Happy somewhat-belated New Year! It's good to be back. It turns out taking the second half of 2012 off from blogging entirely was really good for us. We didn't feel like slaves to a blog post when we were shooting or editing (because that sort of things creeps in over time), and it was good for us to take serious stock of what we were doing with our work, six years into going full-time as wedding photographers.

Now that we have a month or so off from weddings and portrait shoots and have had time to breathe, I definitely think 2012 was our most intimate year. We got to know our clients more than ever before last year and the weddings were even more personal. I always wondered if this gig would inevitably jade us toward what we're doing, and I'm happy that this year it felt like things were/are only just beginning for us.

Going forward, we're going to be blogging differently here. We still want to show off a big ol' chunk of each wedding, and we've found letting brides share their wedding moments on our Facebook page: Nickel City Studios - Buffalo Wedding Photography is infinitely more effective and easy for everyone. We want to have more fun with blog and just show of pieces here and there without every post being a rote exercise.

Speaking of the FB page, when you get done here, head over there because we just uploaded about 1k photos from this past year to update our galleries with even more "best of" type images.

Heh - that was a pretty shameless Facebook page plug. :) But it's true - we've spent a few years debating how we want to present our images online and while we love the blog with all our being, it's difficult for any sort of interactivity - like, "hey, yeah that moment in the 22nd photo down was awesome!" isn't going to work here while you can chat all you want about individual photos on Facebook. So, for the time being, and until we change our mind (again) about how we do the online thing, you can check out our FB page regularly through the year for lots of awesome weddings! (end second FB page plug)

As I was pulling photos for this blog post and reliving all our weddings and engagement shoots from the year, I couldn't believe how fast this year flew by. I know you mentioned feeling like we're just beginning this awesome job of ours, and I get that - I still get stupidly excited the morning of every wedding we head off to, wondering what awesome day we're about to be apart of. This is one of the coolest jobs, and we're so, so lucky to get to do this.

(Is it awful I wrote that then my brain immediately went to the Red Wedding?! Rich FINALLY convinced me to read A Storm of Swords and AHHH! I know you can't write anything about it for those of you who haven't read it or are just watching the series, but GAH! I'm desperately trying to get through A Feast for Crows this winter, but I literally am reading these books one paragraph at a time as there's always a kid in need of something over here, but damn, they are awesome books. I cannot wait for March 31!!!!)

You know, as the sands slipped, seemingly in slow motion, through the hourglass as I waited for you to be done with that section, I imagined you were maybe composing a sonnet in iambic pentameter and needed the time to focus - but no, you were talking about fantasy novels. Real talk, though, the Game of Thrones books are really good. I'm pretty exited I don't have to not talk about them anymore for fear or ruining some upcoming plot point for you.

This wedding season was also super cool for the variety it brought. We ended up in so many different situations with so many different kinds of people. It's a lot like trying to finish a puzzle. We try to get everyone "right" on a wedding day or out on a portrait shoot and doing that means we need couples and their friends and families to open up to us and let us figure out who means what and how to everyone else. You get really drawn in on days like we get to document and you get access to people at their best, if sometimes most stressed, and it's unlike shooting anything else.

We're over here talking about talking on our blog while trying to get the baby to sleep - it's so meta, ya'll, even without our former talking-head style talk bubbles. You think maybe we should not be allowed to speak to each other for like 6 hours before we blog? That might be disastrous though, like me trying to tell you about something funny someone tweeted or you trying to tell me about some reddit thread.

If I had blogged without talking to you,
for six full hours, our house a quiet peace.
We would be just as big morons, that's true.
What rhymes with peace? A lease, some geese, police.

I have much more to write to make a poem.
Sonnets, in fact, are not easy to do.
Our year of pics, I just want to show them.
You could have joked about writing haiku.

It takes more time to write a poem than blog.
Yet here I am, taking a joke too far.
I know you must be feeling all agog,
my poetry is also quite bazaar.

But no one reads the text here anyway,
and now you're mad it's taken me all day.

I am furious. I took orders, I called the sub shop, I waited 20 minutes, I walked to the sub shop, got our order, walked BACK from the sub shop. Hey - is it my turn to write on the blog, it's been an hour? :giggle: "No!"

And there's an open tab on the browser for "RhymeZone.com" which I can only assume isn't your favorite 2 Chainz fan site.

Here's me right now: No.

I hope you're happy with yourself. Luckily, no one reads this far on the blog.

Hey - be nice! YOU rhyme something to poem.

Whatever - I'll expect the poet laureate committee here by dinner :)

I'm kindof overwhelmed here. We've been writing this post on and off for about five hours while the younger kids get up and go back down and get up again, and Murphy does his thing, and I can't believe how insanely lucky we are to have worked with all of you.

While I'm typing this I'm looking up at Edith's mom getting down and looking below and seeing Jenna and Kevin right below and thinking about how they danced to my favorite Pearl Jam song from when we were all kids and seeing Amanda and Steve right below that and how they were all, "No, for real, we need SOME serious photos together" - which was hard because they are fucking hilarious together all the time. Anyway, what I'm saying is THANK YOU. This isn't a best of in the sense that we're all "look at us!" - it's a best of in that, "damn, you guys are the best"

I know every year wraps up, and we look at each other and comment on how the year was so amazing that nothing could possibly top it, and then the next year comes and it's just as wonderful and amazing as the year before, and we are so truly thankful for this job and the spectacular people we get to meet while doing it.

I'm so frustrated reading what I've written. We're going on a pretty severe lack-of-sleep over here these days, and I hope I don't sound insincere. "It's wonderful and amazing and spectacular and awesome and amazing and awesome and awesome..." But my incredible lack of vocabulary aside, I really mean it. Our couples, their families and friends are some of the most welcoming, friendly and truly spectacular people we've ever met, and this job would be boring and dull without the great people we get to shoot.

Also, I can't be trusted to type anymore because I'll inevitably write "spectacular" or "awesome" or "amazing" for the zillionth time this post, so I'm out. :) You guys - thank you, thank you, thank you, and I'm leaving the rest of the post to Rich because he's slightly less brain dead than I am, so whatever he writes, it's not true.

Blogging carte blanche - I like it! I can't remember who it was, but I once convinced someone we know that I wrote everything on the blog and just pretended to be you in your sections.

I think you put it pretty well. And I think we're pretty coherent for averaging 4 hours of sleep a night right now. Luckily we'll be a little more rested by the time wedding season 2013 rolls around. Speaking of, Alyssa dropped a little day-old photo of the new one at the end of the post.

Anyway, once we start shooting again expect to see things back here regularly and, if you get the chance, there really is a ton more over at the FaceSpace. See you guys soon, and thanks!

After our fairly long blogging hiatus, we're back! We've got a new look, thanks to the ever fabulous Beth + Mark over at Hero Design. We've been shooting like mad this summer, and we have a TON of stuff to show you guys.

We decided to pause on blogging while we were updating our look and contributing to our vanishing act is that we've been down a worker (aside from shooting) this summer. I've basically had my head in a toilet for the past six months as we're expecting in early December! We hadn't officially announced it yet, so there's our announcement, but it's meant Rich has taken over basically everything involved in the business, so he's been editing like mad and trying to keep up on email, meetings, and all things business, and we decided to pause on blogging until our shooting schedule slowed a bit and the new look was ready.

Anyway, so here we are! It's awesome to be back, and I couldn't be more excited to share all of the wonderful couples we've been shooting this summer. We're starting off with Erin + Raff who had us out to their family's property at Conesus Lake for their gorgeous "backyard" wedding.

(Also, apologies for the severe length of this blog post. I keep telling myself I'm going to reign in this posts to a more manageable size, but then I start looking through their day, and I just can't help myself!!)

One of the nice things about our long break in blogging was that it makes me excited to start again. No wedding photographer is ever going to openly say they're burned out or they're not looking forward to every shoot and blog post with the ebullience of a kid on Christmas morning. While I'll never get mentally tired of photographing the couples and families we have the privilege to work with, the business does get tough to keep up in the thick of the summer months and sometimes something has to give so your performance doesn't slack off. Our new look and brand feel excites me, too, because I think it's really "us" now. Our old look was us when we first made this blogsite in 2008, but things have changed a lot in our lives and in the clients we're photographing, and I think we're more focused than ever on the kind of couples we want to work with. (Also kindof psyched that our circa 2008 headshot/talk bubble things are long gone. No one should ever see me without my beard).

Anyway, clearly our ability to ramble on and get the text sections of a post fast-scrolled has not diminished in any way. As you were saying up top, this wedding was kindof a dream. We love Erin and Raff, just love them and their story and obviously their wedding day choices. Big time kudos go to Erin and her family and Raff and his - and to Lisa, a Rochester, NY wedding planner who was really a pleasure for us to work with. Thank you all, and thank you to anyone I'm not mentioned here who helped put on this wedding day. This was a totally kick-ass affair.

First look and portraits ahead of time? Hell yes.

Yeah - having the freedom to go right from your ceremony to your guests and cocktail hour/reception is pretty key when you're doing everything together - I know a first look isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it really does free up a timeline and allow for a more relaxed day. Also, I'll say I don't believe Erin or Raff were any less emotional when they saw each other at the start of the ceremony, even though they'd been together the previous two hours :) It's kindof maybe a big deal when your marriage is about to begin.

I love that photo you took of Erin and her dad in the woods before the ceremony. That shot is everything I love about the way we shoot a wedding day. Oh, and before I forget, String Theory out of Rochester played the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception and were AWESOME. I'm a bluegrass fan, but even if I wasn't it would have been hard not to dance with these guys playing.

Seriously, check out the view for this ceremony. It was perfect.

No doubt - the view was killer, the ceremony was fantastic - it really couldn't have been more perfect. And the reception was just stunning - Lisa, the planner, carried it out perfectly, but made sure she gave credit to Erin - the styling was all Erin's vision, and it was just gorg.

I just thought it fit in every way with what I know about Erin and Raff, and I think that's what makes a wedding day really memorable and special. The touches all felt personal and seamless. Whether or not you're a tent-in-a-field kind of couple or a ball room is more your speed, being true to who you are makes for a beautiful wedding day.

I couldn't be happier to share these photos with you and your friends and family. Thank you so much for having us there and trusting us to take it all in. You guys are amazing!