Maureen & Sean | Engagement Session at Greendance Winery in Mt. Pleasant, PA

You do know that it’s a small world after all, right?
Well, let me tell you just how (delightfully) small it is.

Last summer, I received an inquiry from my website from a sweet girl asking about an engagement session.
(I’ll let you in on a little behind the scenes:) Whenever I receive an inquiry and the person has written just one or two sentences in my comment box, that typically (not all the time, but a solid 70% of the time) means that that person is just “window shopping”. They are just passing through, likely sending out dozens of inquiries to photographers (and copy+pasting the same sentences over & over again).

But when someone writes me an entire paragraph – or two or three paragraphs – that’s when I get excited because this person is actually very interested in talking to me about being their photographer! (Let’s just say: since I’m a long-winded person, I tend to attract other long-winded people!)

In other words: I knew right away that Maureen & I would be best friends.
She wrote me a whole mini-book within her inquiry.
Can you say: “love at first sight”?

Her story is even better!
Maureen found me because I photographed one of her best friends’ weddings (way back in 2017)!
But here’s where the “it’s a small world” part comes in: it was a wedding I photographed in North Eastern Pennsylvania (when Derrick & I lived up at the opposite end of the state). This bride-to-be is actually from that corner of the world, but now lives outside of Pittsburgh! Go figure!

Maureen & Sean had just gotten engaged. They knew they were most likely going to elope by the end of the year – but they still wanted engagement photos. (And by “elope”, I mean a true elopement, not one of these “micro-weddings” people are calling “eloping” nowadays.)

Maureen & Sean met way back in 2006 when they were both serving in the Army. Sean asked Maureen out multiple times, but every single time, she said, “No.”

Sean refused to give up though. He continued simply being Maureen’s friend and as time (more than a decade) went by, he decided to once again give it one more try.
And this time when he asked her out, she said, “Yes.”

They got engaged in July and upon calling one of her best friends to tell her the exciting news, Miranda told Maureen: “Omigosh, my amazing wedding photographer lives outside of Pittsburgh now – where you guys are living! You have to contact her for your engagement photos!”

And well, the rest is history.

We bounced around a lot of different location ideas for Maureen & Sean’s engagement photos. Since they aren’t from Pittsburgh, they weren’t interested in “city” photos. And being lovers of nature and the great outdoors, we finally decided on going to Greendance Winery in Mt. Pleasant, PA. We had the most glorious, golden, fall evening together and I loved every moment of celebrating with Maureen & Sean!