved enough by fresh-fallen snow to take a picture of just the scene outside your home, now put the quality of that picture on steriods, imagine an even cooler location and picture yourselves as the featured subjects!



4.) Guest Availability: No matter WHEN you plan your date for, there is always going to be at least one important guest that can’t make it, and often times its because they are already committed to attending ANOTHER friend’s wedding, a summer barbeque, or other seasonal festivities – let’s just say most people have nothing better to do in the winter time than attend your wedding



5.) Unique Dress and Decor Possibilities: While Fall-themed weddings are certainly beautiful – we’ve definitely seen more than our fair share of Fall-themed receptions. Winter is much less “done” and if you don’t like “winter wonderland” or “Holiday theme” ruling out the seasonal themes all together forces you to be much more creative with your decor choices. If you have a beach wedding you are definitely going to look for a dress that’s flowy and compliments a beach setting, yet some people overlook the possibilities for dresses that compliment a winter scene. Winter opens you up to heavier dress with room for more coutour looks without sweating all of your makeup off, and anything with a lot of texture is definitely going to stand out in a snowy scene.

So those are our reasons, and we hope to hear from you soon about your awesome winter weddings!

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!