Category: Couples

As if landing the sister of your former client isn’t a high enough compliment, Geoff and I apparently won over the future groom at Gwen+Nick’s wedding as well. Bethany told me on the phone that while her fiancé Kevin goes with the flow of wedding planning, he was pretty adamant that he wanted us to photograph their wedding as well. I love when the grooms like us. :) But even if I didn’t already have a soft spot in my heart for these two, they would’ve won me over in about 30 seconds anyway. :) This was the most playful engagement session I think I’ve photographed (Bethany did tell me on the phone that “…Kevin will be fine, we’ll just put him on the playground…” which turned out to be incredibly true), and two of the most happy-go-lucky people I’ve met. I think it shows, which is good considering Bethany told me, “You know those engagement sessions where everyone is all serious and they don’t even look happy to be engaged? Yeah, we don’t want that.” So I told them to just have a good time… and they did. :)

Without risk of ruining their whole meeting/first date/proposal story (let’s save it for their July wedding blog post, shall we?), I’ll give you Bethany+Kevin: fierce Words with Friends competitors, riders of ostriches, conquerors of the sandpit dinosaur rodeo.

I like these two a lot. They’re really, really silly and not afraid of their silliness. They’re also really fun and outgoing and not afraid of geese. Christina is Andrew’s striking older sister in a sibling trio who all have fantastic brown eyes (or at least 2 out of 3 since I haven’t met the oldest sister… but I’m assuming she also has awesome eyes). Steven is her partner-in-crime-and-silliness, who ironically warned me that Christina would photobomb all of the pictures, then proceeded to photobomb them all himself. :) They were set up by Christina’s sister who was Steven’s best friend in college. Their first date was bowling, where Christina crushed Steven’s score but not his heart (badum-ching!), and Christina has since moved back to Pittsburgh (from Philadelphia where she went to school) to be with him as they plan for their September wedding in the ‘Burgh. :)

We started off the session at the street corner where their first kiss took place, and ultimately their engagement (cute!). It looked awfully doomy and overcast, but by the time we got to the city it was all blue sky and fluffy clouds! I think these two are just a ray of sunshine on a Pittsburghy day. :)

Ben grew up in Indiana and came to North Carolina for college but ended up in New York City, NY while Amy grew up in Raleigh but went to college in Ithica and winded up in New York City, NY, only to come back to Durham for their engagement session at Duke University. GOT IT? Good! :D

So both Amy and Ben were in the same states at kind of roughly the same time periods but nothing ever really overlapped. Amy was introduced to Ben through a cleverly-disguised blind date set up by their mutual friends while she was visiting New York City (Ben already lived there at this point). They spoke to each other online for a few months while Amy was finishing up school/cleverly devising a way to get back to New York City while in Ithica. She visited him often, one thing led to another, etc., and it all accumulates into a very happy wedding this September at Temple Beth and 1705 Prime in Raleigh! For now they remain happily situated in New York where Ben works for a software company and Amy is a physical therapist.

So why Duke University? Ben went to college at Duke and they dig the architecture and the general space (it also reminds Amy of Cornell, where she went to school). And I was sooo super happy and delighted that parts of the campus actually had flowers and leaves and things that were bright and happy! It’s kind of hit or miss around in the area right now as to whether or not all of the grass is completely dead or bright green. :) Anyway – I had a great time with these two nice and fun and adorable people and look forward to their triumphant return to North Carolina in September!