Kelly and DJ have been engaged for several years now…though that wasn’t their original plan when DJ proposed in March of 2008. DJ hadn’t foreseen his father passing away at the beginning of that April…or his own cancer diagnoses at the end of that same month. Only a strong commitment to one another and a stubborn will to get through life’s hurdles got them through those dark times.

Within six months of proposing, DJ went from being a healthy, young man with a head full of hair to a sickly, bald cancer patient who had lost almost 100 pounds. They both laugh about it now…”Who knew he’d go bald so quickly,” they joke. But at the time, I can only imagine the pain, sadness, and worry that must have been on both of their minds. How could they have possibly thought about planning a wedding? Kelly’s main goal was just to get DJ back to health.

And fortunately, the surgery and chemo did it’s job…DJ is completely cancer free now, and you would never even know he’d ever been sick a day in his life. Thanks to Kelly’s perseverance, he’s also back to a healthy weight, and both of them are able to laugh about that difficult time in their lives. Marriage must seem like a piece of cake to them now!

Not only do Kelly and DJ have quite an impressive story, they are also just two kind, fun-loving, and friendly people, and I truly enjoyed getting to help them take their first step in picking up the wedding planning process again. Kelly actually found me when searching for Kennywood engagement photographers–before I’d even photographed a session there! As a place where DJ has many fond childhood memories and where Kelly was quickly indoctrinated into Pittsburgh culture, Kennywood was the perfect location for their engagement photos. Here are just a few favorites from the evening!

Riding on the swings and taking photos is perhaps the most fun photography thing I’ve done. I think I laughed the whole time.

Love these.

We also happened to come on an evening when they had a parade of local marching bands.

Kelly had loved the carousel photo I’d taken at the other Kennywood engagement session, so we had to do one for them, too!

Kelly and DJ–thanks so much for a fun time! Enjoy the rest of your wedding planning!

And we had a blast! Seriously, it was so fun, and Sarah and Rick are just wonderful people in and of themselves. I can’t wait for their wedding in August! Oh, and this means I can check one more thing off of my goals for 2010.

There were a lot of firsts for me…riding and photographing on a swing was one of them!

So awesome!

I love Sarah’s expressions here.

They got to ride the new ride at Kennywood, which looked like fun!

And then we took a little break after the rides.

Then it was time to play games.

We headed back to the swings to grab a couple of photos as the light began to fade.

Love this.

So, so fun! Can’t wait to see you two next month!