Sneak Peek: Shannon & Todd - Wedding at Mannitto Golf Club (New Alexandria, PA)

Matt and I are still in Pittsburgh but we couldn't wait to share Shannon & Todd's gorgeous wedding! Here's a peek at what's to come on the blog:

No place like home...

An hour to Georgia. About 2.5 hours in Georgia and then we're in South Carolina. 3hours or so in SC and we hit NC. I consider Charlotte to roughly be the half way point. I get confused and always think "Are we in Virginia yet?" Usually that means we're still in NC but less than an hour from Virginia. We're only in Virginia for about an hour and I know I have to get gas because in West Virginia it's going to be $0.30/gallon more. Also have to get some cash out of the ATM for the WV tolls (the only tolls on the whole drive). When we hit Morgantown, I know we're only about an hour away from the place I call home!

That's the drive to Pittsburgh. It's such a piece of cake drive. Matt took the first shift while I tried to nap. He drove for a little over 5 hours and I took over the rest since I'm using to being up from midnight until the sun comes up. When we hit the Pennsvylvania border yesterday morning, the sky was slowly growing lighter. Soon I could see the beautiful hills and the farms with their big red, white or brown barns. So much of PA is just farm land and it's so beautiful. I took in the moment alone. Matt was sleeping in the passenger sleep with both of the dogs laying on top of him. Cruising along passed the farms, the day was starting to come to life and I sighed knowing that it was only a little further until we reached home.

We arrived around 6:30am and my mom was getting up for work. I checked to see if we had bread from Mancini's Bakery and sure enough, it was there! She asked the other day if I wanted her to pick up a loaf and I told her not to worry about it because we would go get some. It's kinda tradition that when I come home the first thing I do is eat some Mancini's bread! Ever since I was a little kid whenever we took a trip to Pittsburgh we always brought home loaves of Mancini's. You can bet we will be bringing some home this time, too! : )

It's going to be a busy trip, but I'm excited about being home! Promise to have pics soon!

Beth - Trash The Dress Photo Session

CAUTION: May be too hot for your computer screen!

Saturday we met up with Beth for her Trash The Dress photo session, and I am just in awe of the shots that Matt & I got! That may sound really arrogant, but we really can't take much credit for how these turned out because Beth just freaking ROCKED this shoot!

She should feel natural posing for us by now. After all, this was her 4TH photo session with us! We joke that they are our most photographed couple. We just always have a great time hanging out with Beth & Mark. Here's a look at all the sessions we've done with them:

Engagement Photos at the Jacksonville Zoo

Engagement Photos in Destin

Wedding Photos at the Jacksonville Zoo

It's pretty hard to top their wedding at the zoo. What could possibly be better than carousels, giraffes, trains and a Japanese garden? Saturday answered that question!

After the big day is over a Trash The Dress session is a great way to get some creative, fun shots in your beautiful wedding dress! The great thing about a Trash The Dress photo session is that you don't really have to "trash" your dress to get great images!

Okay, enough talk. The images speak for themselves. Beth, you totally amazed me on this shoot! After seeing these we might really have to come visit you after you move to Italy for shoot #5! I hope you love these shots as much as we do!

Mark has been around us enough that we thought it was time he took over the camera a bit. Every time he had an idea for a shot, we handed him a camera! Here he is getting a macro shot of the rings. He's got a great eye! Maybe we should hire him! : )

Lisa & Seth - Engagement Photos at Amelia Island Plantation

Lisa & Seth are the types of people that you instantly like when you meet them for the first time. As soon as you see their warm smiles, you know you're in the company of two people who are genuine, thoughtful, and caring. Plus they are just a gorgeous couple! Lisa is so pretty and petite and Seth is tall and handsome. Watching them together, it's so clear how much they adore one another! They met in their first year at law school and this fall they will be married in a beautiful, intimate wedding at Amelia Island Plantation.

Last weekend, Lisa & Seth traveled down from DC to celebrate the 4th of July and their birthdays with family. After getting off our redeye flight from San Diego, we met up with them to shoot their engagement photos at Amelia Island Plantation. We were tired, but we had so much fun hanging out with Lisa & Seth that we soon forgot about sleep! The light was a challenge as it constantly changed from bright and sunny to cloudy and back to sunny again, but the colors were just incredible! We have been so anxious to share these but wanted to post all of our California pictures first so these wouldn't be buried at the bottom!

Amelia Island Plantation is so pristine. The marshes were so peaceful and silent - such a drastic contrast to Jacksonville! Miles and miles of uninterrupted natural beauty and peacefulness. Their wedding at Walker's Landing is going to be breathtaking!

Lisa & Seth, we're so glad that we were able to meet up with you guys last weekend! We hope to see you again sometime before the big day! : )

Jessica - Portrait Session in Mira Loma, CA

We've been blogging like crazy about all of our fun travels in California (and Nevada!) but now it's time to get back to weddings, engagements & portraits!

While we were in California, we met up with my friend Jess for some wine tasting at Galleano Winery. After sampling (and purchasing) some delicious wines, we went around the winery for a mini photo shoot! Jess is just gorgeous and so outgoing and totally rocked the whole shoot. She didn't need much direction, which is perfect because we like people to show us their natural hotness!

I think Jess channeled her inner Sasha Fierce because we definitely sensed a bit of diva when she put those sunglasses on! At first she was all sweet and demure and then when she got comfortable... she brought on the SASS!!

I just love this girl! She's beautiful, smart, athletic, AND she's a true fan of the black & gold! Gotta love a Steelers girl! I don't get to see her nearly enough since we live on opposite sides of the country, but I'm so glad we got to catch up last week!

Love ya, girl!

Point Loma

This is the last personal post of our pics from the California trip! Definitely can't wait to get back out there again!

On our last day (July 4th) we went to shoot photos at Point Loma in San Diego. Point Loma overlooks the base and has a great view of all of San Diego (well, a hazy view on this day, but still good). It also has two beautiful lighthouses! I'm such a lighthouse nut and kinda have a collection going of lighthouse photographs that I haven't posted in a collection... yet!

All but this last picture are of the lighthouse at the top of the point. We weren't able to get access to the other lighthouse (located down below the cliffs) because it was too late. Also, it's on Coast Guard property so we wouldn't have been able to get too close anyway. Next time we'll be sure to get over there earlier, though!

Vegas, Baby!

For our California trip, we spent the first half of the week in San Diego and then planned to spend the 2nd half up near LA to see some friends we had up that way. Rather than stay in LA and pay more for a hotel that may be in a questionable neighborhood we decided to stay in the Inland Empire. It's a short drive away from LA and just a beautiful area with some quiet towns and beautiful landscape.

We ended up staying in Rancho Cucamonga at a modern hotel chain called Aloft (a vision of W Hotels). It was a pretty neat concept and quite the hangout because of the bar downstairs. The hotel and rooms, though, felt like a college dorm to me. Basic but stylish. We chose to stay there because it was really close to Mira Loma and we planned on going wine tasting with my friend Jess at Mira Loma (her photo shoot images coming soon!!). Plus as a Starwood Preferred Guest I got 50% off the 2nd night. If you're not an SPG member, you should definitely sign up!

So we went wine tasting Thursday and chilled with Jess at the hotel bar the rest of the night. It was a PAR-TAY! The place got so packed. At first it was just us, but I guess on Thursday nights they have a DJ playing live music (DJ Diva - female DJs are so hot!). It was a fun time!

We didn't have any plans for Friday. LA was going to be a madhouse because of Michael Jackson's death, so we didn't want to head out there. Plus we've both done the touristy stuff out there so we didn't really have anything we were dying to see. Matt mentioned Vegas at some point (which he denies now, but he did!) so I suggested we head out there. It's not a very far drive from where we were staying, but the day before July 4th trying to leave at noon to go to Vegas - stupid idea! Considering the traffic (which there was A LOT of) it wasn't too bad. I think it took us a little over 4 hours and there were times where the traffic came to a dead stop! We were pretty frustrated because the drive to Vegas goes through nothing but desert and there were only 2 lanes!! Seriously? You have ALL the space in the world and you can't put in more than 2 lanes on a highway to one of the biggest destinations in the country? Just kinda stupid!

But I tried to take advantage of the situation by shooting some of the scenery. The drive was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! It would have been wonderful to just cruise along at 70mph the whole way.

At one point we noticed the temperature was a sweltering 112 degrees! YIKES! So happy we didn't break down!

We finally made it to Vegas and I was surprised to find that it didn't feel all that busy. Definitely tons of people, but it wasn't that bad driving around. I was REALLY surprised to find out you can park on the strip for FREE! Woo hoo! I was thinking we'd pay $35 or more for premium parking but nope. They want you to spend money in other places and the strip is much longer than it appears. Chances are you aren't going to walk too far from where you park, so they know they have a good chance of getting your money if you park at their venue. We parked at the Bellagio and thought it was not only the most beautiful hotel in Vegas of all the ones we saw but also the most interesting site to see. The fountain show was so captivating! We could have watched it for hours!

I edited these images with the super cool Lightroom Presets from Camera Dojo. I usually don't do a whole lot of editing but this was a fun trip and I thought I'd have some fun with the pics Matt & I took. I used the Super Pop 2 preset for the evening shots. Totally drives up the contrast and vibrance and is perfect for these photos! For the daytime photos I played with the Dazzle preset and made some manual adjustments.

Okay, I promise I wouldn't talk so much and show more pics, but I just wanted to share this info for anyone who might be traveling to LA or Vegas. We did Vegas on $100 (that's for gas and $70 for dinner). You don't have to be a big baller to enjoy the brights lights of Vegas! : )






























We took a TON of photos of the fountains. Since we can't really post them all individually, we made a video! There are two video clips in this slideshow - one at the beginning and one at the very end. The rest are still images. The clip at the end cracks me up because the music for the slideshow was NOT the same music that was played during the show, but it times out so well! I just watched it with Matt and we were cracking up sooo hard!





Hope you've enjoyed our Las Vegas photos! We just have one more post on our personal adventures in California and one more photoshoot (a super hot one with my friend Jessica) and then it's back to weddings & engagements! : )