We started the day about 40 miles north in Charlottesville.

It was both hilarious and terrifying to photograph Kate’s friends putting her contacts in. Kate was, as always, an incredibly good sport about the whole thing, even as she teared up.

We made the trek, then it was time for the bride and groom to see each other.

Kate and Daniel were married on a private residence near the town of Lovingston, Virginia. Their friends graciously lent them use of the house, but everything else occurred on the expansive field in front of the property.

There was even a small lake in the background for us to use as backdrop for portraits.

Kate is one of those epically happy people – always cracking up and giggling. Makes my job easy.

Could they have picked a more beautiful setting and set-up for a wedding? Apparently this incredible wood-planks-and-doorframe ceremony entrance piece came from Craigslist! I mean, seriously, look at this.

Go time.

Kate and her dad had a long way to walk.

The Virginia countryside is a really beautiful place for a wedding.

My kind of detail shot. It was a very windy day, but it helped to cool things off.

Cicada (I think)!

I freakin’ love this image – managing to sneak a bit of street into family formals. Truth is, this was probably a happy accident when I was just testing exposure.

Their friend from South Korea couldn’t make it, but she sent a life-size cardboard cut-out in her place, which, obviously, is awesome.

Smoking cigars because it’s the country and you can do basically anything you want.

The wind prevented my backdrop from going up, but while it was still light out, Nature provided an even better one.

It was a bit too hot to dance much at first, but luckily Kate and Daniel had the forethought to provide cornhole and bocce ball to entertain their guests.

Somebody brought moonshine to the wedding.

Congratulations guys!

Kate and Daniel’s vendor team:

Getting ready venue: Sleep Inn, Charlottesville
Ceremony and reception venue: a friend’s field
Flowers, decorations, ceremony setup, uncounted pretty things: Daniel’s mother and grandmother
Caterer: The Barbecue Exchange (Kate highly recommends!)
DJ: Ran Henry
Officiant: Rev. Rachel Cornwell, Woodside United Methodist Church, Silver Spring, MD
Cake: Chandler’s Bakery
Kate’s beautiful dress: Ann Taylor
Bridesmaids dresses: eShakti (love this store – good for lots of non-wedding dresses too.)

Margaret and John got ready at the Hotel Monaco in Old Town. I freakin’ love the Hotel Monaco – they put so much effort into decor, it’s easy to find a funky spot to do portraits.

Like a super-dark hallway with cool geometric paintings to play with. (Yeah, I said “laugh maniacally” – you gotta do what you gotta do.)

Then we braved the heat to grab some scenic Old Town Alexandria wedding pictures.

And even found a fire truck to pose with – a fitting match since they held their reception at Columbia Firehouse.

Then it was go time.

Margaret has four brothers.

Congratulations you guys!

Risa got ready in the bridal suite at the club (though on non-wedding days, I’m sure it has some kind of wedding gallery name).

Okay, seriously, Risa’s hair. (I’m cursing not getting a card from her hairstylist right now – but I know they were with Allison Harper.)

And then in comes Michael and I’m like “ack!” but these two are just so easy-going, they couldn’t be bothered with the don’t-see-each-other deal. So Risa helped him with his pocket square.

We took a little stroll around the block to get some greenery.

Then it was go time. Risa and Michael were married in the Arts Club’s beautiful courtyard.

The Arts Club has a lot of different spaces – so Risa and Michael had their cocktail hour upstairs and reception in the main room.

These two have traveled all over, and each table reflected a place important to them.

Congratulations guys!

Risa and Michael’s vendor team:

Ceremony and reception venue: Arts Club of Washington
Catering: Arts Club
Florist: Park Florist
Ceremony music: Aeolus Quartet
Jazz piano during cocktail hour: Burnett Thompson
Officiant: Jennifer Luu
Cake: Patisserie Poupon
Risa’s beautiful dress: Hitched Salon in DC
Michael’s dashing suit: Wm. Fox & Co., also in DC
Hair & Makeup: Allison Harper & Co.

Zucchini fritters! They are so goddamn tasty.

I will go ahead and say zucchini fritters are the yummiest things you can do with zucchini, and I don’t hate on zucchini or anything. They are just that good. They’re also really hard to screw up. You need just a few things:

• Zucchini – 2 or 3 big ‘uns
• Flour – 1/4 cup or so
• Egg – just one
• Scallions – for fancy people, totally optional
• Way more oil than you feel comfortable pouring into a pan

You will also want to eat these with a sour cream, garlic and lemon sauce. Just mix those things together and let them sit while you do the rest of the stuff. Oh, and you must buy Trader Joe’s Organic Sour Cream – not low-fat shit, not hormone cow shit – that exact product. I have been eating sour cream my whole life and it’s like the juice of the gods themsel…. well, just buy that stuff. It’s tasty.

Here’s what you do. First, get a clean kitchen towel. (PS – there are only two items you can buy for me that I will be 100% sure to love – chocolate and kitchen towels. I freakin’ adore kitchen towels. You can never have enough.) Spread it wide on your counter, then get out your box grater and grate the hell out of the zucchini – the big holes will do. Grate it all up good, spread it out on the towel and give it a serious dose of salt. (I don’t need to list salt as an ingredient because if you don’t have it in your kitchen, you really shouldn’t be reading recipes.) Fold it on up, put your big-ass cast iron on top to weigh it down. And if you’re me, go catch up on a Netflix show (I believe it was The L Word at the time, but you could get away with Arrested Development – give the zucchinis 20 minutes to drain.)

Now get a big bowl, dump the shredded zucchini out of the towel. Then throw in some flour (around 1/4 c – just get some in there, it’s hard to go wrong), an egg and a couple of scallions’ worth of cut-up scallion. Mix it up. Then put way more oil than you feel comfortable pouring into a pan into your big-ass cast-iron and let it heat up. No, like a while. Don’t put your fritters in while the oil is cold. To test, get a little bit of mix and drop it in the pan. If it doesn’t start bubbling immediately, it needs more time to heat up.

Once the oil is hot, get a spoon and grab medium-size spoonfuls of zucchini mix and drop ‘em in the oil. Mush ‘em so they more or less resemble flattish discs (how flat? how disc? see picture for how little this matters.) Give ‘em three minutes on each side, then transfer to a paper towel to drain (or a paper bag, whatever you have on hand to absorb oil). Cook the whole batch and just keep stacking paper towels and draining. The ones on the bottom will get cold, but this makes enough for some leftovers anyway. You’ll eat the last batch fresh.

When they’re all done, eat them with the sour cream mix and just sit around going “ohhhhhhh my godddddddd these are so good.” And don’t even think about putting the leftovers in the microwave. If you don’t have a toaster oven, it’s well worth the investment just to reheat these bad boys.

And the second-best thing about this recipe (the first, of course, being the fritters you just ate) is that basically anything with a high water content can be frittered. Broccoli, squash, chickpeas (cooked), greens, eggplant, etc. etc. etc. – just shred or mash and complete as before. Anything can be frittered  - it’s a super-versatile dish. Now go fritter away your lunch. You’re welcome.

Natasha and Aaron bought their families different colored Converse to wear while walking around between portrait locations. Adorable!

I’ve been having fun with these giant portraits at the National Gallery. They’re so weird to shoot with.

We braved the cold to trek out to the Navy Memorial on GW (the one with the flying birds) for some more family pictures and to get a bit of the Lincoln in some photos. ‘Course, I was feeling the tunnel under the GW.

Congratulations Natasha and Aaron!

Mallory goes to St. Johns, so she already had the place well scoped-out.

Apparently it’s bunny season, because these guys were everywhere.

Awwww.

Also, how rad is Mallory’s 20s getup? Super-cool feather hairpiece and a rockin’ green wedding dress.

There’s a really beautiful little dock on a small lake at the back of St. Johns. We politely asked a couple and their dog to let us borrow the pier for a minute. He came back with a cigar for the groom. These Annapolis people are so nice! And their lakes are so pretty.

We were close, so we had to make it on down to the docks.

And the rowhouses.

Finally, in my constant quest to give each couple a little bit of “weird” photos in their set, with some cajoling they stepped a few feet outside the store so we could snag this incredibly awesome weirdest-shot-yet. Aaron is a good sport.

Congratulations you guys!

They’ve got friends and family all over, so their two-person wedding party had to hold a bunch of phones so they could Skype in some extra love and support.

I mean, I photograph people getting married on a more-than-once-a-week basis, but I think Becca may be the most pumped ever.

After the courthouse, we Ubered it on up to the Capitol for some “hey we’re in Washington DC” photos. And ducked into some not-so-obvious spots as well.

After wardrobe checks, we hustled on down to the National Gallery of Art, my go-to location for indoor portraits. The giggles continued.

New takes on old favorites?

Congratulations Becca and Joe!

If the Hirshhorn didn’t have a rotating exhibit, I might get tired of it. As it is, I freakin’ love shooting in this museum.

And because they’re awesome, Heidi and Jason indulged me in a little making-like-the.

Basically OCF folks (camera nerd-talk, ignore non-photographers!), I’ll never tell! Okay, I totally would and have. I told you they were ridiculously cute together.

It was a cloudy day, but they thinned out for just about 10 minutes so we could grab some beautiful backlighting (more nerdy camera talk – sorry folks!)

And then, to celebrate a successful engagement session – frozen yogurt!

Congratulations you guys! Looking forward to the big day.

I love how DC is a low enough city to have these beautiful alleys filled with light. Who knew Co Co. Sala had a patio adjoining an old church they use for intimate outdoor weddings? It’s a really pretty space.

As a bonus, there’s a tiny art gallery in the same building at the restaurant, and we were able to sneak in there to cool off and take some pictures with these awesome wall mural things.

Then back to the courtyard to play with the beautiful afternoon light. That lovely little alley bounced it around quite nicely.

Super excited. You would be too.

“Your ring is so sparkly!” I have a similar thing going on with my husband. He notices my ring way more often than I do.

After family pictures, everybody headed downstairs to celebrate in Co Co. Sala’s private event room and eat tasty things.

Congratulations Amanda and Ben! Best wishes and safe travels!

We started the day at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

Meghan’s niece and nephew were afoot, being adorable and very photogenic.

Loyola Blakefield chapel is very special to Steve and Meghan.

Catholic ceremonies, what can you do?

We hopped in some cars and limos and shuttles and booked it to the beautiful Green Spring Valley Hunt Club, decked out special for the wedding.

I whittled down to these four pictures of the parent dances, so be proud.

It was hard, because there was so much great stuff, like this.

I’m not sure it gets much better than Grandma getting down at the wedding.

Escapade kept the dance floor hopping, and didn’t mind sharing with some interlopers.

Proud Mary. You have to.

This is fine photojournalism, people. He was okay, no worries. And the beer didn’t spill, either.

It makes my job easier when everybody at the wedding is having a massively good time.

Hilarious last-thing-of-the-night: after Meghan and Steve ran through their sparklers, with everybody else standing around wandering what to do with these things in their hands still on fire, the bridal party decided to get their money’s worth on the exit.

So many congratulations, Meghan and Steve!

Meghan and Steve’s vendor team:

Planning: Elizabeth Bailey Weddings
Getting ready venue: Baltimore Marriott Waterfront
Ceremony venue: Loyola Blakefield Chapel
Reception venue: Green Spring Valley Hunt Club
Caterer: Green Spring Valley Hunt Club
Cake: Sugar Bakers
Band: Escapade
Cocktail-hour steel drum band (!): The Mellowtones
Ceremony musicians: Sterling Artists
Florist: Simply Beautiful Flowers
Tent Rental: Loane Bros
Linen Rental: Table Toppers
Additional Rentals: Party Rental Ltd.
Hair: Monica Autenzio for Studio 1612
Makeup: Lisa Kastell
Transportation: An Extraordinar Limousine