Muse: Pittsburgh wedding and portrait photography

Here is a session with Lizzy and Eric, (sister and brother) from Columbus, Ohio! They were great models…here are a few shots from the day.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Maura and Jordan are wonderful people. They met, fell in love, and had little Micaiah.

We spent a lovely afternoon at the park trying to get Micaiah to smile.

Success!!

Isn’t she so sweet?

I love how Maura is looking at Jordan here. What a great family!

The lovely girls.

And of course one of mom and dad by themselves.

Maura and Jordan, it was such a pleasure to meet all three of you! Keep smiling.

You can view their complete slideshow here: Maura & Jordan : Family Portrait

Oh… P.S. Check out the Muse page on Facebook and don’t forget to “like” us. You can see our page here!

Molly is English and Eliot is American. They met while while playing basketball. Their wedding was a fun Jewish/Catholic affair with lots of laughing, dancing and happiness! The backdrop for the day? The ever impressive Grand Concourse. Oh did I mention they had cupcakes from Coco’s Cupcakes, a fresh donut station and a candy buffet?! Yum!!

Molly has great taste in fashion. Love her short 50’s style dress, which she paired with ’statement’ shoes to compliment the blue lining inside of Eliot’s vintage style English 3 piece tailored suit.

The beautiful bride (image below by Kelly).

Cupcakes, candy and donuts… oh my! (images of donuts by Kevin)

The reception was a good time.

It was a really REALLY good time.

And we ended the night with the Hora. I think this description of the Hora from theknot.com sums up the picture quite nicely:

“No Jewish wedding is complete without the Hora, or chair dance, most likely derived from the tradition of carrying royalty on chairs. A few strong and brave guests hoist the bride and groom high above the crowd on chairs to the infectious sounds of “Hava Nagila”. Friends and family dance around in an ecstatic circle as the elevated couple tries not to look (or fall) down.”

(image below by my awesome second shooter Kevin)

Molly and Eliot, your wedding was a blast. Thanks for having us and I wish you a lifetime of happiness as you start your life in Chicago.

Oh wow… it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. My apologies to the blog readers (some of whom have “lovingly” told me they were mad at me). Life just got soooo incredibly busy and the first and well… maybe the ONLY thing to have really suffered was the blog (oh and my social life, but no one cares about that anyways ).

Wedding season for us this year started in early May with some gorgeous couples and wonderful venues.

We start with Kawa and Dan.

Kawa planned her entire wedding from California with help from friends and family. Dan is from the Pittsburgh area and of course, a HUGE Steelers fan. Their ceremony was held at St. Mary of the Mount overlooking the beautiful city of Pittsburgh.

Kawa was a stunning bride!

The bride had lived all around the world and some of her friends from far away came to her wedding. I’m no psychic, but I’m guessing she was thrilled to see them!

Some fun portraits on Mt. Washington and at Phipps.

Later on at the reception, both Kawa and Dan changed into these stunning, traditional Chinese garments (image below by my second shooter Kevin).

Thanks for having us on your special day! Much happiness and best of luck in Switzerland!!

Just wanted to share a few images I took recently. These boys all have great names too! Oscar is getting a smooch from his Mimi (top), August was only 2 weeks old with a full head of hair (middle)! So sweet. Harper is going to be a heart-breaker…can you tell (bottom)?!

I  also did a maternity shoot with Heather, who has since had her little girl! Here some photo’s from our session.

Congratulations Heather!

OK, so now it was time to learn French. ha! We did the best we could, which wasn’t much more than hello, goodbye, and a few other basics. We started to use our Eurorail pass and headed up to Lourdes, France from San Sebastian. We booked two places to stay in France before we left, which were both surprisingly cheap! We understood why when we got to Lourdes, but never would have guessed what we got in Marseille. The trains were great & always on time. We were told we should go to Lourdes by my mom’s friend…so we just assumed it was awesome, because she’s awesome. We didn’t do much research on this place before arriving, which was around 9:30 at night. The streets were empty & the town was eery. We found the address we were looking for, but the name of the hotel was different. Turns out they have a few names for the place?!  It was the worst EVER. I felt like we were in a really bad movie and wasn’t sure of the plot. We locked ourselves in our room, and made a plan for the morning; to get up early and get out! I know people have had amazing experiences there (including the Pope), but we just weren’t into it. There was a computer there, so we logged on and tried to find out what this place was all about. One fun fact we found was “with about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels per square kilometer in France after Paris.” Why, you may ask? Well, in 1858 there was a sighting of the Virgin Mary…and many other healing & miraculous things happen there. She was seen in the water, so they now call Lourdes water “magic water”. I wanted some. We had to get something out of this trip! We found a train that was leaving at 7:30am. So, we got up, got our packs on and took off to find this “magic water”. We were sweating by the time we found it, not to mention running out of time! We bought 4 small souvenir bottles to fill up and take back with us. When we walked in the gates, I was speechless. It was so beautiful…but, we were running out of time! What else were we going to do there if we missed our train!? We got the water, took it in as much as we could, and made our way to the train station.

From there we headed to Marseille, France. We were in transit the whole day, and decided that we really just wanted to get to Italy. We arrived late again, and were very tired. A taxi took us to the hotel, which ended up being a 4 star hotel (doesn’t happen when you’re backpacking). This was a huge surprise to us, because when booking this we were in a hurry, and looked for two things: best rated & lowest price we could find. This place was 26 euro, with outstanding ratings…we booked right away. On our way there I said either my bank account was being drained and this place didn’t exist, or …there was a mistake! I love mistakes 4 star hotels in Marseille make. They were changing something on the website the exact moment we were booking and turns out they forgot to add the 0 after 26.  It was meant to be 260 euro!!! They had to give it to us, which was awesome. It was the coolest hotel too, with art everywhere including a painting of Obama in the main entrance. Sweeet. I felt so clean and rested the next day…what a treat! We couldn’t stop laughing about it.

From there we went to Italy! Our first stop was Rome. Our B&B had amazing reviews, and we stayed a whole week just because of this place (our longest stay of the trip). Our host, Giovi,  treated us like family, leaving us gifts in our room, making us breakfast, telling us what to see…she was the berries. We took in all the sights, and got to relax a little too.

I found out things I like in a hotel or hostel are: 1. showers that don’t have the hose, but actually have a wall mount 2. free breakfast 3. good location to the train station. We always tried for a private room, and free wifi was a plus. We did pretty good with our picks. France gave us winners for both best and worst. And, although we didn’t really get to see southern France, the train ride through was beautiful. I would go back there if it were summer and I had a lot of money! Here are some pictures from the beautiful city of Rome.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back with more.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that I was in Mexico for a wedding. Ryan and Dienna are one of those fun couples you just love hanging out with. Their families are also wonderfully sweet and such a blast to be around. Here are some of my favorite images from that fabulous, romantic wedding by the beach:

It was a gorgeous day; sand, waves, puffy clouds, light breeze, and amazing scenery. What more could you ask for?

The day ended with a breathtaking sunset , dancing and more good times!

Wishing you both a lifetime of happiness and love!

Cancer.

It’s not a pretty word. Chances are most of you know someone who has been affected by it or it has affected you personally. It can turn your world upside down… but it can also bring people together.

This weekend, on Mother’s Day, I saw hope in the midst of cancer; I saw strength, courage, endurance, tears, love, joy, grace, dedication, and family.

Thousands showed up this year for the Susan G. Komen 5k Race for the Cure event at Schenley Park in Pittsburgh. It was an unusually cold May morning but they came for their aunts, grandmothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, friends, co-workers and countless others affected by breast cancer. Some did it for themselves, having survived it. Everyone came in hope of one day winning the fight against cancer.

I love events like this. One with a great purpose… that brings people from all different walks of life together. One that brings hope to the world.

As some of you may know, Muse is the sister studio of Kimberly Reed Photography. Earlier this year, Kim shared a very personal story about how cancer pushed its way into her life.

I joined in the fight against cancer for many reasons… one of them being my amazing friend Kim.

I also did some traveling during the early part of the year and have decided to share that experience with you! My fiance and I planned a trip to Europe and were gone for all of February and most of March (yes, we missed all of that crazy snow!). We did all the planning ourselves, booking travel and hostels along the way.  In the end, we visited 7 different countries, & stayed in 21 different cities, all in 47 days. We carried one backpack each (thankfully, mine also had wheels).  It was such a great adventure. It seems like a dream to me now, but looking back through my pictures I know it is an experience that will stay with me forever.

From Pittsburgh, we flew into London, where one of my best friends lives. We spent the week there, adjusting to the time change and catching up with everyone (we both had friends there). Rose (my friend) was a great tour guide, having grown up there, she knew all the ins and outs. We loved spending time with her and Tommy. It was the busiest city we were in, and had a great mix of old tradition with a young trendy vibe. Great pubs, museums, and I just love their accents!

Then we flew to Amsterdam. This is where my ancestors are from. One of my top 3 favorites of the trip. It got colder everyday we were there! That didn’t stop us though…we were out walking around the whole time. We spent some time in the Vincent Van Gogh museum, which is rich with color and left us wanting more.  The canals there are amazing (we took a really cool boat tour), the architecture is fun and sophisticated, bikes and boats are everywhere, and all that other stuff you hear about is there too and it’s all worth a visit — I would suggest summertime though!

Then it was off to Spain! I thought by now it would be getting warmer, but that didn’t happen for quite a while. We went to Barcelona first, then San Sebastian. Two very different places. Antoni Gaudi’s Guell park in Barcelona was awe-inspiring. (All of Gaudi’s work is…we also went in the Sagrada Familia, which still isn’t completed but started in 1882!) I could have camped out there for a month, and the details that are carried throughout the park are fantastic! Barcelona is so alive! Pablo Picasso’s museum is there, and tucked away on a small street which we were lucky to find. It truly is a beautiful city. We took a train to San Sebastian, which was recommended to us by a friend as their “favorite place in Europe”. We had to go, and I’m so glad we did! It’s a very classy town. The women wore fur coats and heels, and the men…well, I was too busy looking at those fur coats to notice them! ha! We happened to be there the weekend of the carnival, which was just a lucky coincidence. We went out to explore and kept seeing people in costumes…it was great, everyone was dancing and laughing & I was lost in the moment. We rode the Funicular (which is like Pittsburgh’s incline) up to the very top of everything. On our way back down, we met two American girls…and guess where they were from?! Pittsburgh! One of the girls was wearing a Steelers watch. Amazingly small world.

Stay tuned for part 2…

And if you want to see more pictures, just let me know – I have thousands!

I have to tell you, it was a daunting task to write my first official MUSE blog post (maybe that’s why I put it off for a while). Now that I’m finally writing one, I thought I’d stick to a topic that’s near and dear to everyone’s heart…the Weather. No seriously, what’s up with this weather?

It’s the end of April in Pittsburgh but it feels more like November. We had a few warm and sunny days earlier that seem to mock our chilly hands now, but nothing really concrete that says it is Spring and Summer is right around the corner.

This brings me to my real post (you didn’t really think I would blog about the weather did you?).

Earlier this month, my husband and I travelled to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for vacation and a wedding. The weather was a constant 85 degrees, sunny, with little-to-no humidity. In other words, perfect.

So if you are feeling a tad bit cold and need a warm-up, here are some pictures from the trip: (and if you don’t know where Cabo is, it’s at the bottom tip of the Mexican peninsula that sits right below California)

It’s okay to be jealous. I’m jealous…of the me that was there earlier this month.

If you’re planning to have a destination wedding in Cabo, you know who to call!