After the Spring lay-off, we've plunged back into wedding season head on and, man, it's been awesome. This year feels so much different than past years. We're coming into our sixth season as full-timers and we have officially photographed our 350th wedding. When I figured that out, I thought maybe it should give me pause. But really it only reminded me how completely insane our first couple of years were when we shot close to 60 weddings each year. It was crazy and we burned ourselves out pretty hard on some triple-wedding weekends. We didn't really have a plan then for how to succeed at doing this stuff and we didn't know how to find the kind of couple whom we could really connect with. We just would get lucky sometimes and some of those couples whom we shot back then would refer other amazing couples and the ball just kept rolling. And we figured if we worked like crazy, eventually we would figure it all out. We're still pretty darned far from figuring it all out, but we do consistently get the kind of clients now who make this SUPER easy to do.

My obvious segue is to Katie and Shaun, who have been everything we could hope for. A day that was about connecting friends and family and everyone having an unbelievably good time. Plus they're cuter than anything and fun to shoot.

No doubt - Katie + Shaun surrounded themselves with an amazing group. They're family and friends really just had fun and enjoyed the day. At one point, I said to Katie that it was such a shame her friends weren't having any fun, because they were truly just laughing and smiling and joking the ENTIRE day.

When we leave weddings, we clearly have that day on the brain, and Rich and I often drive home talking about what went well for the day, how we might help couples in the future avoid certain issues (timelines, etc.), but when we came out of Katie + Shaun's reception, all we could talk about was how right they got it. They had a nice, relaxed timeline, incredibly low stress, and they had fun. And when the day is rushed, stressful and therefore less fun - well, that's just not what one of the best days of your life should be like. And I'm so happy when we get a couple like Katie + Shaun who have a good time - and I think it could've been all blizzardy on them and their day still would've been just as amazing.

We got some rain, but Buffalo brides are too tough to care about such things.

Kindof an off-hand thing to mention (like that ever stops us on a blog post), but I was really struck by something the monsignor said during his homily. He was talking about how marriage is about losing. He framed it negatively for effect, but his point was that it's never really a 50-50 compromise when you're in a relationship. Each issue you face as a couple and everything that you do together is really a race to see who can out-do the other in, well, I guess you would say service. That idea appeals to me not because I think you should be a push-over in a relationship, but because I think to get things really right you always need to focus on the needs of your partner. I think when our marriage is at its best is when we're doing that.

For instance, today I was at the co-op and I focused on your need for Lake Effect Salted Caramel Ice Cream. Because I'm awesome.

Tee hee - you are awesome! The ONLY negative to having kids is having to wait three hours after your husband mentions Salty Caramel being in the freezer before you can actually consume it :) Thank you - that's exactly what I needed today!

A lot of the time, we find ourselves traveling somewhere a half-hour away for portraits on a wedding day, and we often comment along the drive that there were a hundred places we could've shot on the way. And sometimes we drive far away because a location means something to a couple (which is cool), but sometimes it doesn't. And when that happens, we always want to go back and convince the couple to shoot closer and give our couple more wedding day time and less traveling time. And what I loved so ridiculously much about K+S's planning was that they picked a spot maybe three minutes away from the church for photos, and it was perfect. Their colors worked so well with the gray + brick + cobblestone of the area, and it gave us more time for portraits, no time-related stress, time to hit up another spot on the way to the reception and got them there with time to relax instead of having them run right into an on-going cocktail hour.

Also, Rich is right - you guys couldn't be more adorable!

And it was, above all, FUN. Absolutely no one wants their wedding day to grind to a halt to go make lame photos. We want the portrait time to be this fun and memorable thing while it's going on. Frankly, we have a really good time doing this. It's almost absurd how good this is to do and how good I feel when I go back through a wedding day and edit the photos. Alyssa, how good is that sly smile of Katie's in the that one photo where she's resting back on Shaun??

I know, right? She killed those! Anyway, we've been jabbering on forever, and K+S probably would be pretty happy if we stopped writing so much and just let them see their darn photos already :) So, I'm gonna wrap things up and just say thank you, guys. Thank you a million times over for letting us hang out with you and your fabulous wedding. We had such a good time, and we're so happy you had us along! Thank you, again, for being so awesome!