With the 2011 wedding season fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to help everyone, including myself!, get extra excited for their upcoming weddings. I sent out an email announcing a best-dress contest to all my 2011 brides, with the grand prize being a free bridal portrait session! A number of you knew your wedding dresses wouldn’t be in in time for the April session date, but submitted for a chance to win the runner-up prize of a 16×24 premium print anyway. We got so many submissions, it was extremely difficult for the judges and myself to come up with a clear set of winners. In addition to myself, Sean Brimhall, Peter Miller, Jim Heine and Danielle Pasternak casted votes to determine the winners of each prize, so a big thanks to them for participating as well!

Without further adu, I would like to congratulate Kelly Capece and Megan Judge on winning the first place free bridal portrait session! Megan’s Maggie Sottero gown featured a beautiful convergence of both classic and modern beauty, while Kelly’s Pronovias dress was so elegant and simplistic, we immediately fell in love with it.

The date, time and location for the session will be the same for both girls and my husband and I will shoot them simultaneously. They will each receive the high-resolution images from the session on disc with their wedding DVD; I expect it to be a really fun time for all involved!

The runner-up prize proved even more difficult, as every bride who submitted was eligible to receive it. After tallying the judges votes there was a clear tie for runner up and both girls will receive a 16×24 premium wall print. Congratulations to Carolyn Powell whose Sottero-Midgely made our jaws hit the floor and Erin Wilrigs whose Casablanca was super classy and sexy too.

Okay, so we know there originally wasn’t SUPPOSED to be a third place winner, but we just loved all the dresses so much, at the last minute we decided to honor a couple of the closest runner ups to the runner-up prize and award each of them with an 11×14 premium wall print. Congratulations to Josette Graff and Jenna Haring; you’re Casablanca and Allure gowns were absolutely stand-out beauties in our humble opinions.

As a big thank you to all who participated, I have also decided to give a $15 wedding print credit to anyone who submitted dresses to the contest (barring the winners of larger prizes)! I’ve had so much fun judging the dresses and getting excited for all of your weddings. I truly think excellent dress choices were made across the board, which is what made the judging so so difficult. I expect all of you to look smashing on your special days and feel honored to be a part of them!

Sidenote: The dresses have not been posted on this blog for the privacy of our winners against snooping future husbands. However, a private email has been sent to each bride containing the dress contest winners, please go check them out!