” I love you becasue the entire universe conspired to help me find you” – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Karissa and Eric’s love story is one for the books. In Karissa’s own words:
“Eric and I met in the summer, June 2012. I was working as a security officer and he was home on R&R vacation from Afghanistan. Well as the story goes, it was about as good as it gets… He pulls up in a souped up mustang with these long dreamy curls and bright blue eyes, I melted. But I played coy, he a still asked me on a date though. I accepted, not knowing anything about him. We went on just ONE date. Then he left, poof he was gone (back overseas), to my surprise I still wanted to talk to him. So I found him on Facebook and he asked me to be his pen-pal. For 5 months we skyped, wrote letters, sent emails… but most importantly we FELL IN LOVE. After our time apart he decided to fly back to meet my family, they loved him. It was the most wonderful month of my life… All to be ended when he went back to work. We still continued our relationship but I felt the need one day to tell him how hard it was on me, no matter how much I loved him. I gave him an ultimatum, expecting the worst. 8 hours later I received a phone call that he resigned from his job and would be moving to Florida (though all his family was in Illinois) to be with me. We flew up to meet his family, he took the time to meet my family here. We got our own place together, we fell deeper in love, adopted some cats & turtles…. Then one day he took my dad fishing and asked for my hand in marriage. One night (April 24, 2014) we went out to dinner then to one of our favorites spots to shoot the skyline by a dock on Palm Beach, I was shooting then he passed me his camera to show me a few of his shots and I scrolled over a picture of the ring, I turned around to find him on one knee…the skyline was lit up and the stars where glimmering. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. The happiest moment of my life!!! 

I couldn’t have been more excited to be apart of their special day. Even though it was a stormy Florida day, it didn’t matter, their loved for each other shined through even as the rain fell.

Venue: Benvenutos
Wedding Planner: The Golden Pineapple Event Company
Second Shooter: Kristen Browning