National Museum of American Jewish History Wedding, Philadelphia, PA

Last July, I photographed Haley and Luke’s patriotic National Museum of American Jewish History Wedding in Philadelphia, PA. Hayley and Luke had a patriotic wedding with a red, white and blue color scheme as it was only a few days before the 4th of July. Their wedding day style was a combination of elegant, modern and classic and we tied in history with their day by making formal photo stops at City Hall, Independence Hall, the Second Bank of the United States and finally their ceremony and reception at the National Museum of American Jewish History in the most historic of all cities, Philadelphia, PA.

Luke, a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and Hayley who works at Nutrisystem in analytics met on OkCupid. On a cold blustery night, they met for their first date at the Ugly Moose in Manayunk. There they laughed and had a great time. At the end of the date, Luke attempted to walk Hayley to her car, where he promptly was turned away.

The proposal from Haley: “Luke and I prepared to go to Cape May on a Sunday. On that Saturday afternoon, I was looking at the weather and noticed it was going to rain the next day so I told Luke. He then said “we need to go to the beach RIGHT NOW”. I suspected something was up because he was also very particular about bringing our nice clothes and taking a walk on the beach at sunset. After an hour or two at the beach (by the time we made it there), we changed into our nice clothes and took our sunset beach walk. Luke stopped to put his GoPro in the sand to “take our photo”, got down on one knee and proposed!”

The hardest part of planning their National Museum of American Jewish History Wedding? Their place card holders! This sentimental couple hand-wrote notes to all of their guests on the back of their place cards, which while was very sweet was also very time consuming and difficult to figure out how to do well. The easiest part was finding their venue. They went to the National Museum of American Jewish History, loved it and booked it immediately. Hayley’s favorite moment of the wedding day was when Luke surprised her by bringing their beloved dog to the photos. And Luke’s was when he and Hayley stole a few minutes alone on the balcony to revel and enjoy the moment and each other.

Any advice for future couple’s planning?

“Work together, compromise, remember that it’s only a day and most importantly, enjoy it!”

Now that these two are back from their Hawaiian honeymoon, their dreams are traveling the world, helping people along the way, learning and growing together and continuing to love and appreciate each other.

Scroll through to view my favorites from their National Museum of American Jewish History Wedding in Philadelphia!