2023 Year in Review

Any year that brings you a new pup and two trips to Italy is a good year. A great year even! And our 2023 year in review reflects those things.

This year also included a bunch of the usual suspects — great wines, delicious food, and wonderful friends. Then there were the unusual suspects that just kinda made us grouchy — like a lot of summer season rain that happened right on our wedding dates. (Hey! Mother Nature! Give us a freaking break next year, okay!?)

Personal 2023 Year in Review

If you have a fur friend, you know the pain of losing your fur friend. When we lost Zoe, Matt lost his best bud. And it can feel like an impossible decision to get a new fur family member. You can feel like you’re disrespecting the grief. But that is the furthest thing from the truth, of course. We will always grieve these deep losses, but in order to honor that love and connection, the best thing we can do is give a home to someone in need.

And so along came Tali.

What a gift she has been. To Matt, Teri and the whole Mead household. She’s brought renewed energy to each of us in ways we could not have imagined and made 2023 one of our favorite years.

A dog is enough, right? But then there was Italy!

We were lucky enough to get over there twice this year, once to the Amalfi Coast and once to Rome. We look forward to more trips (and hey! if you want to get married in Italy, we know a photographer who speaks some decent Italian!).

Here are two best friends just hanging out in front of the Colosseum. No big.

And this photo. Can you just imagine yourself here?! Let us warn you: the Amalfi Coast is a LOT of stairs. You might want to train a bit before going. ((ha))

We don’t want to be those people who overload their friends with vacation photos so we’ll move on, but suffice it to say that Italy is one photo opportunity after another. You could easily spend your entire time with your camera glued to your face.

We tried not to do that and let ourselves sink into the experience — an experience that included a whole lot of food and wine, as you can imagine. (They might be experiencing a shortage of buffalo mozzarella. We won’t name names ((coughMattcough)) but someone ate… quite a bit. And he says, proudly, that he’d DO IT AGAIN!) Here are some more of his photos from the trip to Rome.

2023 Wedding Year in Review

To say this work gets better every year is not an exaggeration. When you’re lucky enough to find work that becomes more fascinating over time, well, stick with it. What a gift.

Now, 2023 wasn’t exactly perfect. The weather was trying our patience. It seemed like it rained more than usual, but it seemed like it especially rained more than usual right on wedding dates!

Then again, like we tell our couples, what we think of as “bad weather” can make for some stunning photos, and two of our favorites this year involved umbrellas.

Rain plus night = …

Rain plus day = …

And you know how much we love our black and white photos around here. They’re timeless. They’re dramatic. They emphasis the feelings of the moment. But that said, a few of our favorites this year were in color!

 

And as far as our favorite black and whites go…

Favorite Engagement Year in Review

We had a couple of extra fun engagement photo shoots this year. These couples went the extra mile and we were more than happy to accompany them!

First up, we got to go to a fairgrounds!

And next, we got to play in the water! Or more accurately, capture these two playing in the water!

Finally, 2023 Portraits Year in Review

For a favorite family portrait nothing could beat two sisters pillow fighting! At an iconic Erie location, at that.

And our final favorite for our 2023 year in review: a senior portrait that feels like hope and adventure all wrapped up in one. May we all have a 2024 that brings us hope and many adventures right off our bucket lists!

(If you’re interested in having a portrait shoot, we’d love to talk to you about your ideas.)

And we’d love to hear about your own favorite photos for your own 2023 year in review!