Hey there, folks - I just came upstairs from our studio after uploading some photos and my beautiful wife was totally passed out on the couch. Since that means I'll be blogflying solo this evening, I just wanted to take a second and talk about how ridiculously awesome this woman sleeping next to me is. (She's been working since about 5 this morning. We had two shoots today and just a ton of editing trying to stay on top of the mountain of photos we have to work on, so passing out before ten is completely understandable.) This time of year, we're close to the end of our season (five weddings to go), but the stretch run is often the hardest as we're juggling 4-5 more shoots a week on top of our weddings.

Even though we're slammed and stressed, Alyssa continues to passionately burn through shoots and always does some completely bad-ass things with a camera. I love her, folks. She's the best one and I wouldn't be half the guy I try to be without her.

That said - here's some of her stuff from when we met up with Cait and "kind-eyed" Bill for their wedding...

+1 for the purple shoes.

I love it when brides and grooms go the proverbial extra mile to incorporate family heirlooms into the wedding day.

I love it even more when I see my wife's photos and she always finds a way to shoot something in a mirror...and I mean always.

See, now I really wish she was awake to tell her how much I friggin love these shots...

I, of course, was with the dudes, doing dude-like things and getting ready to roll...which didn't happen quite according to plan. The limo showed up and then immediately broke down in front of the house. Ridiculous, right? So we all piled in (my apologies AGAIN, to the poor groomsmen who had to ride with me to the church in our 3-year-old demolished Saturn Ion. You guys are probably still picking animal cracker crumbs out of your suits.) to the rides we had and headed off to the chapel at Canisius College.

Bill plays football. For real. We heard very early on in the day that he'd actually caught the winning touchdown in his game the morning of the wedding (but he definitely didn't hear it from Bill - my man is supremely humble.) We got up to Canisius while another wedding was finishing up in the chapel - so, naturally, the pigskin got to flying. I don't miss working for a newspaper, but I do miss shooting football...and speaking of something that has sucked in Buffalo for a long, long time - what are you doing Sunday, Bill??!?

I did a quick stroll with the guys around the chapel and man do I love shooting group shots on the fly with some funky buildings...

The chapel at Canisius is a heck of a place to shoot a wedding...

...particularly when you sit the B + G down like this for the majority of the ceremony - love it.

Alyssa, up in the balcony, doin her thing :) I'm definitely the "utility man" while Alyssa is the artistic director of our photographic endeavors.

The couple + this church = radical.

Alyssa is THE FREAKING MASTER of using guests' flashes as her off-camera lighting. Let me explain my wife's degree of difficulty here since she's not around to tell me to stop being a dork or toolbag or whatever her pet name of the moment is for me. She's manually-focusing, hand-holding the camera at about 1/20th of a second to catch a flash enough to freeze the action and expose for the ambient properly, WHILE two people are walking quickly toward her - and she's shooting with the 5d mark II, which only has a frame rate of 3.9 a second and buffers up fast when you're shooting RAW like we do. That's just stupid.

Okay, enough of that - I'm ranting on and on and Alyssa will be pissed I nerded out like that on someone's wedding post. All that aside, Cait and Bill's wedding got us both a little choked up. I love seeing happy people get married when the perfection is palpable and the tears are joyful.

You guys just are...

So, off to the reception at Delaware Park's Marcy Casino and...a pull-up challenge. The look on Cait's face is priceless....

Hey - sometimes we're with couples and we're all like, "Can you guys just make out a little for us?" Yeah, no prompting necessary....

You two form a ridiculously good-looking couple...Thank you so much for not minding the rain or the wet ground or the cold to work with us for some shots of just the two of you at the Casino. We don't make the photos we do without amazing people to help us make them.

Bill, you lucky s.o.b......

Easily my favorite part of the reception. After some tired glass-clanging, Cait got up and announced that anyone who wanted to make her and Bill kiss during the course of the reception was going to have to perform for it...with a funky dance in front of the sweetheart table.

"So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me"

- Bright Eyes

Yep, when Alyssa's asleep, Rich quotes Conor Oberst while blogging - Cait and Bill, you guys know what I'm talking about...

Bill, in addition to having kind eyes (did I mention that?) and soft hands on the deep ball, is also a bad-ass graphic designer. I snagged one of his table settings (they all were different song titles with lyrics that meant a lot to C + B, who are WAY into their music) for a ring shot....I think it's extremely apropos.

Quick props go to our man, Kevin S. McCarthy, who played and Dj'd and is PERFECT wedding entertainment - Seriously, his website might look like it belongs in 1992 (just joshin' ya, man - this is Buffalo, it's perfectly acceptable to have a retro website :) ), but Kevin absolutely destroys a wedding reception and is a hell of a talented musician if you've looking for a live act.

Don't believe me? Look at Cait!!!

Guys - you're perfect. It may have rained on us most of thetime, but we had an awesome day and an amazing night working with you. Thank you for everything. From start to finish it's been a complete pleasure getting to know you guys and making some images we're really proud of with you. You're gonna be two of our favorites for a long, long time.