With 28 weddings booked for 2011 we knew it was going to be a breakout year for Lauren Brimhall Photography. What we didn’t know was that life would throw us a huge curveball, bringing on challenges there’s no way we could have seen coming.
Sean, who wears many hats as both co-owner/2nd photographer for the company, as well as holding up another full-time job, was unexpectedly offered a transfer to Denver, Colorado — something he had been dreaming of for as long as I had known him. I wrote a heartfelt blog to all my brides in the Northeast letting them know that I would be going with him but not to worry, as I still planned to work each and every one of their weddings. I was resolved not to leave a single bride high and dry without a photographer… and despite having to spend the better part of my year living with my mom in PA away from Sean — we made good on that promise.
We did have a couple of weddings that took place before the move, including Danielle’s beautiful waterfront wedding.
We also just adored Natasha’s Philadelphia wedding, where we were able to shoot at the famous Love Park and the Please Touch Museum.
As of April 4, 2011, Sean and I packed up our entire house, four cats and our giant American Mastiff Cheddar and drove across the country. We still had the house to sell in PA, and were stuck renting a small apartment with all five animals eating off a TV stand. Now we by no means could afford a plane ticket for each of the 28 weddings I had booked in PA this year, so Sean and I planned for me to move in with my sister in PA and stay there for large chunks of time with the highest concentration of weddings to reduce the number of plane tickets we’d have to purchase.
My first trip was just for one week, during which time I married off Jessica and Brad and Julie and Mike. The Luzerne County Courthouse made a great location for Jessica’s rainy wedding day, and Julie celebrated her nuptials at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn.
My second trip was from May 5th to May 16th, which allowed me time to shoot several engagements as well as Mallory and Will’s classy country wedding.
I got back just in time to second shoot my first Colorado wedding at the Omni Interlocken Resort Hotel with Jared Wilson!
June was a LONG month! I was in PA from June 2 to the 26th, so almost a full month away from Sean! Couldn’t complain about all of the beautiful weddings, though!
There was Andrea and Don’s vintage baroque peacock-theme wedding at Calarussos LaPalazzo:
Our amazing cancer survivor Willie and his beautiful wife Lili:
Katie and Darren’s Intimate Philadelphia wedding:
Amanda and Lester:
And Megan and Rob:
I was only back in Colorado for two short weeks when I had to fly back to PA for a whopping SIX weeks from mid-July to the end of August. My only consolation was that the weddings those months were completely amazing, and Sean was able to fly out to work a lot of them with me!
First on the list of the seven weddings I had scheduled for those months was Jenna’s Bank St. Annex wedding in Bethlehem, PA.
That was followed by Josette and James’ New York City royal wedding, with ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a reception at the Roosevelt Hotel!
Kelly and Joe were our next couple to tie the knot in Skytop, PA. The Skytop Lodge is a beautiful venue, and as close as you can get to an actual castle in the Poconos!
If I had to give an award for best details at a reception, it might very well have gone to Nicole and Jeff for their absolutely stunning Scranton Cultural Center Reception. Trusty Nay Aug Park was a lovely location for their wedding photos as well.
August saw a rainy wedding for Mackenzie and Dave, but they met it with smiles and laughter. Their intimate event at the Loft at Sweetwater chilled our fingers but warmed our hearts!
Naomi and Jen’s wedding marked two firsts for us, our first Jewish wedding and our first same-sex wedding. The more we got to know these two, the more we just loved their style!
Liz and Matt had a wonderful Hungarian wedding, and their photos by the lake at Mountain Spring Lakes Resort were definitely memorable!
I caught a short break in September, finally getting to come back to Colorado for a few weeks, but during wedding season there’s always weddings to be shot, and Amanda and Will’s wedding in Loveland, Co, was my second Colorado wedding of the year.
By this point I had finally reached Ascent status on Frontier Airlines, lol, and I was to enjoy FREE TV for all of my last two whole trips back to PA for you guessed it, MORE WEDDINGS. Erica and Greg’s mid-September wedding was an afternoon affair, but you never would have guessed after they blacked out the reception hall and many of their inebriated guests were blinded by the daylight on the way out! We thought Florentine Gardens was a pretty neat venue, too!
Then came our September 23, Sept. 24 double header, where Sean and I worked back to back weddings for Carolyn and Mike and Kristen and Tom. We just loved Carolyn’s Sottero Midgely wedding dress, and after being eaten alive at Kristen and Tom’s wedding, they popped our “Dougy” dance cherries!
I had four flights in October, which first allowed me to work Stef and Tim’s unique Manayunk Brew Pub Wedding.
And the following day I second shot Nikki and Bob’s big fat Greek Mendenhall Inn Wedding for Jim Heine. Always love working with Jim, and this wedding was a real blast!
Two more weddings closed out October, including Erin and Matt’s, our famous Alice in Wonderland couple! What? You didn’t recognize them without the pasty skin and orange eyebrows? LOVE Erin and the Matter!
Renae aka Mrs. Dreamer Bride was our awesome blogger bride for “It’s a Bride’s Life” and she’s blogged about us multiple times since we first worked together for their Longwood Gardens Engagement earlier this year. We’ve been so grateful to have her and Shamus as clients, and their Fall wedding at the Woodloch Resort in Hawley, PA, was just lovely.
November brought Sarah and Jason’s wedding, the best part of which was the reception! It was about one invisible-ball dance away from “Rave” status!
In December we shot our final wedding of the year for Eric and Sarah. It was an adorable little winter, chapel wedding in Brighton, Colorado.
When all was said and done, Sean and I drove my car back to Denver, completely worn out and with a new appreciation for one another. I’m so grateful to see his face almost every day, and extremely proud of what we accomplished together in 2011. I couldn’t have done it without him, or the awesome support of the most wonderful brides any photographer could have asked to work with. Thank you to everyone who made 2011 possible, and buckle your seatbelts, cause 2012 is here!