Last weekend was our first double header of the season.  We shot Bill and Karin’s wedding on Friday at Glen Foerd Mansion.  Glen Foerd is a perfect place to have a wedding.  The grounds and the estate are so unflippingbelievable.  If you get a chance to shoot there, you should totally go for it!  It’s ahhmazing!

The weather was absolutely perfect.  I don’t think they could have had a more awesome day!

Enjoy some of our favorites from their wedding!

PS.  I know this is rather short for me…I’m quite the chatty Kathy, but we have a little sick kiddo tonight.  So sorry for the short post!

xoxo

Melissa.

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Have you created your summer bucket list yet?  I hope so!  It started yesterday!  If you want to know more about it, you should check out The Happy Family Movement.  They are our amazingly awesome/incredibly inspiring friends.  Not only should you sign up for the summer bucket list challenge, you should also follow them.  Seriously, you will love them as much as we do!

Why are we doing the bucket list challenge?  Well, for the obvious reasons and because family time in the summer is most challenging for us.  We are wedding photographers, and most of our weekends are booked up throughout the summer.  It’s also a crazy busy time for us. It’s really easy at that point to be so busy with work that August seems to roll around so quickly and the girls are back in school. We then realize, we haven’t had much of a summer with them. Then I wish for a redo.  And that my friends, is the worst feeling.  The older I get, the more I realize that life is about balance.  We work a lot and there are days where we will work long days, but we do that so we can take off whenever we want and spend that time with our family.  I refuse to be one of those people that regrets not being able to really enjoy them growing up.

So our bucket list is filled with some more adventurous things, but also really simple little things too.   Like making shapes with clouds and catching fireflies.  It may seem small and maybe a little silly, but these are things the girls love.  Of course our girls love the zoo and the beach, but they also love to lay on the ground at night and count stars, just as much.  What matters to them most is that they are having fun with mommy and daddy.

That’s what this challenge means to us.  To appreciate the little things, stop randomly working mid week and go out and knock off something on our bucket list.  Something they will enjoy doing as well as us!  I also look at this challenge as simply a reminder.  A reminder that we have two six year olds that are getting older each year (apparently I cannot do anything about that).  It’s also a reminder that we have only one chance to raise our girls, there are no re-dos and how we raise them will shape who they are as grown ups.  By enjoying the little things as an adult that we all loved as a child, we hope that our girls will be like this with their kids.

Below is our bucket list!  We’d love to hear yours!

The last two we plan to do quite frequently!  The girls help create this list, and two of the things they love most in the summer is playing freeze tag (they cheat) and swimming.  They wanted to add those in the list, but I stuck them at the end because we are going to do those a lot.  We may be adults, but who doesn’t love freeze tag and swimming?!?!

We were all a little worried about Saturday’s weather forecast.  The chance of rain and thunderstorms was at 80%.  I was really hoping the forecast would be off enough to allow them to have their ceremony outside.  Trump National offers a gorgeous outdoor ceremony spot. Luckily, the rain held off for the majority of the day!  It’s amazing how things always have a way of working out

Below are some of our favorite images from Harry and Sara’s wedding!

I love this first image.  You can see the Philly skyline from the venue.   On a sunny day you can see it clearly.  On a rainy-ish day, it’s a foggy view.  I love the foggy view!

I loved the colors that they chose for their wedding day.  I don’t think you could ever go wrong with peach

Probably my most favorite outdoor ceremony location, ever.  It’s really beautiful!

I loved these girls.  Thank you for being so awesome to work with!  I said give me flirty and although it took a few tries, haha,  I’d say you girls can pull off a good flirty ;0)

This shot makes me happy!

These too…  :)

This is the first wedding we’ve shot that did lanterns.  I love this idea.  It can be a little tricky, but so worth the trickery.

Enjoy Costa Rica you love birds!

xoxo.

Melissa.

____________________________________

Wedding Details

Venue:  Trump National

Florist: Leigh Florist

Entertainment: Dynamic Crew

Officiant: Friend Brandon

Cake: DiBartolo Bakery

Dress: Mori Lee, Kay Bridal

Hair and Makeup: Salon Escada

Photographers: M2 Photography

Last month, we got to shoot something completely different than we are used to.  We shot some creative commercial portraits for Works Design Group.  We did something different with each person.  Something that describes them or their personalities.  We love this crew.  They were loads of fun to spend the day with.   Michael was 20(ish) feet up in the air attached to a harness.  Each of the team members collaborated a creative shot using props and the cement floor below.  We shot looking down at them as if creating a real life portrait.   You can imagine, we got some pretty interesting stuff!  :)

One thing we learned is that you shouldn’t text and drive…whether that be a car, a boat, or a bicycle .  The outcome could be devastating in every situation.

Two shots of Chris’s portraits.

Our girls like to play tag.  A lot.  Freeze tag most of the time.  And they cheat.  They’ll run to each other if they are frozen to unfreeze themselves.  Haha.

Sometimes, I don’t feel like running around.  I’m tired, or trying to get some work done, or [insert lame excuse here].  When my girls are grown up they won’t ask to play tag anymore.  Same goes for the kids in your life.  This weeks picture is to remind us to have fun, stop working, get off our asses, and play tag.  It actually is fun and we get a bit of exercise!  It may not seem like a big deal but in the grand scheme of things it is.

It would be awesome to have a huge game of tag.  Like 50 people.  And we all get water guns!

This image was taken April 16th, 2013 @ 4:50pm

Michael

Wedding season is in full swing, you’ll be hearing from us more often We’ll be blogging some of our favorite wedding images. We’ll also be doing more informational posts too this year Some tips and tricks for brides to be, anything that can help a bride and groom on their big day. We’ll be posting more DIY projects, more personal projects, and last but not least, some encouraging blog posts.   Sometimes, you just need a little ass kicking to start your day!  And yes, I can say that on here, because it’s our blog ;0)

It’s Friday, I just finished having breakfast with our little ladies and I can’t help but feel completely grateful. Grateful for the little things, grateful for where life has led us and where we will go from here, and grateful for the people in it.  Being wedding photographers, we meet some really amazing people.  Two of those people are Nick and Gabbi.  This couple is so down to earth, unbelievably funny, and a complete joy to be around.

Another thing I love about them is they are one of our high school sweetheart couples.  They’ve been together for 11 years.  To me, that is a big deal!  Could you imagine meeting the love of your life, your soul mate in 9th grade?!  That is so rare!

Enjoy some of our favorites

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Melissa.

A little record of some wedding crashing.  This lady was a wedding crasher, but her nonchalant demeanor, had me giggling.

It’s Friday and our summer heavy wedding season kicks in full force tomorrow!  So, I figured today is a perfect day to share some (a lot) images from our recent trip to Puerto Rico.

The reason we took a trip to Puerto Rico, Michael and I did a little scouting for one of our future m2 goals.  This “goal” will take some time, but it’s in the works…and it’s super awesome, however, I’m not going to tell you.  At least, not now ;0)

We also went because we needed a vacation. A time to unplug and spend quality time together as a family.  We love to travel with our girls.  They are not spoiled, at least not by any materialistic measure, but we will spoil them with experience any chance we get.  This was their first time out of the country.

We took a six day trip to Fajardo, Puerto Rico.  It rained a few days, but even on it’s rainiest day, the island was still beautiful.  We are not the type of people to just stay on the resort the entire time.  What fun is that?  We like to get out, see all that we can, experience the culture…(anything that is not so Americanized).  We like finding little restaurants to eat at that are not so touristy.  This gave Ava and Bella (and us too) a chance to use the little spanish they know.

Puerto Rico, like everywhere else, has it’s rough areas.  But for the most part, we found the locals to be pretty welcoming and warm.

If you’ve every seen one of our travel posts, you know that we document from beginning to end.  It’s hard not to!  I apologize in advance…we were a bit all over the place this vacation.  We shot with our phones (a lot), our camera Daryl (D700), as well as 5 rolls of film.  Ya know, to spice things up a bit.  ;0)

We entertained ourselves by having a few races while waiting 30 minutes for our booster seats to come through the belt.

Our Kia sportage rental, which was the WORST rental we’ve ever had.  Okay, it wasn’t terrible, but I’m still bitter that the usb port didn’t work and I couldn’t charge my phone, haha.

We also had to stop on the road because I got a kick out of their roadkill.  We see deer, they see iguanas.  Weird.

One perspective of our hotel,  El Conquistador.

I would not mind waking up to this view every morning.  Sunset over the rainforest was just breathtaking!

Ava and Bella kept a journal of the trip.  Every day they wrote down what they did and their favorite part of the day.  Things like this make us happy!

I’m probably the most annoying person to vacation with.  I’m a 100% do-er.  I’m usually the last one to fall asleep at night and the very first one up (this never happens in every day life).  One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to watch every sunrise.  Ava got up to watch it with me, but I’m sure Michael and Bella loved hearing my obnoxious alarm (which was on the loudest setting), at 5:40am EVERY MORNING!  I’m also the type of person that right after sunrise, we need to get ready, eat breakfast and start doing.  At least I can say by being this way, we make the most of the time ;0)

Another perspective of our resort.

The resort is a great family resort.  They have their own private island, which has the softest white sand we ever felt, amazing views, games, water sport rentals, and calm pretty blue water to swim in.  Our girls loved it!  You have to take a ferry to Palomino Island.  It’s a really fun ride when the water is a little rough, haha. I totally recommend it.

Some people do not believe in God, and that is their own choice.  I see this and all I think about is God and the beauty he created. Beauty is all around us, everywhere.

The Kioskos in Luquillo, one of the little awesome towns we explored.

On Friday we stopped at Lluvia Deli for breakfast before heading to the rainforest.  This place has seriously the best coffee we’ve ever had in our life!  Their food was delicious and the family that owns the place are incredibly friendly.

El Yunque rainforest is breathtaking! This was our first real rainforest experience!   I wasn’t expecting it to rain as much as it did.  I’m not sure what we expected, but not this!  At first, we weren’t thrilled, but after about 5 minutes in the car wondering if we wanted to buy ponchos, we thought, heck….why not?!  Let’s do this! We’re in a rainforest..in Puerto Rico!

What should have taken an average person, 90 minutes to walk, took us about 3 hours. {in pouring down rain}

Even gloomy days look pretty here!

Saturday we headed to Old San Juan.  Saturday was also my birthday (still 27…) and also our 5 year anniversary, which really feels like 25 (happily though).  We call this special day our Birthaversary.  We had the girls take some pictures of us…the middle one is my favorite.  Bella’s finger in the picture makes it so much better!  The girl has skills.

Can anyone please tell me why there are so many cats in Puerto Rico?  I’ve never seen so many!  We probably shouldn’t have been petting them, but we couldn’t help it.  The girls and I wanted to take a few of them home!

Ava wants to be a Butterfly doctor when she gets older.  Not sure if that exists, but I can see her being the first if it doesn’t!  She also wants to open a butterfly museum for kids, which I think is the coolest thing ever!  She really liked this place!

A little easter bunny surprise

Bella’s newest friend!

A little rain never hurt anyone, right?  How about a lot of rain?  Well, it didn’t keep us away.  It was nice having the island practically to ourselves.  It would rain, the sun would come out, it would rain again, the sun would come back out…I didn’t mind.

Our last sunrise!  The sun was covered by a cloud, but the sky was still amazing!

Our last day in PR

Ava took the first two

hmm…quite challenging!

They crack me up!

If you haven’t been to Puerto Rico and you get the chance, you should go.  It’s beautiful!

For our next trip, we promised the girls monkeys…lots of them.   And monkeys they shall get.  Who wants to go to Costa Rica?!!?!  :)

Happy Friday!!

Melissa.

Remember playing on a trampoline?  Remember how cool it was to see static electricity?  Well it’s fun.  And a lot less creepy when you’re not alone.

This image was taken April 27th, 2013 @ 6:50pm.
Michael.

How many people can say they found their soul mates when they were just 14 years old?  Two of our future couples can say that.  That blows my mind.  It also melts my heart.

Alex and Brooks (she’s Alex, he’s Brooks) are one of those couples.  They started dating over 9 years ago.  We are shooting their wedding this August at Winterthur, on their 10 year anniversary.  Being high school sweethearts, they wanted to start the shoot where they had first met, their high school.   We had a blast with them.  They are fun, very much in love, and not to mention they have the coolest names!

Enjoy!  Happy Thursday!

Melissa.

I haven’t much to say this week.  I’m simply feeling grateful to have such beauties in my life to photograph.  =0)

This image was taken April 11, 2013 @ 6:49pm.

Enjoy your weekend!

Michael.