Notes on Wearing Red

“Brian and I met in college when we both volunteered for our university’s Big Brother Big Sister program. A boy that cute AND that sweet? I couldn’t pass him up! We dated casually at school but, ironically, it wasn’t until Brian graduated and accepted a job in San Francisco that we realized we wanted to be together exclusively. So we were in a long-distance relationship for two years with him in California and me in Philadelphia, and as hard as the distance was it enabled us to grow individually and took us on amazing adventures together from LA to Italy. After two years apart, Brian transferred back to Philadelphia, but after three years together there I had to take an opportunity to work in my hometown of Pittsburgh. We were disappointed to once again find ourselves in a long-distance relationship but, just like a few years earlier, the distance brought clarity to our relationship, and we realized we wanted to be together forever. So, one weekend in October, I made the trip to Philadelphia to visit Brian. He proposed that weekend on a beautiful fall day in a quaint little town outside of the city. It was such a perfect day in one of our favorite places, and I was so surprised and excited that I can’t remember if I ever even officially said the word “yes”. Family could not be more important to us as a couple, so to make the day even more perfect, Brian surprised me by having our parents (who traveled in from New York and Pittsburgh) join us for dinner later that night. That day was one of the most special days of my life, and Joey Kennedy perfectly captured the emotion and beauty of that day and time in our lives in these pictures. His work is so stunningly beautiful and I know I’ll look back on these photos and remember the magic of our engagement forever.”