One of my favorite parts of getting to know my clients, is hearing their love story! How they met, the proposal, what they love to do for fun as a couple. It helps me understand who you are as a couple, so that I can help facilitate those authentic interactions in your portraits.

Since I’m all about getting to know each other, here’s my own love story!

How We Met

The first time we met, I had just left the movies with friends to meet up with my newly “21” little sister at a local Jacksonville Beach Florida bar, called The Ritz – the motto of the bar is actually “a great place to meet” 🙂  I was looking for my sister, and spotted her at the bar.  As I walked towards her, he stopped me and said he noticed we were making eye contact.  I said, “umm, no, I was actually looking at my sister.” I seriously didn’t even notice him lol.  We small chatted, and we both went on our separate ways.

The following weekend, my roommate at the time was wanting to meet a guy she started seeing back at The Ritz.  I didn’t want to go, but she convinced me.  When we showed up, the guy she met also brought along a friend – it was HIM!  The guy who said we were “making eye contact” the week before.  He asked if I remembered his name, and I replied, “Of course, it’s Jason”, to which he replied, “No, my name is Chase”. 

To this day, I still think Jason and Chase sound the same 😉

The Proposal

This guy, ya’ll – he is NOT good at keeping surprises a secret.

I literally knew he was going to propose because he would research rings right in front of me!

He even bought a ring, and decided he wanted to get me something better, so he showed me the ring he bought and let me try it on, and said he’s not proposing yet because it’s not the right ring. 

The suspense was real y’all…. (insert eye roll emoji)

But on the night of Christmas, just a little over a year after we met, he did it.  After all the festivities of the day, we got home and he said it looked like there was something in my stocking.  I looked, found the ring (the NEW ring, “THE” ring that he felt worthy of me lol), and he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife.

I said, “YES!”

Our Wedding

Our wedding took place at St. Pauls Catholic Church in Jacksonville Beach Florida on January 22, 2011. 

Celebrations continued at the Ocean Breeze Conference Center on Mayport Naval base, which is the only beach front venue we could find to hold all of our guests. My wedding was big ya’ll – our immediate family, extended family, friends, our parents friends, our grandparents friends.  It was a lot lol

Some of my most favorite photographs to look at, are the ones that show feeling.  The photos of my husband crying as I walked down the aisle towards him with my dad, who was also crying.  Our family and friends smiling faces as they cheered us on as we walked back down the aisle as husband and wife.  The fun dancing photos of me and my friends, the money dance with our guests, the surprise hula performance by my sisters and cousins, my husband being goofy as he pulled the garter off my leg, and my dad breakdancing and almost breaking his back during a dance off haha.  The sparkler exit! 

One of the most special things to us now, are those photos with loved ones who have since passed on.  Through those photos, seeing their happy faces, it brings me back to that happy day and it helps us to relive those moments with them.

I’m so thankful to have all of those memories documented.  Our wedding album is by far my favorite book to look at and  share with our children.

HERE’S OUR WEDDING VIDEO THAT MY UNCLE CAPTURED ON AN OLD SCHOOL HOME VIDEO CAMERA 🙂 WE LOVE THIS VIDEO!