WHO WE ARE
It all started in college when Aleah asked Josh if he wanted to play a game on her calculator. That game led us to skipping class the next week to go on our first date to Chic-Fil-A in the student center. It was rather romantic. All these years later- we still love low-key food dates and silly games.
If we don't have cameras in hand or aren't chasing one of our kiddos around you'll most likely find us at a coffee shop feeding our coffee addictions, or curled up with a glass of wine, wrapped up cozily in our "ugly things" (sweaters way past their prime), playing a game.
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ABOUT US
We're two creatives with accountant's brains who love a great story.
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“Go big or go home" is a motto I tend to live by. So when the time came to propose- nothing less than a memorable, all-evening event was going to cut it. It was all planned out with military precision. While Aleah went to work for the day, I would set up clues at all of our favorite hangout spots. There would be 10 of them, and that would've had us covering pretty much the entire town we lived in. Ultimately we would end up standing on the gazebo at a nearby park where we did homework together when the weather was nice. I totally decked out that gazebo and made it super romantic. I even recruited two of our friends to hide nearby the whole time and capture the whole thing on video. We’ve never been camera shy!
I spent all day decorating the gazebo, setting out clues, and scheduling everything. That night Aleah had the first clue in her hand and as she read it out I realized my terrible error- I'd mixed up the clues, and this one pointed directly to the gazebo (the last stop)! Panicked, I sent my friends a text telling them to cut their dinner plans short and head straight to the park. I was forced to repeatedly stall in order to give our friends some time to catch up! Once we finally got to the gazebo (after many purposeful delays) Aleah read a letter that I'd left, while I simultaneously got down on one knee. She said “yes” (thank God!) and the whole thing ended up being perfect, with only a few minor bumps along the road!
the story of
our engagement
We Love hearing engagement stories! Whether its a big surprise with family and friends or a laid back, private moment - every story is different! Since we'll ask you about your engagement, Josh will tell you our Story first:
read more
Our cake was a disaster! No lie, it looked like a 3 year old decorated it. Our entire family gathered around to redecorate our wedding cake before the ceremony started. Even Josh's grandpa got in on the job!
Aleah made it approximately 10 minutes into portrait time before she ditched her heels to spend the rest of the day in flip flops.
The best man locked the keys in our car. We couldn't leave our reception until venue security got them out for us. Yikes!
Josh forgot his socks and had to run 6 blocks home to get them. He didn't tell anyone that he was going and was therefore AWOL for a while. Later we joked he had cold feet. Get it? No socks? Cold feet? Clever.
Aleah's dad was the officiant but also walked Aleah down the aisle AND gave her away! The change over was comical!
Aleah dropped (and broke) our camera trying to take a picture of her garter on the rear view mirror as we were leaving. We had to go find Josh's parents and borrow their camera for our honeymoon. Suffice it to say- it wasn’t quite as good as ours.
the story of
our wedding
let's be honest here. You're probably not interested in the specifics of our wedding. so we're just going to tell you the funny parts!
We knew that after all the hectic wedding planning and all the busy running around, we would just want to chill and relax. So, instead of the more traditional exotic island getaway, we opted for a cabin in the woods. That may sound underwhelming, but I can assure you that it was a very nice cabin in the woods. We disliked the idea of “roughing it” on our honeymoon; so we chose that one thing to go "all out" on.
So after our Arkansas wedding we made the tour-de-TN and spent our first night in Memphis, our second night in Nashville, and on day 3 we arrived at our cabin in the Smokey Mountains. At this point in the trip our car decided to turn into "the little engine that might" - barely making it up the mountain to our cabin each time. Every journey up to that cabin was equally terrifying. Luckily, we were desensitized rather quickly.
the story of
our honeymoon
in retrospect, we know EXACTLY WHAT WE WOULD CHANGE IF WE WERE to do IT all AGAIN - NOTHING! OUR HONEYMOON IS THE ONE THING THAT WE STILL THINK IS PERFECT JUST THE WAY IT WAS!
read more
When it came time to find jobs post-college you didn’t have to be an economist to see that the job market in our little town of Searcy wasn't going to cut it for two brand new accountants. After talking about it we decided that 1) we were in no hurry to settle since we already had jobs that kept the bills paid and 2) we could go anywhere. The only thing I knew for sure was that I DID NOT WANT TO MOVE TO MEMPHIS! Josh and I had taken some weekend trips to Memphis and although I hadn't seen much of the city; what I had seen was so different from the Pacific Northwest city I was raised in that I just didn’t get it. Confession: I actually turned and looked at Josh one day and said "I could NEVER live here!" If I'd only known.
Things have a funny way of working out though (I also once swore I wouldn't marry anyone I met in college!) and the perfect job for me just so happened to be in Memphis. So that was that- we moved, and quickly! Thankfully we made friends fast, and they showed us some of the amazing places that make Memphis so great. I was soon forced to eat my words about living here- just like I ate my words about marrying a guy from college! Life sure likes to laugh at us sometimes :-)
the story of
our move to Memphis
The phrase "never say never" has never been more true than when we moved to memphis. Aleah explains why:
read more
We spent our first several "grown up" years as accountants- I mean; it doesn’t get much more “adult” than accounting, right? Super exciting. There comes a point, though, when it's more than obvious that you're doing life wrong. We stuck with it as long as we could, though, and when baby number one came along Josh left accounting behind and started shooting full time. At first Josh shot alone, except for a couple of weddings and engagement shoots that Aleah joined in on. It took 3 years before we realized that this business was just like the rest of our lives- we were better off working together as a team. That year we both shot every wedding and portrait session together. That was a tough year, mainly because Aleah was also still working full-time as an accountant. Suffice it to say that our house was a little bit crazy that year. At the end of year three, Aleah said goodbye to accounting for good, and we said hello to baby number two. Now that we've been working together for a couple of years, we can safely say that we think we're the luckiest people in the world to get to do what we do every day. Ultimately though, you never stop being an accounting nerd.
the story of
our career change
There comes a point when you just have to say enough is enough and follow your dreams!
read more
“Go big or go home" is a motto I tend to live by. So when the time came to propose- nothing less than a memorable, all-evening event was going to cut it. It was all planned out with military precision. While Aleah went to work for the day, I would set up clues at all of our favorite hangout spots. There would be 10 of them, and that would've had us covering pretty much the entire town we lived in. Ultimately we would end up standing on the gazebo at a nearby park where we did homework together when the weather was nice. I totally decked out that gazebo and made it super romantic. I even recruited two of our friends to hide nearby the whole time and capture the whole thing on video. We’ve never been camera shy!
I spent all day decorating the gazebo, setting out clues, and scheduling everything. That night Aleah had the first clue in her hand and as she read it out I realized my terrible error- I'd mixed up the clues, and this one pointed directly to the gazebo (the last stop)! Panicked, I sent my friends a text telling them to cut their dinner plans short and head straight to the park. I was forced to repeatedly stall in order to give our friends some time to catch up! Once we finally got to the gazebo (after many purposeful delays) Aleah read a letter that I'd left, while I simultaneously got down on one knee. She said “yes” (thank God!) and the whole thing ended up being perfect, with only a few minor bumps along the road!
We Love hearing engagement stories! Whether its a big surprise with family and friends or a laid back, private moment - every story is different! Since we'll ask you about your engagement, Josh will tell you our Story first:
Our cake was a disaster! No lie, it looked like a 3 year old decorated it. Our entire family gathered around to redecorate our wedding cake before the ceremony started. Even Josh's grandpa got in on the job!
Aleah made it approximately 10 minutes into portrait time before she ditched her heels to spend the rest of the day in flip flops.
The best man locked the keys in our car. We couldn't leave our reception until venue security got them out for us. Yikes!
Josh forgot his socks and had to run 6 blocks home to get them. He didn't tell anyone that he was going and was therefore AWOL for a while. Later we joked he had cold feet. Get it? No socks? Cold feet? Clever.
Aleah's dad was the officiant but also walked Aleah down the aisle AND gave her away! The change over was comical!
Aleah dropped (and broke) our camera trying to take a picture of her garter on the rear view mirror as we were leaving. We had to go find Josh's parents and borrow their camera for our honeymoon. Suffice it to say- it wasn’t quite as good as ours.
let's be honest here. You're probably not interested in the specifics of our wedding. so we're just going to tell you the funny parts!
We knew that after all the hectic wedding planning and all the busy running around, we would just want to chill and relax. So, instead of the more traditional exotic island getaway, we opted for a cabin in the woods. That may sound underwhelming, but I can assure you that it was a very nice cabin in the woods. We disliked the idea of “roughing it” on our honeymoon; so we chose that one thing to go "all out" on.
So after our Arkansas wedding we made the tour-de-TN and spent our first night in Memphis, our second night in Nashville, and on day 3 we arrived at our cabin in the Smokey Mountains. At this point in the trip our car decided to turn into "the little engine that might" - barely making it up the mountain to our cabin each time. Every journey up to that cabin was equally terrifying. Luckily, we were desensitized rather quickly.
in retrospect, we know EXACTLY WHAT WE WOULD CHANGE IF WE WERE to do IT all AGAIN - NOTHING! OUR HONEYMOON IS THE ONE THING THAT WE STILL THINK IS PERFECT JUST THE WAY IT WAS!
When it came time to find jobs post-college you didn’t have to be an economist to see that the job market in our little town of Searcy wasn't going to cut it for two brand new accountants. After talking about it we decided that 1) we were in no hurry to settle since we already had jobs that kept the bills paid and 2) we could go anywhere. The only thing I knew for sure was that I DID NOT WANT TO MOVE TO MEMPHIS! Josh and I had taken some weekend trips to Memphis and although I hadn't seen much of the city; what I had seen was so different from the Pacific Northwest city I was raised in that I just didn’t get it. Confession: I actually turned and looked at Josh one day and said "I could NEVER live here!" If I'd only known.
Things have a funny way of working out though (I also once swore I wouldn't marry anyone I met in college!) and the perfect job for me just so happened to be in Memphis. So that was that- we moved, and quickly! Thankfully we made friends fast, and they showed us some of the amazing places that make Memphis so great. I was soon forced to eat my words about living here- just like I ate my words about marrying a guy from college! Life sure likes to laugh at us sometimes :-)
The phrase "never say never" has never been more true than when we moved to memphis. Aleah explains why:
We spent our first several "grown up" years as accountants- I mean; it doesn’t get much more “adult” than accounting, right? Super exciting. There comes a point, though, when it's more than obvious that you're doing life wrong. We stuck with it as long as we could, though, and when baby number one came along Josh left accounting behind and started shooting full time. At first Josh shot alone, except for a couple of weddings and engagement shoots that Aleah joined in on. It took 3 years before we realized that this business was just like the rest of our lives- we were better off working together as a team. That year we both shot every wedding and portrait session together. That was a tough year, mainly because Aleah was also still working full-time as an accountant. Suffice it to say that our house was a little bit crazy that year. At the end of year three, Aleah said goodbye to accounting for good, and we said hello to baby number two. Now that we've been working together for a couple of years, we can safely say that we think we're the luckiest people in the world to get to do what we do every day. Ultimately though, you never stop being an accounting nerd.
There comes a point when you just have to say enough is enough and follow your dreams!
Spending time together in the car has been one of our favorite things since day one. Even if we aren't going anywhere.
We
love
Road Trips
There may or may not be a coffee line item in our household budget.
WE
LOVE
coffee
Don't believe us? Just look at Josh's arms! Also, it's one of the first things we look for when we shoot!
We
LOVe
COLOR
Any way you want to make it is perfect, except with banana peppers.
WE
LOVE
Pizza
People, object, wedding venues, you name it. If it has a story, we're here for it!
WE
LOVE
history
Spending time together in the car has been one of our favorite things since day one. Even if we aren't going anywhere.
We
love
Road Trips
There may or may not be a coffee line item in our household budget.
WE
LOVE
coffee
Don't believe us? Just look at Josh's arms! Also, it's one of THE things we look for when we shoot!
We
LOVe
COLOR
Any way you want to make it is perfect, except with banana peppers.
WE
LOVE
Pizza
Person, object, wedding venue, you name it. If it has a story, we're here for it!
WE
LOVE
history
get all the info >
Now that you know about about us personally, click here to read more about what you can expect leading up to your wedding, on the big day, and even what happens after. (Hint: coffee is involved)
ABOUT THE
EXPERIENCE
About the Experience
COPYRIGHT JOSH AND ALEAH PHOTOGRAPHY. 2018
