Courtney + Brandon || Valley Forge Historical Park || Modern Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Sunrise sessions aren’t for the faint of heart. Not only is a call time of 5:15 mighty early, but you still need to wake up early enough to give yourself time to get ready, get fed, get caffeinated and get to where you’re going. When Courtney + Brandon showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed, I was pretty impressed.

I’ve forgotten how peaceful the early morning is. This particular morning, the birds were singing, the sun joined us and there was a really subtle cool breeze that just made everything comfortable. Add in two people in love with each other and magic happens. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.

C + B: You are troopers. Between the bugs, the swamp, and the mud between your toes, you’re officially my heroes. Thank you for such an easy morning and for sharing your puppy man with me. August, here we come!!

Lisa + Randy || The Carriage House at Rockwood Park, Wilmington DE || Modern Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Our “official” season is here. Two weddings in and I’m already feeling spoiled with sunny skies, warm breezes and happy people.

Really though, this past Saturday held one of the happiest days that I can remember. Things started when we hoped (and planned) they would, went so smoothly and ebbed and flowed with such ease. What mattered most was the joy that poured out of Lisa from the minute we saw her until the minute we left her. Randy’s matched. And when they saw each other? My heart just about exploded right along with theirs. Days like these, surrounded by the good stuff, are why I LOVE this job.

L + R: I love your love. I love YOU. THANK YOU for including me in such a special time in your lives. It was memorable and will be treasured by me for years to come. I hope you’re having an amazing time in New Zealand!

Florence, Italy || Modern Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Firenze was by far our favorite place that we visited. We could have spent the entire week there. Jet lag was completely gone and we explored so, so much.

Florence is rich with history. David is there (several of them, actually). We climbed the Duomo to experience an epic view of the world below (totally earned our pasta that day). It was our favorite (and the most reasonable) place to do our shopping- especially for leather. The food was our favorite too. I can’t believe that I’d order a pork chop, or that it’d be in my top 3 meals of what we ate on the entire trip, but I did and it was. Their gelato was also the best we found and we ate it after breakfast lunch and dinner. We regret nothing.

Next (and last) up….Venice!

San Gimignano, Italy || Modern Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Our second stop was a charming, peaceful and quiet town called San Gimignano. One of our friends frequents Italy and in his travels fell in love with this town too. He helped us plan our trip and thought we’d enjoy this piece of heaven. He was right.

First, I’d like to introduce you to the Fiat. The tiny, but terrifying little manual car that convinced me that I was going to meet Jesus in the Italian countryside. Dave might tell this story a little differently, but to sum up, he thought his stick-shift skills were polished enough to tackle a car like this on winding, hills-o-plenty, speeding native roads. Long story short, I think we may still owe the rental agency money for a new transmission after stalling every time we tried to get out of first gear. Driving it was probably some cruel and unusual trust building activity, and I may have cried more tears in the 2 days we had to use it than I have in our entire marriage, but think we grew closer as a result. So….win?

Despite that trauma, Sangi was breathtaking. Our Villa was a dream. The food was NUTS. And I think we ate Gelato for lunch, snack and dinner. The jet lag began to wear off and we explored a good bit and enjoyed being mostly off the grid. Got to experience one of the most beautiful sunrises I can remember too, so that was a definite win. Enjoy a few shots through our eyes.

Next up…Florence!

Rome, Italy || Modern Philadelphia Wedding Photographer

Three and a half years later, and I’ve finally finished editing our Italy photos. No biggie. Better late than never, right?! (It sure does feel good to cross off what was becoming a life long to-do list item. :))

There’s over 400 photos (I started with 4200…..), and to put them all in one blog would be nuts, so I broke it down into the 4 spots we visited. First up was Rome! After nearly 24 hours of travel, we were out of our minds tired, but tried to stay awake until bedtime. Full disclosure- despite being fascinated with where we were, we could only stay awake until 7pm and fell asleep with gelato, but without dinner (and you’ll see that I took a little nap as soon as we found our little BnB). Out of the 4 places we explored, this was by far the most touristy. We only spent almost a day there, but here’s a glimpse of what we saw!