Bride Getting Ready

The long awaited John Boyd Thatcher State Park wedding in Albany, NY of Don and Rishaya is finally here!  This sweet couple had SUCH a run around trying to make all their wedding plans happen one way or another.  They had originally planned to get married this past July in the Fingerlakes but COVID prevented that from happening.  They moved their wedding date to July of 2021 but then realized how much they just wanted to be married.  Plans to find a venue for their small family wedding kept falling through and every time Rishaya would send me an update I would just pray that something would work out for them.  Well let me tell you… Don and Rishaya had the most beautiful, scenic, and intimate wedding day!  I can’t wait for you to experience their wedding day through this blog!

Here is the gorgeous bride!  She and her bridesmaids got ready at the DoubleTree Hotel in Schenectady and I just loved her details!  The bridesmaids wore coral dresses (one of my favorite colors!) and I really wanted that color to come out in her detail pictures!

Rishaya is all kinds of sweet but one thing she said when I walked in that morning that floored me was , “Yes, this is a small family wedding and today Hannah, you’re family.”  I was SO honored!

Groom Getting Ready

Andrew headed over to where Don and his groomsmen were getting ready at their house!  I’m in LOVE with these detail pictures Andrew got of Don’s details!  He knocked it out of the park!

Before we go any further, I would be neglect if I didn’t tell you all about Don’s suit!  Don had his suit custom made just the way he wanted it.  It was tailored exactly to his size and he chose the floral pattern on the inside of his jacket and the back of his vest!  While we were doing these portraits he told me that he wants to keep everything from his wedding to remember the day by.  From the very beginning of their engagement session, I could tell that Don was a very thoughtful, kind and romantic man and that only played out even more on their wedding day!  I told Andrew, “You’re going to love Don.  You both are two peas in a pod!”  And I was right!… Andrew had such a good time with Don throughout the day!

The First Look

I learned from their engagement session that both Don and Rishaya are really an expressive couple and so I knew that their First Look was going to be EPIC!  And it was SO sweet.  Just look at the way Don takes a slow walk around Rishaya to check out her dress!  Look at the way they show off their shoes to each other! A-freakin-dorable.

Bride and Groom Portraits

After all these two have been through with planning this wedding, I was thrilled that they had a nice sunny day with lots of glowy light to exemplify their love and the magic that was felt on that day!

Can we stop and talk about Rishaya’s gorgeous dress and cathedral length veil for a second?!  Oh my gosh!  It was SO gorgeous!  I loved being able to use it for pictures!

Loved this bouquet made by Rishaya herself!

I feel like none of these pictures need captions!  They just speak for themselves.

Such a sharp looking couple!!!

 

I think this flower girl loved the way her dress fanned out when she twirled!

The views at John Boyd Thatcher State Park in Albany, NY are amazing and I knew I needed to get some of that in their wedding photos!  Want to know how I got this photo?…

Yup! I stood on top of my car!

I asked Andrew to toss the veil…

And I snapped away!

Even if we did have to put the veil back in a few times!  Go Team Hawkins!  Couldn’t do it without my Andrew man!

Then it was off to the Glen Doone area for their John Boyd Thatcher State Park wedding ceremony in Albany, NY!

The Wedding Ceremony

Ok I just HAD to include this in the blog.  The bride’s mom literally danced down the aisle.  It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in a wedding ceremony!

So many sweet emotions…

Don gave Rishaya such a sweet and tender kiss!

…and then they jumped the broom!  The joy just beaming from both of them… I just can’t handle it!

The Bridal Party

We had a few minutes after the ceremony to grab some quick pictures of the wedding party!

The Groomsmen

First of all, check out the inside of Don’s suit jacket that has his name on it, then these sharp looking groomsmen!

The Bridesmaids

I just love this coral color!  So gorgeous!

I had to make sure I got a picture with Don’s jacket off so he could showcase the floral pattern on the back of his vest!

The Wedding Reception

I just have to talk about how hard Don, Rishaya and each of their family members worked to pull this wedding off.  They had set up a tent at the Glen Doone pavilion area at the Thatcher State Park and it looked absolutely gorgeous!

The First Dance

When I first met Rishaya, she told me that not only did she used to be very involved in pageants but also was a dancer.  I really loved Don and Rishaya’s first dance.  I’m sure they choreographed it but it looked so natural that I would have thought that they were just moving to the music.

The groom dancing with the flower girl!

The Parent Dances

During the Mother Son dance I heard Don’s mom say, “I am SO proud of you”.  That’s all it took for me to start blinking back tears of my own.

And then Rishaya and her dad danced!  So sweet!

The Cake Cutting

Oh my gosh, the expressions in this sequence!  Rishaya told me that she really wanted to smash cake in Don’s face but it was him that didn’t want her to do it!  Ahahaha… I find it’s usually the other way around!  But the look on Rishaya’s face in the second photo down on the left… “Dude, I’ve got both the forks”.  Hahaha!

As the sun began to set, I pulled these two out for just a few more photos!  But the picture below is all Andrew’s!

And then we got a sunset!

The sunset plus this white birch tree was just perfect!  It was an epic way to close out an epic wedding day at John Boyd Thatcher State Park in Albany, NY for Don and Rishaya!

As we were leaving the wedding Rishaya and I started talking about ways that we could get together and hang out in the future!  Driving away, Andrew turned to me and said, “Wow, you were right, Don is a gem, a rare find.”  And with that, I hope that this blog shows not only nice wedding pictures but that you’ve gotten an idea of what an amazing couple Don and Rishaya are!  If you’d like to see more of our wedding work, you can check out here on the blog and if you’d like to reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you!

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