nick and jen were married in durham, nc at the radisson hotel in RTP on may 22nd. :)

words can’t describe the amount of fun it was to do this wedding. because, quite simply, weddings are crazy fun to edit…but they’re even more fun to edit when the pictures are of your friends.

backstory for those who are interested:

one of my best friends from college was (and is!) my friend steve jabs. two of his best friends were nick and chad. i knew nick and chad through steve, but just well enough to wave to or give the “hey, what’s up, we have mutual friends in common” head-nod to when we passed. we all graduated, yadda yadda, and moved to different states. steve moved to florida and came up to visit geoff and i last year. during this whole process, i also became aware that nick, chad, and their girlfriends were all living in north carolina (it’s a small world).

so, steve came up and we all visited together. it was during this time that we became aware that chad’s girlfriend was friends with geoff in high school and was also a friend of mine through one of my ex-boyfriends (and we also had science class together in college). it’s seriously like a six-degrees-of-steve-jabs game at this point.

anyway, steve went back to florida and geoff and i took his friends (just kidding, steve jabs, you can see them sometimes too). ;)

long story short – nick and jen were engaged and asked me to shoot the formals for their wedding. i was super excited and happily agreed because i love them. i was primarily there as a guest, but i did do some getting ready shots of the girls and reception shots for my own personal enjoyment (mostly after my friends had a few drinks and started to get amusing).

i love you all! congratulations, nick and jen…you’re a beautiful couple and we’re so happy for you!

so notice how adorable and girly the girls are being…and then notice how i had some time to go downstairs and say hello to the guys. and although chad was being a good groomsman and writing a card to nick and jen, steve jabs spent his time adjusting the sleep number on his bed. this, ladies and gentlemen, is what the groomsmen are doing while the bride gets ready. :)

i sat them down at this table and they started arm wrestling. it looks like jen is winning. she has the game face.

love father/daughter dances and mother/son dances! also, nick and his little sister were adorable.

and sara brings the “valley high school” to the dance floor to start the party off right.

this is, perhaps, to me, the most hilarious sequence. jen tosses the bouquet and, after much fighting, the very determined girl in blue catches it victoriously…

nick fishes for the garter…

steve jabs catches the garter…

…and proceeds to put the garter on the bouquet toss girl…with his teeth.

and this, my friends, is a pure victory shot:

there was also a lot of flips and random jumps all night. nick and jen teach at a gym down here and can flip like nobody’s business.

turns out that one of the other groomsmen was a guy from college whom i affectionately referred to as “library phill”! we also did the mutual-friend-head-nod thing back in the day, but occasionally talked if i was checking out books. but a girl who was friends with him at our table (elyse, below) is cousins with another kid geoff went to school with…who married a girl i went to school with…and it is seriously a crazy small world.