P.S. I’m especially happy to post this just a day after President Obama came out in support of gay marriage. Hooray!

I politely disagree. They are absolutely adorably (and photogenically) in love.

I always want to do the absolute best for my clients. That’s why I’ve spent a long time second shooting for other photographers and investing in education. Last summer, I attended the Roots Workshop on Cape Cod. It was an intense and inspiring experience, allowing wedding and portrait photographers to have an opportunity to learn more about photojournalism and visual storytelling. I was really lucky to have a pair of amazing mentors – Tyler Wirken and Rachel LaCour. The experience definitely helped me become a little more fearless.

Since then, I’ve exchanged a number of e-mails with Rachel about the fears that come before shooting a wedding. For example: I didn’t sleep well for a week before I shot Meredith and Dave’s DC wedding. Well, Rachel happens to be one of the curators at The Photo Life, a site that provides educational resources for photographers, and she suggested I write a blog post on the topic. Ooh boy, the fear bells were ringing in my head – danger, danger! But, in light of my recent resolution to say yes to more experiences and opportunities, I decided to go for it.

Head over to The Photo Life to see the full post about why fear is a good thing. And please, let me know what you think!

I always like to find out what my couples want from their engagement photos. When I asked what they want to feel when looking at their engagement photos, they said they want to feel “that we are both two long-accustomed “old shoes” *and* that our life together is full of new possibilities.” Isn’t that such a lovely sentiment?

Well, one day, as too-often happens, I was aimlessly poking around the internet. One link or another lead me to the website The Bloggess and the traveling red dress project. In a nutshell, putting on a bright red dress can be an audacious act of self-affirmation (for more on the project, start here, then continue here). Intrigued, I clicked through to their Facebook page. Seeing the generosity of the people involved – offering to send dresses, soliciting red dresses on behalf of friends, photographers offering up their services to capture a red dress moment – I was inspired to say yes to this project. I posted my contact information, not sure whether it would disappear into the Facebook ether if I would have a number of requests.

I received one e-mail.

In the e-mail, D. wrote to me, telling me she was trying to get a red dress and a photographer for one of her best friends, K, who’d been through some difficult times. And K’s story – it’s not mine to share. But I can share some pictures of that afternoon, when the two of us took a little leap of faith, and said yes to the red dress and each other.

P.S. Wondering about the laptop? Shorit’s parents were in India, so joined the ceremony via the computer. Their speeches had everyone in tears.