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Just found out I was awarded the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Award for 2012!
Special thank you to all my awesome couples!!!

This means I am in the top 5% of Wedding Pros nationwide! The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ are determined solely by the reviews from over 1.2 million newlyweds.

You can view the full list of Philadelphia/Lehigh Valley winners here!

Thank you!!

How about this! I am absolutely thrilled to have Allison and Sheldon’s wedding featured on The Fab Bride today! If you are not familiar with The Fab Bride, then you NEED to check it out! Other than some sweet Real Weddings post submitted from tons of photographers and Brides, Bola and her crew, have the best inspiration posts! Inspritation on dresses, decor, groom stuff, accessories, you name it! But best of all, they are based right here in Philly!

Allison and Sheldon are the second couple of a group of three friends that I had the opportunity to photograph. Which is where the image above comes in! You may remember Sonya & Kevin from August 2011 who were the first of the trio’s weddings (check out their wedding here). Laurie and Brian, who will be coming up on the blog later this month were the first to book me, but the last to have me photograph them!

I met Allison and Sheldon in mid-2010. We got together at a Starbucks near their apartment and chatted for awhile about what was going to be their late 2012 wedding. The more we chatted, I quickly realized what incredibly kind and beautiful people they are. I have no words to describe it, you have have to be around the two of them. It is really something! They are both so easy going and a joy to be around. We hit it off right away!

Shortly after their engagement session, I received an email from Allison saying that the Basilica was going to close for 2012 and they were not going to be able to get married there unless they moved their wedding date! After a few emails and phone calls, we narrowed it down to October 22nd, 2011, almost a year earlier than they had imagined! It actually worked out perfectly, and I know how happy they are that they do not have to wait another year for their wedding!

Despite it being a little cold, their day went off without a hitch! The Basilica looked absolutely amazing, the Philadelphia Art Museum provided an absolutely perfect setting for our portrait time together, the highest floor of the Sheraton Downtown gave a perfect view during their reception, and Logan Circle made for the perfect late night, post wedding portraits. Make sure to check out one of Allison and Sheldon’s favorite engagement session images that we recreated the night of their wedding!

Enjoy!

The image above is from their November 2010 engagement session, and the one below is the recreation from their wedding day. I love it!

Thanks for looking!

Dan

Details:

Talk about covering a lot of ground during an engagement session! Tara, Tim and I were all over the place! We started in Ken Lockwood Gorge where we chatted and walked along the trail there for a good 30 minutes before turning back! There was a great little river with huge boulders jutting out into it and a little bridge that provided a resting spot and great photographs! From there we headed a short distance to the Califon Farm Market & Orchard. We simply could not take a bad photo with the beutiful fall colors, and that late day Autumn sun! It was so perfect and fitting for the two of them and the plans they have for their wedding coming up this June! A backyard ceremony and reception in a wooded area that Tara and Tim are clearing out. It is going to be a blast!
After the orchard, we skipped over to Clinton where we found a few really great night images to round out our day!

Thanks for looking!

Dan

So for this post I wrote a three paragraph recant of my meeting with Amanda and John and their wedding and it ended with this excerpt from John’s note to Amanda that was given to her right before their ceremony, and realized it is all I need to describe the two of them.

“I know you’ve wondered if I’ll cry when you walk down the aisle but I’ll let you know ahead of time that I have no doubt I will. The excitement I have to be married to you is greater than any I’ve had and I won’t be able to keep all that in. You’re an amazing woman with an amazing family. I am blessed. I love you with all my heart. Your soon to be husband, John.”

Oh! I should also mention that Amanda’s dad’s band, Trophy Husbands, played a set of covers during the wedding! It was awesome!

John surprised Amanda and learned “Brown Eyed Girl” and played along!

The ladies got in on some backup singer action, too!

Thanks for looking!

-Dan

Just had to post a quick sneak peek from my session with Karen and John in NYC! I cannot wait to post the whole session!

I have so many great photographs to post and Carin and Patrick are next! The image above was the 3rd last frame I shot during my session with Carin and Patrick, but it is easily my favorite from their session! We were looking for a nice sunset photo of them with the city, but the clouds that evening had different plans. Had it not been for the clouds, we would not have gotten this, so everything worked out wonderfully!

We had such an awesome time walking around Hoboken! Carin and Patrick laugh so much which made my job so easy! Just check out the series of them sitting in front of the blue “Hoboken” wall. Big smiles on their faces, completely in love with each other, and thrilled about it! So much fun!

I absolutely cannot wait for their wedding in September at Terraview at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn!

Ha! I am pretty sure I said, “act natural” and they just started cracking up!

Thanks for looking!

-Dan

A few weeks before our session, I received a super excited email from Ashley saying that she finally figured out what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go for their engagement session! Following that was a list of a bunch of locations from shooting in their home, to an abandoned road to the lehigh valley zoo and everything in between. Of course, I made it known to her and Eric when we first met that I am up for anything, and my engagement session do not really have any constraints! So we hit up every spot, including my favorite, Bake Oven Knob, which is where the last image was taken!

Starting in their home was different than most of my sessions, but it was actually pretty fun and kind of quirky! Ashley loves to read, and Eric loves video games. Simple as that. And they wanted to tie that into their session some how. I think we did quite well! Make sure you take a look at Ashley shirt in the first couple photos! I love it!

Probably the craziest park of our time together was when I found them skipping rocks and chatting together as they waited for me to quick change a lens “on shore.” I immediately thought “What a great photo op!” So I made my way back out into the water and asked them to continuing skipping rocks, but they were throwing them too far away from me, and for the images I was envisioning, the rocks needed to be way closer to me.
Well that is exactly what I got! I was holding my camera 2 inches above the water, and the rock in the image I got bounced a foot or two in front of my lens, then skipping again right underneath my camera and brushed my fingers! Ha! You can actually see the panic starting in Ashley face in the photo as the rock skips towards me! It was really, really funny! I stopp up so quickly, looked at them and we all started to laugh.
It was a really great time!

Thanks for looking!

-Dan

Special thank you to Kristen & Allison for the LOVELY reviews!

Thank you! Thank you!

Just a quick favorite from each of their weddings!

Kristen & Joe’s Wedding

Allison & Sheldon’s Wedding

This was an incredibly cute and fun engagement session- a little crazy too!

Let me introduce Allison and Tommy! In the weeks leading up to their session we spent time contacting vineyards because they really wanted to have their session at one. (I should mention they LOVE wine!) So the day finally came, a little overcast with a chance of rain but it ended up being beautiful out! When we got to Franklin Hill, everyone was so nice! They even carted us out to a great spot overlooking the entire vineyard! Allison had planned a TON of details and brought lots of props for a little picnic. It was going to be really great! When we walked down into the rows a little to start setting up we were immediately swarmed by bugs! It had rained the day before which left it a little muggy and the bugs loved it. So we moved a few rows down and the same thing happen!

We called an audible and packed up to head over to Burnside Plantation in Bethlehem! That turned out to be great, despite a little soggy ground. They had a little wine and a little picnic with cheeses, fruit, and fluffernutter sandwiches! Perfect! To round out their session we headed over to downtown Bethlehem and photographed for a little then had a great little meal at Thai Thai II.

All in all I say it was a lovely day and I am thrilled for their wedding in May!

The hearts cut in the sandwiches were all Allison’s idea! I love it!

Thanks for looking!

-Dan