She’s 6 years younger than I am. We spent our weekends growing up dancing in front of mirrors and playing the original Super Mario World on her Nintendo Game System. We celebrated our birthdays together, since they’re 9 days apart, and wore the same dresses, made by my mom, to our fabulous parties. You could safely say that Elizabeth and I grew up together.
Now, as her April wedding draws closer, I can’t help but to feel old. I’ve been married what seems like forever, have an army of children and have moved far away from home to pursue my career and build my photography business. She’s just starting… but nonetheless, she’s starting her life with an amazing, ultra fabulous guy, Jose. Those two together are just awesome and I loved watching them interact with each other…as if they too, had been married forever.
Engagement sessions, for me, are a blast. It’s a chance to let creativity flow, to have fun, to just shoot carefree. In the same vein, however, I still want to document personalities and love and connections. Elizabeth and Jose made that super simple. I don’t know if it’s because I’m family, but for certain it’s because they are truly in love and their personalities just come out naturally because they are comfortable around each other. They know each other as if they were the other, finish each other’s sentences, know each other’s idiosyncrasies…just complete one another.
It was my honor to capture an afternoon’s worth of that for my niece and her honey. Almost as much as the honor I will have to document their wedding.
So enough already… let’s get to the good stuff!
I miss Florida architecture sometimes…
I took them to Worth Avenue…we roamed the streets of Palm Beach and found a plethora of AMAZING nooks and crannies. SIDE STORY: Fefe’s dad, whom I will forever affectionately refer to as Daddy, since I’ve known him since I was 3 and nearly lived at my sister’s house, was amazing with a camera. I have fond memories of us going out to Palm Beach at night to pose for pictures in the alcoves of Worth Avenue. So insanely weird for me to be doing that now! SIDE SIDE STORY: We call her Fefe because her younger sister, Jasmine, couldn’t pronounce Elizabeth when she was younger. We all have nicknames in our family — I refuse to share mine here and would delete any comments that include the horrific name that I’ve acquired as my nickname. 
Just a warning to all the family members that read this — LOL!
We quickly made a dash around the Society of the Four Arts. Security guard following closely behind…we just discovered yesterday that there is a fee for shooting professional photography there. The gardens, however, were AWESOME!
Look at Miss Sassy! Isn’t she beautiful!?
And this series? SWOON!
And Jose? Uber talented… I hear that he’s got some mad skillz with a guitar. I can’t wait to here him play his version of Guantaramera.
She’s better at Poker than he is…
Oh and the outfit change? Naturally, I’m going to want to shoot on the beach when I’m sniffing it in the air 20 feet away from it. Unless I live in Pine Valley (for All My Children watchers — which Fefe and I grew up watching — thanks to her mother, my sister), there are no beaches in Pennsylvania.
I know I’ve left you wanting more…check out their SLIDESHOW…I had a hard time dwindling down images and they ended up with a TON of them in there.
Fefe and Jose…well, you know that I love you. Well leave it at that… MUAH!
