Blueberry Hill Engagement Session | Gibbsboro, NJ | Elise & Greg

Engagements

March 28, 2019

Last Fall, I photographed Elise and Greg’s Blueberry Hill engagement session in Gibbsboro, NJ. Elise and Greg met on and off in college, kind of floating through circles that crossed every once in a while but started hanging out more after college through one of their best friends. They never officially had a “first date” but they had both been invited to the beach for a weekend with Elise’s best friend who was mutually friends with both of Elise and Greg. They ended up cozying up on the couch to watch Aladdin, they started spending more time together and the rest is history. Elise knew Greg was the one during their first trip to Maine together. They were unplugged from work and got to really spend more time getting to know one another. During this trip, they started a tradition of making each other mix CD’s for the drive to Maine that still stands today.

Engaged on 6/14/2018, the proposal from Elise, “Well it completely took my by surprise, I can tell you that. We had talked about getting married and knew it was the path we were headed down but Greg totally got me with this. We had gotten tickets to go see the musical adaptation of Aladdin when it came into Philadelphia and were planning to go after work. I was of course, having an incredibly rough day and was running late for our plans to meet up at Luke’s Lobster (which Greg had thoughtfully chosen as a callback to our times in Maine) but I finally made it (after poor Greg had sat there waiting for ~45 minutes) and we ate our tasty lobster rolls. Very exciting for me was the fact that he had brought me flowers! But little did I know that was not the only surprise in store for me. We sat down for the show and Greg mentioned that he definitely wanted to ask someone to take a picture of us that night, which seemed a teensy bit out of the ordinary to me but not so much so that it tipped me off, it was a big theater after all. There was a technical issue in act 1 (which unbeknownst to me had Greg sweating because he didn’t know if there would be an actual intermission), but intermission did finally roll around, we asked some lovely people sitting behind us to take a photo of us and at the last minute he slid the camera to video and before I knew it he was down on one knee in front of me. I, being totally overwhelmed, scared him a little by saying “is this really happening?!” but of course, said yes and the whole theater clapped so it was quite an eventful evening. We finished watching the rest of the show together (having just enough time to call our parents before intermission ended because Greg thought this plan up all by himself) and then people from the show were congratulating us all the way home. I found out later that he had talked to my parents months earlier so they’d been waiting and wondering when it would finally happen. Needless to say, I was thrilled and it was a pretty epic evening that we will remember for the rest of our lives.”

Elise and Greg are planning a nature themed rustic wedding at the Lakeside at Medford Ballroom next month and I cannot wait to document it! Their favorite place is Greg’s family’s lake house in Maine and they hope to capture the general feeling of that in their wedding. When these two are not wedding planning, they love hiking (especially in Maine), taking walks with their dog, Moxie, trying new restaurants and playing video games together. Their dreams are to hopefully get a home, travel and then they’d like to grow in their life together as well as giving Moxie a human sibling and some puppy siblings as well. They would love to one day own their own cabin on a lake to relax in as much as humanly possible.

Any advice for future bride’s planning?

Get your guest list and addresses as early as possible, it can really be hard to get that sorted and as time goes on and things get busy it’s a lot of reminding to get that done. Also be organized and make many lists. Do try to enjoy the process a little though and even when it gets overwhelming (which if you’re at all like me at definitely will) step back and remember that at the core it’s really about getting to be with the person you love. Taking a step back to remember the big picture always helps get me through.

And finally, what are you most looking forward to about your wedding day?

Mostly just getting married and getting to spend the rest of our lives together. I am excited to have an amazing day celebrating with family and friends but at the end of it all I will be happy just to go home and be with my favorite human.