When I met with Kristin & Shawn for their engagement portraits they were really excited and at the same time they were visibly nervous.

Sometimes we are raised with the idea that portraits have to be straight forward, looking at the camera, fake, cheesy smiles. And even though I go over the process with all of my couples, those first 10 minutes sometimes can be intimidating… On the contrary though, Kristin & Shawn got comfortable by spending a relaxing late afternoon at the lake, knowing that they were going to be doing one of their favorite hobbies, spending quality time with each at one of their favorite locations, Smith Mountain Lake.

Here is a little bit about them!
How did you meet?: We met in a class at Virginia Tech. (Go Hokies!) we were in a group for small business management and our other two partners were of NO help. It was just often us two working on it and our relationship grew from there!

Hi, my name is Patrizia Corigliano Giovannini. Most call me Pat for short.

One of the biggest feelings I remember growing up was a being in a constant state of confusion. I grew up in the US, then moved to Italy at the age of 9, then back to the States again as a young adult! I was born in New York to my Italian immigrant parents. My mother & I have a language of our own. It’s a mix of English an Italian dialect from a little town in Calabria, the south of Italy, where both my mother and father are from.

During my early years in the US there was once a class project where everyone had to wear the flag of where they came from. I was wearing the Italian one and most other students were wearing the United States Flag … I didn’t understand why I was different since I was born in the States like everyone else, but my family identified as Italian.

How they met: They were in the same math class in 7th grade , at the young age of eleven! Throughout school years they were only friends , even though they always had a thing for each other . They used to meet up at a local baseball field parking lot and sit in the car and talk for hours and hours. “We were always so open and able to be our genuine selves with one another” said Alyson.

She remembers in class she was always a good girl, doing her work and paying attention. On the other hand, he was the athlete, who liked to play around too much. “I remember his mom would always have to come into our classroom to make sure he would be doing his work. The teacher would ask a question to the entire class, and his mom would smack him in the back of his head and make him raise his hand to answer the question that he had no clue what it was! I don’t know why that has always stuck out to me!”

Like a lot of couples nowadays, Katie & Sean met on tinder. It was immediately a match.

Not long after, they were visiting some friends in Houston, Texas and they were having dinner at this unique restaurant called, One Fifth. When this restaurant first opened they were given the lease for only five years and the owner of the restaurant liked the challenge, so he decided to have a different theme each year. (That’s where the name One Fifth came from!) They open in September with a new theme, go through til the end of July, then close the restaurant to do renovations so they can present the new one again the next September.

When Katie & Sean were there the theme was “Romance Languages”, which was the perfect one for a proposal! Katie said “we sat down to eat, then right after Sean was ordering champagne to do a toast and then all at a sudden he was proposing!”

Lauren & Jacob’s wedding was one of the most fun weddings I shot. They were both so laid back and easy to work with and as you can see from the images they had a blast!

Starting with their special dance walking down the aisle, to their toasts and sparkler exit, you can tell that it was a happy and fun day! And their sweet dog Alice was part of it too!

I asked them what was their favorite part from the day,

I first met Erin in 2010, when she became my next door neighbor. I had just had my son and that was the same year I started photography professionally. Soon enough, Erin and her twin sister, became my models. Being there to photograph Erin & Devon’s wedding was a lot more than just being their wedding photographer, I was a family member.

Their wedding was supposed to take place in 2018, but unfortunately a very terrible accident happened in their family so they had to postpone. It made their relationship stronger and make them aware of how fragile life can be, making them enjoy every moment with their loved ones even more.

Their day went by so beautifully, full of emotions, at West Manor Estate. The groomsmen all elegant and tight in their tuxedos and the bridesmaids gorgeous in their mismatched silver sage, dusty blue and burgundy dresses. The cake was a cappuccino flavor, Devon’s favorite flavor!

How they met:

Adam & Kimberly met while finishing their last semester at Virginia Tech in the Spring of 2016. Their first date happened to be on Valentines Day! They then graduated together in May of 2016 and both moved to Roanoke to start their new adventure together.

The first time I met Andrea, she was the bridesmaid AND wedding planner at one of my previous weddings. When she contacted me about being her wedding photographer, she still didn’t have a date set and I got worried I wasn’t going to be able to photograph it, since I already had a good number of dates booked. Andrea, on the other side wasn’t worried at all. She said “no worries, we’ll book a date that you still have available!” and so she did…

What is your favorite thing to do together?: 
“We love to cook together when we can! Whether it’s a meal completely from scratch or a Blue Apron meal (that Tyler always makes fun of Andrea for ordering); it’s always fun to get in the kitchen, drink some wine and make a meal together”.

We also enjoy going out to a sports bar, hanging out and watching football when we are able. It’s nice to sit back and relax on a Sunday after a busy weekend in the hospitality world.

Rachel contacted me more than a year before her wedding day and then I didn’t hear from her for over a month, which made me think that she had picked another wedding photographer. It felt weird cause we immediately got along, so I decided to send her a follow up email. Her response will always be one of my favorites! She said, I’m sorry if I didn’t get back sooner, we were getting the last details together before booking you, I would die if I didn’t have you as my wedding photographer! She seriously made my day, my month and whole year! lol

Rachel & Chris’s wedding was seriously like a fairytale… They exchanged their vows in front of family and friends having the woods of Four Fillies Lodge as their background. Rachel’s bouquet was a stunning cascade made out of roses and greenery and her bridesmaids had little lanterns filled with the same greenery and red roses. The forest was filled with white lilies based out of “Aladin”, Rachel’s favorite Disney movie. Their three tier cake was an almond cake with raspberry buttercream, and a red velvet cake with white chocolate buttercream. Every little detail was picked with so much attention and love, up to their first dance. “We wanted to pick a classic song and have a fun choreographed dance. Chris always complained that he couldn’t dance and the only dance I knew was the box step, taught to me by my father as a little girl. One evening , the song “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran came on and we began singing it to each other. While the song was playing Chris took my hand and we began dancing; He asked me to teach him the box step. From that moment on, every time the song played we would practice the dance. It not only became our song, it became our dance. Our first dance felt flawless because it was purely us, nothing else mattered; it was just the two of us.”

Here is a little more of Rachel & Chris’s story…

When you think of an engagement session different than other ones and out of the ordinary, well this is it!
When I met Sarah & Alex I knew immediately that they would be fun, but never did I know that they would push me outside my comfort zone…

We started the portraits with their super cute and very suspicious puppy, Kali. She could not get comfortable for pictures.. Seeing her expressions was hilarious! Like why did they bring me out here?! And why is that lady following us around?! I can’t get over with how cute she is..

They then went for a romantic canoe ride and the light was just perfect. They had told me their story and even though I am terrified of any kind of reptiles, I knew it would make their day to include some sort of lizard in their pictures, so I asked them and their faces literally lit up…

We ended up hiking and chasing a beautiful sunset overlooking the Appalachian Mountains…
Here is more about them!