Raleigh Wedding Photographer in Morgantown, WV: Abi+Ryan

So the big reason for us to be back in Pittsburgh finally came: Abi+Ryan’s wedding in Morgantown, WV at the brand new WVU Erickson Alumni Center! :D Neither Geoff nor I had met Abi or Ryan before their wedding, but had rather talked via phone and Facebook for about a year. Now – are you ready for the six degrees of Kevin Bacon? They found me through Abi’s mother Diane, who found me through her best friend Jane, who is the mother of Sarah who is the best friend and bridesmaid of Abi and also the sister of Sean, one of Geoff’s groomsmen/old buddies/roommate from RIT. Still following? Good. ;) Abi and Ryan live in Virginia but went to school at WVU were they met in church. Abi is a neo-natal ICU nurse and Ryan is a police officer. They chose to get married at the Erickson Alumni Center to honor their school and the place where they first met, and it was a gorgeous venue! They were married inside and had the ceremony site flipped to their reception site during their cocktail hour. It was a good thing it was inside too as the temperatures were killer that day and we probably all would’ve melted. ;)

We were so thrilled to be recommended and even more thrilled to be chosen to do their wedding in West Virginia. Geoff and I drove down after our time in Pittsburgh and were happy to finally meet the beautiful couple and their wonderful families, as well as reconnect with our friends Sean and Mylissa. It’s always such an honor to do an out of state wedding and we had a great time! Thank you so much to Abi, Ryan, Diane, Jane, and their families for being wonderful and supportive. We were so happy to be a part of this!

Date: July 3rd, 2011 (Diane’s birthday!)

Ceremony+Reception Venue: WVU Erickson Alumni Center // Morgantown, WV

Officiant: Pastor Donald Dick

Cake: Wedding Cakes Plus

Florist: Kelly’s Floral Designs

Linens: Elite Bridal and Events

Steel Drummist: Richard Maurer

Coordinator: Debra Mullens

DJ: Ken Maisel

The little bee in Abi’s bouquet (to the left) is an old family heirloom, and the lace on her bouquet is from her mother’s wedding dress. :) I love little incorporations like this!

So our greatest challenge for this wedding was doing the portraits at 2pm which, in the summer, is basically high noon. Not only was it hot, but it’s bright with no particular direction to the sun. We did some outside, but went inside pretty quickly to avoid the heat and the harsh light. However, I really love the pictures we did outside despite the high-noon sun! I was kinda super proud since that’s the hardest time of day to shoot in and the hardest type of light to shoot in… so this is the little part of my blog where I brag. ;)

The WVU Alumni Center had beautiful places indoors to shoot. Super gorgeous. Speaking of super gorgeous, Abi was stunning and Ryan was just as equally handsome. They are an adorable team and a beautiful couple to boot. :)

Above: Pre-flipped ceremony room. Below: Post-flipped reception room. :) Ta-da!

At this point during the reception the light was gooooood outside! Diane noticed some down time during the reception and grabbed us all to go outside and these are my favorites of the day. Can’t beat good lighting.

Hello, wedding ducks! So far CSP animals include several engagement cats, engagement and wedding dogs, engagement seagulls, and (unfortunately), plenty of engagement and wedding spiders. But this is our first time with wedding ducks. :) They were adorable.

There was a good ‘ole switcheroo played on the poor guy that caught the garter as they switched out the girl that caught the bouquet for the… best man. ;) Then the wedding got the party started and it was an awesome reception!

Above to the right is Jane dancing with her daughter Sarah… and below to the left are our wonderful friends Mylissa and Sean. ;) Hahaha.

Thank you so much for having us in West Virginia to photograph your wedding, Abi+Ryan! We had a wondeful time and are so grateful to have met and worked with you and your families. We hope you enjoyed your honeymoon and love the pictures!

 

 

Pittsburgh Engagement Photographer: Ginny+Carson

Another Pittsburgh session! This time in the cit-ay itself and of one of my oldest friends, Ginny. :) *Note: Ginny’s real name is Angela for the record, but I haven’t called her that since the 8th grade, so I think it’s fair to say that it’s Ginny for this blog post. We met at some point in elementary school, I don’t even really remember when or how, and have been causing problems for all of our teachers ever since. :) She was one of my wonderful bridesmaids for my wedding and I will be one of hers in the spring! I was super excited to help her pick out a fantastic photographer in Pittsburgh for her wedding, but even more excited to photographer her engagement pictures while I was home, yaaay!

I met Carson a few years ago and the first thing that struck me was that he is exactly. like. Ginny. It’s pretty much if you put Ginny into a guy’s body and had him walk around and say the same things Ginny would. It’s hilarious. Unfortunately for Carson, I have been giving him a hard time since I met him since I basically feel like I’m talking to Ginny. So Carson got to skip all of the formal stuff and went straight into verbal harassment from me. Sorry, Carson. ;) They both live and work in D.C. now but are planning on moving back to the ‘Burgh eventually. Their wedding is taking place at a church in New Ken with their reception at Soldiers and Sailors in Oakland. For their engagement photographs, they wanted pictures taken in the Northside in the Mexican War Streets (Geoff and I’s old apartment was there!!) and on the North Shore near PNC Park and Heinz Field (Go Steelers!). They wanted them very Pittsburgh-centric… and I think it accomplished just that. :)

For those of you who’ve ever parked in Pittsburgh, this photo needs no explanation. For those of you who haven’t, putting random chairs in the middle of the street in order to hold your parking spot is a Pittsburgh thing. ;) We found these and used the opportunity.

Outside the fence behind our old apartment! Meeemmorrriieeesss….

Quick wardrobe change in the car and a jaunt downtown! :) I’m pretty sure Ginny and I spent at least 50% of our elementary school field trips at the Carnegie Science Center. Oh yeah!

The Gateway Clipper’s Majestic rode on past and the people on board screamed at Carson to kiss Ginny… and cheering promptly erupted. Kinda wish I had a video.

The photo below was a series of…”Car!”….”Game on!”… “Car!”…. “Game on!”

Taken right before I literally fell into the bushes I was laying on. :)

The picture to the right is probably the oldest documented photograph of Ginny and I (special props to Nick Tutolo and Justin Silich) at the history museum during a field trip in… 4th grade maybe?

The below left is a picture in possibly 7th grade taken outside Notre Dame on a marching band field trip. Check out my outfit. This was back in the day where I fancied a lot of ska music. Ginny’s outfit eerily resembles the one she wore in last week’s reenactment. It’s a shame we forgot which side we were standing on in this picture, but oh well. ;) Photo credit goes to Carson!

Love you, Ginny and Carson! I can’t wait for your wedding where I can actually dance!! And I’m totally going to pretend I’m single so I can catch the bouquet!

Pittsburgh Portrait Photographer: Sarah+Nate

Horray for western Pennsylvania!!

Geoff and I traveled to a wedding in West Virginia this past weekend, but I flew home about a week before it to do a few photoshoots in our hometown of Pittsburgh. :) And it was awesome! The weather was about 75 degrees with low humidity, and I could actually sleep with the windows open. Unheard of! We do a lot of engagement sessions and weddings in Pittsburgh because a lot of our family and friends still reside there and I just love it.

But anyway, I was SOoo so so excited when one of my very good friends from college contacted me a while back to see if I could do a shoot with her and her new husband, Nate. Sarah and Nate were married but did not have a wedding, so they were looking to get photographs taken of them happily married and all that jazz. And I was stoked!! Sarah and I go back to 2004 when we both attended the University of Pittsburgh in Johnstown, PA. I was there for a semester before I realized I couldn’t handle the one Walmart and field full of cows and opted to transfer to Point Park which was in downtown Pittsburgh. But while I was in Johnstown, Sarah and I were super close and had a ton of really ridiculous times together. A couple semesters later, she too transferred to Point Park from the field of cows and graduated with a degree in Journalism. I made fun of her a lot for living in Pittsburgh but being from Philly, and she took it like a champ. ;)

Years later, we’re not dressing like zombies anymore** (see below) and are all married and grown up and stuff, and here I am taking pictures of her and her wonderful husband Nate whom I had the absolute pleasure of meeting for the first time… along with their adorable son/dog Bennett. SO freaking cute. We had the best time. These were taken at Northmoreland Park near New Kensington, PA (about 45 minutes outside of the ‘Burgh). I used to go fishing there with my dad when I was little. :) So neat to be shooting back there as an adult.

**…not all the time, anyway.

Okay, everyone! Time to breathe a collective, “AWWWWWWWWWWW” over Bennett, world’s most ridiculously cute dog.

Hey hey, western PA vistas! You’re not too bad yourself.

Sarah’s always had the greatest ice blue eyes and has been rocking the Zoolander “Blue Steel” since I’ve known her.

How cute are they? :) So cute. It’s such a lovely idea to do married pictures. Everyone stops taking pictures between the wedding and their kids… but I find it incredibly endearing to take some pictures of yourselves once in a while. You’ll love them later (and now!).

Now for a good walk down memory lane. The latest pictures with Sarah in the purple and myself in the yellow are photo credit of Nate (you rock, Nate!). The zombie picture is credit of… possibly Laurie Bolewitz, but I don’t remember at this point. There were a lot of zombies there that night. Photo credit in bottom left hand corner was totally copyright of Sarah’s mom while we were visiting in Philly. Clearly, our style of dress has matured (love that I had that studded belt… and also, who dresses like a prom zombie anymore? Regular zombie sure. But 80s prom zombie? That was so 2005ish). But we’re still able to rock the karate moves. Love you, Miss Sarah!! Please bring yourself and your lovely man down to visit us in the south sometime!