Last year Jen Weber of Your Wedding by Jen and I created Cincinnati's first alternative wedding expo, Love+Bash. If you read my blog regularly I am sure you know all about it. :) Because we were so excited to be bringing something so unique to Cincinnati we decided to have a contest to go with it. I love to shoot alternative/offbeat weddings. I asked couples to send me their wedding ideas/love story and I would chose one to shoot for free and Jen would offer them full planning. Tons of other amazing vendors got on board and we ended up with a wedding giveaway worth almost $10,000. I got some really awesome entries, it was tough choosing a winner.

Courteney and Drew's story really stood out to me. It wasn't just the fact that they are planning a carnival themed wedding with rides, a concession stand, and all of the fun games you see at a carnival. This did sound pretty amazing to me, Umm I want to take pictures on a carousel. It was also the love story Courteney sent in with her entry. It was so sincere and heartfelt. She admitted she thought Drew was a tool in the beginning, I loved her honesty. She talked about all of the sweet things he did to win her over and prove her wrong. He encouraged and supported her before he even got a first kiss. She talked about how positive he is and how eventually a friendship blossomed into love. The story was about 5 pages long, but I enjoyed reading every bit of it. Needless to say I found my winners.

I have really enjoyed getting to know Courteney and Drew through their planning process. They are a blast to be around. I cannot wait to work with some of my favorite vendors on their wedding in May! Your Wedding by Jen planning/event design, Marti's Floral Designs on flowers/event design, and the super talented Kristen of Five Dot Design is in charge of all of the paper goods, this will be a wedding to remember for sure!

For Courteney and Drew's engagement session they wanted to do something unique so we headed to the Cincinnati Zoo. We got VIP access to some of the animals thanks to Drew's good friend Travis, who happens to be one of my first clients ever! Small world!!

p.s. For those of you wondering, Love+Bash 2012 is in the works...stay tuned!