New Blog!!

I am very excited to announce that I have a NEW BLOG! You can visit it by clicking here or by going to http://blog.laleephotography.com!

I won't be posting here anymore so be sure to bookmark the new blog site and check there for new posts from now on!

Have a great night everyone! :-)



Lalee Photography, Lehigh Valley Wedding Photographer, Philadelphia Wedding Photographer, Pennsylvania Wedding Photographer, New Jersey Wedding Photographer

Evan

I just had to post these two pictures of my cousin Evan that I took during the family reunion down the shore. He's just so handsome and it blows my mind how grown up he is and that he's graduating highschool in just a few short weeks! I am old! haha.





I loved his belt buckle. Apparently it's some rapper's symbol? I don't know. Like I said, I'm old. :-)

Ashley & Cheech :-)

This past weekend was our annual family reunion down the shore and it was just awesome! But what made it even extra awesome this year is that my cousin Ashley's boyfriend Cheech, proposed! He took Ashley up to the roof deck of my parents house where there is just the most beautiful view, and asked her there. It was so sweet! CONGRATULATIONS Ash & Cheech! I love you guys!

Here are just a couple images I snapped really quickly of the happy couple. :-)

84 days and counting! :-)

So I think the biggest thing people say to me when they find out I'm a wedding photographer is, "So you must have like a really great photographer for your own wedding, huh?". And I just smile sweetly and say, "I sure do!", when deep down I'm thinking, "Dude, if you only KNEW! I have a freakin' insane photographer to shoot my wedding!!!" (And I'm totally thinking good insane, not crazy person insane).

_____________

Shortly after Mikey and I got engaged last summer, we were out to dinner with my parents "talking wedding" when the question of who the photographer was going to be came up. I played it off all cool, but the truth is I had gone into this dinner with a plan. I knew EXACTLY who I wanted our wedding photographer to be, it was just a matter of convincing my parents of my awesome idea.

I waited until my parents had each had a glass of wine (so sneaky, I know!) and I said in my sweetest, most charming good daughter voice, "Well.....there is this one photographer out in California who is like totally amazing and has been such an inspiration to me both personally and as a photographer....but....(looking off longingly out the window) I'm sure she wouldn't be available anyway and it would probably be too much to fly her out here......". And then I waited. My parents looked at me. My dad looked at my mom. He looked back at me. He took a sip of wine. And then he said, "What's this photographer's name?". And BAM! I had him. And that's the second I knew I was getting Jasmine Star to shoot our wedding, because what they hadn't known is that I had already contacted her and found out that she was indeed available and willing to fly out to Philly. All I needed was mom and dad on board. :-)

Jasmine truly is awesome and Mikey and I are sooo psyched to have her shooting our wedding! She sent us out our engagement album last week and it's sooooo gorgeous! Here are a few photos:









And here are just a few images from Jasmine's blog from our engagement shoot in Las Vegas in case you missed it :-) Click here to go right to the post on Jasmine's blog to see more! She rocks!!!





I'm headed down the shore now for the annual Memorial Day weekend family reunion! Woo! Have a fantastic weekend everyone!!! :-)

The goings on :-)

I have lots of stuff going on today, including shooting a wedding later on that I'm totally psyched for! Yay! But first I thought I would do a little post about what's been going on lately:

* I thought for sure I should update on my progress from this post since it's been like 2 months. :-) I've actually been doing pretty well! The results aren't coming as fast as I would like them to, but I guess that means I'm going about it the healthy way? That's what I'm telling myself anyway. haha. But I can definitely notice a difference. And while I'm still not into my favorite jeans, the ones I was wearing are too big! Hooray! :-) So today I am going to go for a nice long walk before the wedding and clear my head and get pumped! Woo!

* Yesterday we had some pretty crazy weather, and in between storms I hopped outside to take a photo of the peonies in the garden and thought I would share. :-)



* This weekend is Memorial Day Weekend! For my family that means family reunion down the shore! Yay! So once Mikey gets off of work tomorrow afternoon we are heading on down and I'm just soooo looking forward to the gorgeous weather and sitting on the beach, and of course seeing everyone. :-)

* And last but not least, earlier this week my and Mikey's engagement album from the amazing Jasmine Star arrived in the mail and it is GORGEOUS! I'm going to do a blog post about it hopefully tomorrow before I leave. That girl is just beyond talented.

OK, well I guess that's all for now! Have a fanastic Friday everyone!! :-)

Lucy & Lexie :-)

Every Thursday morning, my sister Andrea and my cousin Beth come over so their daughters, Lucy & Lexie, can have their weekly playdate. We have such a close family and I feel so lucky that I grew up so close to all of my cousins, so it's just so awesome to see it continuing with Lucy and Lexie. They are just the cutest!!

This morning the playdate took to the outdoors so I grabbed my camera and fired off a few shots of the girls playing. Here are just a few super cute ones! :-)











Happy Thursday everyone! :-)

Twitter

So after watching the B school blog today, I've decided to go ahead and add twitter to my blog here. You will notice it over there on the right. Say hi little twitter guy!

I've decided to give it a trial run and see how I like it, and how my blog readers like it. (Let me know if it gets the big thumbs up or thumbs down!) I'm not totally sure I need something new to occupy my time on my computer, haha, but we shall see! :-)

Happy Birthday Mikey!!!

Yesterday was Mikey's birthday, and since I had been sick all week (thank you all so much for the well wishes!), I had so much work to catch up on and didn't get a chance to do a birthday post before the evening birthday festivities began! Sad. :-(

Every year I make Mikey re-tell me the story of his birth. Back in 1980, Mikey was delivered 3 months early by emergency c-section. He spent the first couple months of his life in an incubator and it was very scary there for a while, as the story goes. But that story isn't enough for Mikey. He feels the need to...embellish a bit with every telling and it cracks me up! This year the story not only contained one emergency airlift by helicopter and Mikey weighing under 1 pound at birth, but also the Pope himself was flown in direct from the Vatican to Baptize him. haha! None of that is true by the way, the actual story goes more like, emergency ambulance ride, 2 pounds at birth, and a priest brought in for the Baptism. Still very scary, but not quite the impact Mikey is looking for. :-)




HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAN! I love you so much. :-)

Today I am off to shoot a wedding in New Hope that I am sooo stoked for, and then tomorrow morning the birthday weekend celebrations continue!! :-) Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Booo stomach flu!

Sooo, I have the stomach flu. And let me just say, this is the worst sickness I have ever had in my entire life. I'm usually a strep throat, sinus infection kind of girl. I think I was six the last time I got the stomach flu, and I don't remember it being this horrible. Sooo needless to say I'm pretty wiped out, and just trying to get better now. I have some soup that I'm going to attempt to eat in a minute, so this should be interesting. ;-)

If you sent me an email in the past couple of days and I haven't responded, I promise to get back to you by the end of the week! Thanks for your patience!!! :-)

Sabrina :-)

Here are a few photos I took of my brand new niece Sabrina the other week when I was up visiting my soon to be sister in law Marie! Isn't she adorable? I love her!

Mikey and I are going to be in North Jersey this weekend for Sabrina's Christening (Mikey is soooo excited he's the Godfather), and while we're up there I'm going to be shooting a totally awesome engagement session that I'm really excited about! Yay!

Have an awesome weekend everyone!! :-)





:-)

Get out and VOTE!

Today is PA Primary Day!! So just as a reminder for all you PA residents....


(Check out that AWESOME sign!)

I just got back from the polls myself and there was barely a line which was great! I'm so anxious to hear the outcome of the Democratic race here in PA. Any predictions?

What goes on?!

Something has happened. I used to pride myself on my pretty decent taste in music - favorites included Pink Floyd, Radiohead, pretty much any classic rock. Good music. But sometime in the past year or so something happened. I don't know when or how exactly, but my taste in music has become...questionable. And now my inner 14 year old seems to be in charge and I have to admit that my current favorite song is...




I looooove this song and I can't help it! What has happened to me?! Please tell me I'm not alone.

:-)

Katie & Jason: Portrait

Katie has been doing like theee most amazing job ever on the engagement sessions of Mikey and I for our "year of engagement" guest sign in book for our wedding, so I thought the least I could do is repay her with a photoshoot of her and Jason! :-) It's so much fun having one of my closest friends be such an amazing photographer because we get to talk photography all the time, which Jason and Mikey just LOVE (and by love, I mean not love). hehe. But they hang in there and that's why they're the best. :-)

So the other weekend Katie and Jason met me at the Wawa at the corner of 202 and 73, and we proceeded to drive around to some super cool spots for their super fun photoshoot. YAY! Here are a few from their shoot (with a slideshow of some more at end!)





I spied this super cool broken down van in a school parking lot. All the windows were shattered and there was a bit of a mold issue, but Katie and Jason were major troopers. :-)







OK, so the photo below has a fun little story. I had this vision in my mind of wanting to get a photo of Katie and Jason cuddling in a field with a plane flying above. So I found this park by Wings Field, a small local airport. So right when I was completely unprepared with the wrong lens on my camera and like way far away from Katie and Jason, the PERFECT low flying plane swooped over and I was soooo bummed! Well since it was kind of overcast, planes weren't really flying overhead too often, so I told Katie and Jason to be prepared to jump up and cuddle as soon as we heard a motor. Well the below photo is the result of me screaming "GET UP! GET UP, HURRY!!!!" at them (they were currently preparing to pose for the above photo - I completely scared them half to death!) and trying to capture my vision. Well....it didn't quite turn out as my vision and it was the only other plane to fly over us for the rest of the day. :-( I think it looks more like a large bird of prey circling above. haha :-)



Well I was bound and determined to get a shot with a plane in it so we went to Wings Field and befriended some helicopter pilots who let us take some shots really quickly. :-)



And I thought the perfect end to the shoot would be by a horse farm down the road since Katie loves horses. The horses were so beautiful and they came right up to the fence!





And here is a Slideshow of some more from our super fun day!!

Yay Katie and Jason! :-)

Ashley :-)

My cousin Ashley and I were driving around yesterday when we drove under a highway overpass and I suddenly turned to her and said, "so how do you feel about posing for a couple of shots??". Ashley is a photographer too, so she totally gets the whole sudden spying of a funky looking location and needing to do a photoshoot. :-) Neither of us was looking particularly "photo ready", but luckily Ashley is one of those people who barely needs a stitch of makeup to look great. So here are just a few shots from our impromptu photoshoot. :-)















:-)

Summertime :-)

I love summer sooo very much. And the weather today has just put me in the best mood ever! It's just beyond gorgeous outside! Even though there are a few building storm clouds, what is better than a storm when it's warm out? Love it.

I took the photo below as the ice was melting after an ice storm this past winter, and I liked it but just never got the chance to post it. So I thought it would be good to post today in my happy summertime mood to say, "See ya winter!".



Have a fantastic day everyone!! :-)

Public Speaking 101

Yesterday afternoon I had the honor of speaking at my alma mater, Muhlenberg College! This year the college is celebrating 50 years of co-education. How cool is that?



I received a phone call about a month ago asking if I would be a panelist for their "Women Entrepreneur's" Panel, and I of course immediately said yes! I was beyond flattered. What I hadn't considered was my complete and total fear of public speaking. Like, I'm not even kidding. This one time I froze during a presentation in college and just stood there in front of a class of 30 other students and didn't say anything for 5 whole minutes. It was HORRIBLE! But I had agreed and so I was determined!

So on my drive yesterday I practiced over and over and over again what I was going to say. I had it memorized word for word. And when I was introduced (the first one to go! I always pick the worst seat!) I all of a sudden forgot EVERYTHING I had prepared. Panic spread throughout my entire body, and I could feel the heat rising in my face. But then I just started talking. And talking and talking and talking. And I probably should have stopped talking sooner than I did, but I really started to have fun! It was great having so many students interested in what I am doing and how I got here. So while I probably came off pretty nervous at the beginning, I like to think that I ended strong, and that's what matters, isn't it? ;-)

Thanks to everyone who came to the panel! It was so awesome getting to speak with some of you one on one afterwards! :-)

And yes, the m&ms are already gone. Bad Lauri. ;-)

The Artshow!

Tonight I got to experience the scrutiny of about fifteen 5th grade girls. Fun! ;-)

On top of being an amazing artist himself, Mikey also teaches elementary school art (sigh) and tonight was their annual artshow. He is, of course, the cute, young teacher who all the girls have major crushes on. So when I walked into the cafeteria tonight, I could feel them sizing me up, watching my every move and seeing if I was indeed good enough to be "The" future Mrs. T.... I think I just may have won them over. ;-) fingers crossed!

Anywho, this year's artshow just completely blew me away. The work the kid's produced was sooo awesome. Mikey worked so hard to put the show together (we were up until 1am Sunday night labeling over 700 pieces of artwork!) and it definitely paid off. It was so cute to watch all the kids anxiously pulling their parents by the hand over to show off their artwork. It definitely makes staying up until 1am labeling completely worth it. :-) So here are just a couple of images from the show. :-)

Here is "Mr. T." after overhearing a couple of the girls whispering about us. ;-)





Giacometti sculptures:



And this last one here, yeah, a first grader made this. A FIRST GRADER! When I was in first grade I'm pretty sure I was attaching the legs directly to the head of the people I was drawing and gave them about 15 fingers on each hand. For real. Isn't this just amazing??



:-)

In other news, my veils came in yesterday and it's taking every ounce of restraint I have not to just be wearing them all day long. You know, like around the house, out to pick up dry cleaning. Is this normal?

Doug Keith - Portrait

Back during one of my summer breaks during college I was talking to Doug about how much I love photography. Doug, being totally awesome, suggested that I just go for it and even set me up with a photoshoot of his good friend's band and offered to get me in touch with with his other good friend who owns her own photography studio in Delaware. I did the photoshoot and loved it, but at the time didn't have the confidence to just go for it like Doug suggested. As the years went by, I slowly gained that confidence and realized if I don't just go for it, I'm going to be 80 years old and looking back saying, "What the heck??". Sooo here I am doing what I love and I attribute being here to so many people, and Doug is definitely one of them. :-) You rock Doug!

Doug is a film maker and he needed some new shots of himself to send out to film festivals he is entering as well as for his website. He has his own production company ffuture productions, so be sure to check it out!

Here are a few shots from my session with Doug. :-)



I think this shot below is one of my favorites. :-)





Doug decided he wanted to do the photoshoot in downtown Doylestown, and I was totally on board! Doylestown is such a great town, and even though it was FREEZING COLD the day of the shoot, we still had a ton of fun exploring all the little nooks and side streets.











I love me some flare. :-)



Yay! Thanks so much for being a trooper in the freezing cold Doug! :-)

I'm on my way out to enjoy this beautiful day. Have a fantastic Sunday everyone! :-)