Shannon and Kieran’s beautiful wedding was featured on Hot Pink Brides wedding blog yesterday!!!!

Shannon planned the entire day on her own…and did an incredible job!!! From their ceremony to their wonderful reception at Oak Hill Country Club Shannon and Kieran’s wedding was gorgeous, stylish and so much fun! She even climbed these steps in Manhattan Square Park in bright red high heels!!!!

Shannon and Kieran, we are so excited for you!!!! And we’d like to send a special thank you again to Hot Pink Brides!!

Annie and Richard’s wedding has been featured in Junebug Wedding‘s style blog What Junebug Loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are BEYOND thrilled and want to send a special thanks to Annie and Richard and Junebug Weddings!!!

Annie works for Nickelodeon and Richard teaches tae kwan do, and they combined their lively, creative personalities to fill their day with playful and unique details. The result was a wedding day that was so much fun and super funky – just like them! The Audubon Center in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park was the perfect setting too!

Read all about Annie and Richard’s day from their perspective here! Thank you guys so much! And thank you to the Junebug team!

Which is why one of my favorite times of a wedding day is the time BEFORE the dress goes on. Watching a bride and groom and the men and women they love get ready for her wedding day is something entirely different and special in and of itself. The emotion, the energy of anticipation and the excitement that is shared by everybody make these moments so precious!!!

Julie and Shawn were so full of excited anticipation before their ceremony at Ashbury First United Methodist Church, that when he first saw her coming down the aisle, I was sure he was going split at the seams.  Julie and Shawn were so. much. fun! Their reception at Irondequoit Country Club was stunning.

And I think this last image pretty much sums it up…the love and the laughter these two share.  Julie and Shawn, thanks so much for sharing your day with me!

So one layer of the day may look like this:

I love this image!!! And it perfectly sums up Megan and Asa – Quirky, colorful and SO. MUCH. FUN!!!

These two so obviously light up in each other’s presence, that anyone who is around them can’t help but smile. There was so much laughter and happiness that day!

Another layer of Megan and Asa’s wedding day looked like this:

Everything that Megan had on or around her while getting ready that morning held a very precious significance and connection to a family story. Megan had her mother’s wedding dress (the one in the wall photo) altered, and was so proud and honored to wear it on her own wedding day.

She wore her grandmother’s garter, saved for her all these years.

And in the room she kept photos of her parents on their wedding day, a card that her mother had given her father, and a bank that Megan made for her father when she was young :

Somebody was obviously thinking ahead.

Yet another layer of the day looked like this:

Megan and Asa exude so much adoration for their family and friends and they wanted their day to be as much a gift to those they loved as a celebration of their own love. They surrounded themselves with close friends and family, from the cutest group of flower girls and ring bearers ever…

…to an absolutely rockin’ wedding party.

Their ceremony at Artisan Works was so personal – tender and beautiful and hilarious at the same time – and their reception at Rochester Plaza Hotel was a perfect continuation of the stories, the traditions and the laughter that really made up their day. And this dance, which kind of rolled all of those into one:

Megan and Asa, I can’t wait to see what stories come next! Thank you for making me a part of your day!

Every single thing about Jessica and Clarke’s day, from Jessica’s breath-taking dress, to her shoes…

From their ceremony at Chapel Hill to their beautiful reception at Casa Larga – everything was wrapped in elegance, style and sophistication.

When Jessica and Clarke and I first met, we had tossed around some ideas about something unique to do after the ceremony. They finally decided on a dove release, which was SO much fun to watch, particularly just to see their faces! I had the pleasure of shooting with Kristi Hedberg as my second shooter, who captured this priceless image from release…Clarke’s face just makes this image for me!

LOVE.

But one of the things I loved the most about Jessica and Clarke’s day was that amidst all the hustle and bustle (we had a full day!), amidst the hectic-ness of knowing they were going to move soon, and in between the fun, the laughter and some wicked dance moves…Clarke and his mom ROCKED it out!  OMG I sooooo enjoyed watching the energy and fun during this dance!

Not to mention the obvious closeness and sweetness of Jessica’s family during the father/daughter dance.  Yup.  I cried too.  I’m not ashamed….

When Jessica and Clarke were together, it was just them…and the tenderness they had for each other was so beautiful.

Thank you Jessica and Clarke for letting me share your wonderful day! Now go and kick some hockey butt in Toronto!!!!

When I first met Deb and Gary I was struck by the warmth and intense affection that they had for each other. It was truly wonderful to witness that again in their first look.

Deb and Gary worked closely together to design a wedding day that was so personal and full of details that really expressed them as a couple, from their artistic, quirky personalities to their cultural backgrounds and world views. They wanted their wedding, on a visual level, to reflect a kind of vintage/industrial feel (which they also incorporated into their engagement shoot, in downtown Buffalo), and we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time for portraits that captured that look.

Thing is, there are added practical benefits to first looks as well. Since the bride and groom have already seen each other, it opens up the opportunity to do couple (and even family!) portraits before the ceremony even starts. This is especially a plus for weddings with later ceremonies (which get increasingly tricky as the summer winds down).  Since Deb and Gary’s ceremony and reception were in the same room at Pearl Street Brewery in Buffalo, and they wanted to glide seemlessly between the two, we took advantage of the time and light before the ceremony and rocked out portraits!

The tenderness that these two shared overflowed to their friends and family, whom they brought into every aspect of their day.  I never get enough of watching two people be so incredibly happy!!! It is absolutely one of the best parts of my job.  From their first look to the end of the night both Deb and Gary literally glowed.  I love watching days like that unfold.

I could tell from the moment I first met these guys that they knew, they really KNEW who they were as a couple. When they decided they wanted to shoot part of their engagement session in an Olympic-sized pool (Yes! In the water!!) because Josh was a competitive swimmer, I knew their wedding was going to be a beautiful celebration of who they are. 

They share so much tenderness and love.

That tenderness and love made its way to every little detail of their day. Josh and Anat took their traditional Jewish wedding and filled the entire day with gorgeous details and really personal touches. Both their wedding and reception were held at the beautiful Rabbit Room at the Lower Mill in Honeoye Falls, and every last detail from Anat’s dress to the desserts was gentle and sophisticated, natural and warm, and complimented the atmosphere of love and laughter that these two share with their family and friends. Even the centerpieces were a touch from home, as Arena’s Florist worked with Anat’s own personal collection of vintage glass bottles.

But while Anat and Josh’s wedding was a stunning expression of their love and their relationship, the day was not just about them either. They were surrounded by a very warm and loving crowd of friends and family, and you could tell that their wedding was also a beautiful celebration of the people in their lives who are so close and dear to them.

There was so much warmth and affection that radiated from these families, and myself and Brandon Vick, who I had the pleasure of having as a second shooter, were touched. Thank you, Anat and Josh, for making me a part of your beautiful day!

All that said, I’ve had a MAD number of engagement shoots lately. What an amazing way to start off the summer!!! I am PSYCHED beyond belief to shoot every one of these weddings.  I am overwhelmed by how each of my couples “get” me and how I work..which is the MOST important thing in getting great photographs.

Sometimes crazy fun engagement shoots take a little extra maneuvering, and my couples really step up to the plate. Literally! Valerie had to do some serious pre-planning to get us into Frontier Field so she and Keith could incorporate their love of baseball into their engagement images. But what a great experience that was!!! And Jessica and Clark impressively managed to get their ENORMOUS (and gorgeous!) dog all the way up to my forth floor studio without event! Talk about hard core…

And Stephanie and Micah were right there when I started yelling  “AH! There! Light! Underpass! Run! Now! Go!”

And we NAILED it!!!!  We make a great team. ::grin::

I love my couples and I am SO excited for this summer.

There was so much love at this wedding. Both bride and groom come from big, crazy, tightly-knit families. But what was really amazing to see was how Stephanie and Adam’s love for each other brought their individual sides of the family together. The tender closeness of the two families and the obvious love that they have for Adam and Stephanie took my breath away.  And made me cry.  Multiple times.

As you can see, I wasn’t the only one.

As if the ceremony at Blessed Sacrament wasn’t emotional enough, Adam’s mom surprised him during the reception by having his best friend play a song live for the mother-and-son dance. Adam’s BF gave an INCREDIBLE speech written by Adam’s mom, picked up his guitar and started to sing the Beatle’s “All You Need Is Love.”  Adam, crying, held his mom close, also crying, while they danced. And then they reached out and brought Stephanie into the the dance, and then her parents and then the rest of their families and then the entire party was on the dance floor.  So powerful and so beautiful.  Um…yeah. It’s kind of hard to shoot when you’re bawling your eyes out. I’m tearing up again just thinking about it.

All of that love also makes for so much laughter, and let me tell you, this was a hilarious bunch.

I’ve known from the start that Adam and Stephanie were crazy funny, laid back and ready for anything. When they insisted on bringing my couch to the wedding, how could I refuse?! I told them, you can carry it, we can shoot it, so my (apparently very hardy!) Victorian couch followed us around all afternoon in it’s own personal van! And…velvet couch + the grounds of Irondequoit Country Club = OMG.

The dancing and jokes and laughter, the GORGEOUS reception, the warmth and celebration that just filled the entire day…Adam and Stephanie, you are incredibly lucky. Thank you so SO so much for letting me share this day, and your family’s tremendous love, with you.

Yeah. I really do love my job.