Dang, this season has been incredible so far. So many fun, beautiful weddings. Rebecca and Ryan tied the knot this weekend and it was so fabulous. I’d been anticipating the awesomeness since they booked last spring and we had a super fun engagement shoot (with their pup Kiyra!) in fall. Becca and Ryan were great to shoot- sweet, a little silly and up for anything. Becca’s mom, Val, works with my mom at Kittelberger’s, who once again killllled it with the flowers.

Let’s start with my favorite… shoes! Buttah.

Val sees her lovely daughter for the first time…

I love it when people cry! That sounds so mean, ha ha.

Flowers of awesomeness.

One of the best things about standing up front during the processional is that I can hear the groom’s reaction. Ryan leaned forward with such anticipation and glee when he saw Becca for the first time and whispered, “Damn!” He he!

The ceremony at Linehan Chapel at Nazareth was very sweet!

Yay!

Linehan is a really cool place to shoot… steps, cool doors, flowers, overall majesticness!

Then we headed to Irondequoit Country Club for the reception (and of course some more pictures!) Hazy evening sunshine and loads of flowers… can’t go wrong. Oh yeah, and a super adorable couple helps too!

Lovely!

Also lovely!

The parent dances were so sweet…

Becca surprised her mom with a sweet pre-recorded letter that she read over the song… Val’s reaction

Speaking of parents, here are mine ha ha…

Ryan kicks off the 4 hour dance marathon…

Wedding MVP was a tough choice this week, but I think I’m gonna go with this gentleman on the left, because that is commitment!

BFF’s!

This shot makes me laugh so hard!

This is probably my favorite party picture of the night… Caitlin and Jerry are friends of mine but I had no idea they were connected with Becca and Ryan. Rock out!

Becca and her brother Brandon

Thanks so much for having me Becca and Ryan, I had so much fun with you! Hope you’re having an amazing time on the honeymoon and that you get to see tons of turtles!

It finally arrived! Alycia and Cameron are married! It was a long time coming… to quickly rehash the backstory on this, I photographed Alycia’s sister Cristyn’s marriage to Mark a few years ago. When Alycia contacted me about her wedding, I discovered that her fiancé and I had grown up on the same street and I totes have videos of him in diapers in a kiddie pool. I’m sure he’s glad I brought that up. Anyway, we had a great engagement shoot in December and it was super fun so I was excited for the wedding!

I showed up at the Rochester Plaza, where Alycia was having her makeup done by (I believe) her cousin, who is a professional makeup artist in California. I wish I had a makeup artist in the family!! She did a fabulous job, I love the gold/grayish combo.

Alycia looked so lovely! Her mom made that necklace, by the way… so pretty!

Alycia and Cameron chose a peacock color scheme and Kittelberger’s knocked it out of the park! LOVE this bouquet.

It’s fun to find random objects to make cool ring pictures with. This is part of a lamp. I love lamp.

The ceremony and reception were under the tent at the Rochester Plaza as well. I hadn’t been back there before but it’s a really cool location… the tent is really pretty and sparkly and it looks out over the river. The ceremony was very sweet.

Alycia and Cameron had a very special ring bearer… their dog Tucker. What a dapper gent!

Married!

Bridal party!

It was really hot during the ceremony and while we were doing pictures, so Mark was pretty much the ultimate hero as he rolled up with five beers (and a purse!) Best bridal party backup ever!

On a bright, sunny day it is so helpful to have shade and objects to modify the light… like in these shots… looooove this light!

Pretty walkway along the river…

Party time!

Cameron and his mom… I haven’t seen Kathy in so long! She was my favorite mom on the block, she always had pop tarts!

Alycia and her step dad had an hilarious choreographed lady gaga dance… love the glasses!

I almost forgot to award the Wedding MVP! Obviously it goes to Cameron, exhibits A, B and C are below:

Yes, he was doing push ups with hand claps.

LOLZ

Sisters!

Cristyn and Mark are expecting… it is so awesome to see so many of my couples adding to their families!

This guy was serious about dancing, and if my instincts are correct, Yacht Rock. (Though, really, everybody loves Yacht Rock!)

Aww, what a pair!

Thank you so much for having me Alycia and Cameron! It was lovely to see everyone, and I hope you are having the best time in Jamaica!!!

Jen has been a guest at two of my past weddings (one of which was my cousin and blog celebrity Kristy’s!) so when she and Jeff got engaged I was thrilled to hear from her about photographing it! I love when I get to shoot multiple weddings within the same circle of friends! When I arrived at Jen’s parents’ house in Buffalo, everyone was buzzing around doing the usual prep. I have to start with a shot of Jen’s gorgeous Badgley Mischka shoes… oh how I love pretty shoes!

Jen was nervous but excited, I think this is the point where things start to get really real!

We headed to the lovely Our Lady of Victory Basilica for the ceremony, where it was approximately 481,516 degrees… celsius. This was the hottest weekend of the year, so things were nice and toasty inside… but it’s so pretty it is worth it! Jeff’s parents were also married here, so carrying on that tradition is beyond cool!

This place is like a dream for a photographer, they let you move around behind the altar but the altar is so high that if you walk around back there nobody can see you so you’re not being distracting… it’s perfect for getting some cool angles during the ceremony.

I loved this moment right after the first kiss… so happy!!

I love bubble exits! And confetti exits! And any other exit that involves throwing things (that won’t cause traumatic brain injuries!)

We headed over to the Japanese Gardens for pictures, what a pretty spot…

It was so hot and bright, but thankfully the gardens had quite a bit of shade for our portraits.

They are so cute together!

And my two favorites…

We headed to Templeton Landing for the reception…

Love this one, so sweet…

Today’s Wedding MVP Award™ goes to my cousin Kristy (nepotism? Too bad, it’s my blog!) who has made many, many, many appearances on my blog, and continues her streak today! I couldn’t decide on a favorite:

Becky and Mike, one of my couples from 2009, looking adorable and happy! They have a baby now, too

The guys had an intense singalong to Toto’s “Africa” because obviously that is the only way to sing “Africa”… there was also some sweet air flute happening during the electric flute solo. That’s one thing the world needs more of, is electric flute solos. Well, and air flute. So two things. Thanks Toto!

Thanks so much for having me Jen and Jeff! Have a wonderful time in St. Lucia!!!

Melissa and Dave have known each other since grade school… Melissa’s parents’ house is a 5 minute drive from Dave’s parents’ lake house. (I really hope I deployed all those apostrophes properly.) They were long time friends and even went to prom together, but didn’t start dating until a few years ago! I loved hearing all their family and friends talk about how perfectly they balance each other out, and I could definitely see it at the wedding… I can’t believe it took so long for them to get together! They are just perfect for each other!

I met the ladies at Melissa’s parents’ house, where the incredibly talented Erica Abdo was working her makeup magic!

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes on the blog may notice that I’m obsessed with fun shoes for brides, Melissa did not disappoint with her gorgeous, sparkly Jimmy Choos.

I love all of the ladies attending to our bride as she gets ready… makes me think of the romantic period!

Look at this gorgeous girl!

The ceremony was at St. Mary’s of Lake, which is a beautiful church.

Yay!

We went to the lake house for a while so the bridal party could hang out for a bit and we took a few photos as well. Everyone was really patient as I blasted them with the flash to balance out the super bright sun on the lake behind them! Thanks guys

We also hit up the lakefront by the Sherwood Inn, where the reception was held. We had some sweet light filtering through the trees… mmm, pretty.

Portrait time… OMG backlit fountain!

Melissa’s dress is so, so stunning.

Oh yeah, the dress has pockets. Yessssssss!

The party at the Sherwood was outstanding, thanks to the guys from Ormond Entertainment.

Wedding MVP of the week goes to Melissa’s dad, on the left… he was rocking it out all night!

This is a shot of Dave trying to coax his dad out onto the dance floor as his dad sort of shrinks back into a potted plant… right when I took it, all I could think of was one of my all time favorite gifs of Homer backing into a shrub. I mean, it’s perfect right?

And this may be my all-time favorite dancing picture… perfect in every way! We can see both of their faces, got some flying Choos, I mean I couldn’t ask for anything better. I don’t even understand the physics of this move, but I love it.

This was the dance floor during the last song of the night… the guys from Ormond killed it on Saturday!

Thanks so much for having me Melissa and Dave, have a wonderful honeymoon!!!

I really love it when couples make their wedding their own… just making little changes here and there to the regular wedding traditions. Marianna and Gordon put so much thought into really making their day exactly what they wanted, and it was such a sweet and loving wedding. Even the priest, who I believe had only met with them once or twice before the wedding, got choked up during the ceremony.

Marianna had her hair and makeup done at Shear Ego… what lovely skin she has! I love a pale bride!

We did a first sight because Marianna and Gordon planned to greet all their guests as they entered the church, which I thought was a really cool idea. This was my favorite moment of the first sight, when Marianna showed off her incredible Kate Spade shoes!

The ring exchange is always a great part of every ceremony. So many grooms have trouble with this and it always elicits a cute reaction from the bride!

This season has been mercifully cool so far, so when we hit Durand Beach for pictures there were only a few other people around. It was a gorgeous spot!

So happy, so sweet.

Favorite.

We took a midday break and met back up at Casa Larga for a few more portraits before the reception. So pretty out there!

I don’t think I have posted a cake cutting picture in a while, but this one totally cracks me up. They had a bit of a tough time cutting through the frosting, so Gordon got really business about it… ha ha ha! Gordon-1, Cake-0!

This guy was a dancing machine! Kelly, my bride from last week, told me that her brother named himself the wedding MVP because of all the pictures of him doing handstands and crowd surfing… I’m thinking I might need to start awarding weekly Wedding MVPs. If so, this guy gets it!

This was an unexpected and delightful surprise! I love the chair lift dance!!

Thank you so much for having me Marianna and Gordon, I’m so happy for you guys, you are so perfect for each other! I hope you’re having a lovely time in Hawaii!!

Another lovely wedding! I had really been looking forward to meeting Kelly and Andy… we had tried valiantly but snow and a 9 month deployment got in our way. Andy is in the Navy and just returned from his long deployment about a month ago, so there was an extra layer of joy this weekend. This was actually my third military wedding, but the first one with uniforms, yesss! (To be fair, one of my brides was a Marine, so it’s not like she was going to wear her uniform!)

Everyone was chill and happy at Kelly’s parents’ house as they got ready…

Gorgeous, glowing bride!

Handsome groom.

The ceremony was at Most Holy Rosary Church, which is a really great place to shoot. It’s actually pretty well-lit and I loooove that Kelly and Andy were reflected in the shiny floor!

Loved this sweet moment when Kelly leaned her head over on Andy’s shoulder… le sigh!

I think my favorite thing about full Catholic ceremonies is all the time between readings and things where the couple can have a few seconds to themselves (sort of, ha ha, I mean there’s only a couple hundred people watching.)

Right as Kelly started walking down the aisle, the priest told me he would invite me onto the altar during communion for some shots… I thought that meant just going up along the sides to catch shots like the one above. Obviously I didn’t have time to clarify, because Kelly and her dad were headed my way, so I pretty much had 5 heart attacks when the priest actually stopped the ceremony after communion to bring me up for this shot. Now I know what it’s like for the bride and groom to have a couple hundred people staring at them! Yikes! It was so funny, I’m sure the look on my on my face cracked up more than a few of the guests. Sweet shot though!

The reception was at Bellevue Country Club, which has an increeeedible view from the 7th hole… check this out!

The light was a bit intense so we waited to do most of the portraits around sunset and it was worth it, if I do say so myself!

Kelly brought along this little flag for some pictures, which I thought was a super cute idea!

So adorable!

This is the one and only time you’ll ever hear me say something good about bugs: I totally like them in this shot.

Ok, let’s talk about this party. These people were ready to ROCK. And rock they did! I don’t think I’ve ever seen people have so much fun… the dance floor was completely packed all night long and everyone was having the best time!

Sisters with their grandpa… so sweet

There were some acrobatics and lots of dirty-dancing-esque-lifts going on, it was pretty hilarious!

Andy, thank you for your service! Kelly and Andy, thank you for having me! I had so much fun photographing you and your families and friends! Have a wonderful time in St. Lucia!