claire & ben: engaged

i have a problem. i'm not very good with exclusiveness. i SAY i have favourites...but it carries a bit less weight when i tell EVERY NEW COUPLE they are my favourites.

so. claire and ben are my favourite couple getting married in february of 2008. the fact that they are the ONLY ones who've hired me for a wedding that month (thus far) should mean nothing to you, because if they were not awesome, they would not have earned the favourite title.

claire is a minister and went to harvard divinity school...she's very unassuming about it, and i had to ask her directly where she went to seminary. smarty-pants. i can't remember what ben does, but he is very nice, and he likes claire a lot...there is little in the world more endearing than a guy thoroughly wrapped up in his girl. maybe baby fingers/toes, but...that's a close one.



anyway, they met at...wait for it...adult kickball. isn't that the most amazing thing you've ever heard? it made me want to run out and join a league, but the closest ones are portland, me and the boston area, and neither of those are really close enough. so. i will sit here, living free instead of dying, in nh...kickballless.

but you didn't come here for that. you want to see photos, yes?

we met in newburyport, ma for our session...grabbed a few shots downtown, and then headed out to maudslay state park. there just HAPPENED to be a playground right near where we met, and apparently they were swayed by my pathetic longing...i've been dying to do some playground e-session shots for...many months. they were totally up for it and laughed right along with me at the logistical difficulties of positioning two adults in a child-sized crawl-through tube.


anyone who does photos with me in newburyport will have "the coke wall" shot. it is basically my favourite thing in the entire town.

(this was their favourite, but i think i like the next one just as well.)



one of the things i love about my job is getting to know the different couples who hire me...another wedding photographer friend of mine once described the relationship as something like...temporary best friends. i get to see lots of intimate moments and they've got to trust me to capture those things. i am genuinely interested when i ask about their stories...how'd you meet, what are your "things"...funniest moments, etc. claire's got one of the cutest "things" i've seen yet. she likes to smell ben's head. she pulls it down towards her, closes her eyes, and breathes in deep. "pheremones: they're real," she announced to me.



(kissing down by the river is better than living in a van down by the river, right?)



one last thing i love about these two: they've both got hyphenated last names...so they're picking one from each and creating a new hyphenated identity...just for the two of them...to start their new family. fabulous.