In case you missed the most recent fabulous weddings and engagement sessions:

Kim and Nathan’s Wedding

Jamie and Bryan’s Wedding

Katie and Aaron’s Wedding

Tracy and Aaron’s Engagement

Chris and Christy’s Engagement

In Love Session: Kim and Nathan

In Love Session: Brian and Kim

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**

Dave and I have switched countries! We are currently in the Czech Republic. Leaving Rachel and Matt’s place in Germany somehow we managed to get on the wrong train. We finally found our way to the right train and instead of our trip to Pilsen only being a 3 hour trip with one stop over it turned into an 8 hour trip with 4 different trains and 1 bus. It was crazy! We made it okay and we were happy to check into our $65 Courtyard Marriott room in Pilsen.

Dave and I wandered to the old city square to find some food. We stopped in a little restaurant off of the main city square that advertised the local beer: Pilsner Urquell. Each restaurant that we passed by had a sign outside for what beer they served. This has to be the tastiest soup ever! really. it is. I kept seeing Garlic Soup on the menu in Germany and I decided to give it a try finally while in Pilsen. I was not disappointed. Our whole meal was about 280 CZK which is only $14, which is awesome for two main dishes a soup and two .5 liters of beer!

While planning our trip we noticed a city called Pilsen on our way to Prague from Nuremburg. Immediately we thought of pilsner beer. We looked up the city of Pilsen on Wiki Travel and sure enough, it is the home of Pilsner Beer! If you know us well, you know that we like our beer.

We took a tour of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. Pilsen was the birthplace of Pilsner beer, the first beer that you could see through. Beer before the Pilsner was invented in 1842 was dark beer. The tour lasted about 2 hours and took us through the many stages of beer. I had been to the Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco last year and I had high hopes for the tour.

My hopes were squashed like a fly swatted by a fly trap.

This tour was not even close to being on par with the Anchor Steam tour. For one, we had to pay! The tour cost 150 czk each ($7.50)! Our english tour guide was very hard to understand, and he had a very monotone voice. Oh yeah, and they made you pay to take photos. I didn’t pay knowing that the brewery tour couldn’t be earth shatteringly interesting that I would die if I didn’t have photos of it. One last thing, bring a jacket if you decide to go on it. We drank our ONE beer in a 40 degree cellar where we were stuck in the cold for about 30 minutes. I was wearing shorts.

All in all, even after the boring brewery tour, I enjoyed Pilsen. The architecture in the town square is worth the trip alone.

This church boasts the highest tower in the Czech Republic.

Look at that sky! It was really rainy on Tuesday evening in Pilsen. We got some really cool skies out of it though!

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**

Ahhh… Beer on a river cruise, what fun! The four of us (Rachel, Matt, Dave, Me!) cruised along the Rhine River in Germany on Saturday afternoon. The Rhine River cruise was about 2 hours long from our starting point in the town of Bacharach. We must have seen about 5-10 different castles along the way along with many other interesting points. There are many legends surrounding the Rhine river including something about 7 virgin maidens who would shipwreck boats on the seven reefs of the Rhine.

Dave and me on the Rhine River cruise.

Rachel and Matt!

The photo above is of the Loreley Rock. Legend has it that a young maiden threw herself from this rock after heartbreak from an unfaithful lover and turned into a siren. She lures sailers of the Rhine with her music which causes them to shipwreck their boats.

One of the towns we passed by on our cruise.

Castles galore!

We stayed in the small historic town of Bacharach along the Rhine River. Dave and I rented bikes and decided that is would be a good idea on empty stomachs to go and find food in the next town over. That proved to be a bad idea. 1 hour later we still did not have any lunch in our stomachs. It was a Sunday afternoon and most of the restaurants and shops were closed. We headed back to Bacharach and scored some food. I had a cheeseburger. I am American at heart.

I love all of the painted buildings. They seem to be everywhere!

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**

I am catching up on this past weekend of posts. Internet has been a bit hard to come by, so I am posting these entries as I find a connection. My Iphone is currently going through internet with drawl as it hasn’t had a connection since we left Boston. I might forget how to text when I get back to the states!

The old town of Cochem, Germany.

We headed to the town of Cochem on Friday night after our long hike up to Burg Eltz. We had one mission in mind, to find some good food and get Dave some beer. The Mosel River and Rhine River Valley are known for their sweet wine. Think of this area as the Napa Valley of Germany. Finding beer in wine country proved to be a bit difficult. When we did find beer it would either be wheat bear, not particularly our favorite or beer mixed with lemonade. The lemonade beer is quite refreshing on a hot day. We managed to find some beer for Dave, which made him a happy traveler.

Matt and Dave having a good time drinking some German Beer and Wine.

Dave took this really cute photo of Rachel and me.

I tried the Hawaii Schnitzel which had pineapple, cheese and berries on top. That is my favorite version of schnitzel so far.

Saturday morning the four of us explored the Cochem castle. Most of the little towns along the Mosel River also have a corresponding castle. The Cochem castle was amazing! The tour was great. We only paid a few Euros to go inside the castle on a tour and we could take photos. At Burg Eltz we were not allowed to take photos inside which was a dissapointment. Our tour was in German but our tour guide was really funny and even took time out to explain some important things to us in English.

Look at all of these gorgeous ceilings!

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**

I am so excited to share with you some of my favorite Orlando vendors! I get asked all the time for recommendations for different weddings vendors. I decided to put together a short list of our current top 5 favorite vendors. These wedding specialists are listed in no particular order. Go take a look at these  websites if you are planning your Orlando wedding.

1. Lee Forrest Design – Florist -  Lee is one of the greatest guys that I know. He is super talented and he knows his stuff! Lee not only designs for weddings but also for events. I guess I am kinda biased on who my favorite florist is because Lee was our floral designer for our wedding a few years ago. Lee and I have worked together on a few weddings including: Yvonne and Rene &  Elisha and Nathan

2. Ashlie Hampton – Wedding coordinator – Ashlie and I met a few months ago while I was the 2nd photographer for another wedding. This girl is a riot! She is fun and super nice! I hope to work more with her in the future.

3. 2u Collection – Invitations – The 2u Collection just launched their brand new website! I remember looking for invitations a few years ago and finding a bunch of cheesy 80’s looking invitations. That was not my idea of an invitation that I wanted to send out to all of my friends and family. I ended up making my own custom invitations which took days and days to complete. I wish I would have known about the 2u Collection!  Amy works with you to create your own “brand” for your wedding. Her invitations are modern, hip, and classic. They are something that I would definitely save if I got one of these invitations in the mail.

4. Lauren Alane – Cake Toppers – I first learned about Lauren’s unique cake toppers at Yvonne and Rene’s wedding. Lauren’s custom bird toppers are the cutest thing that I have seen lately. You can view her feature on The Wedding Chicks blog!

5. Anna Cakes -  Cake -  Anna creates some spectacular cakes! She designed Brandi and Matt’s wedding cake. Oh yeah, and they taste good too!

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**

We walked about 7 – 8 miles round trip to and from the castle Burg Eltz. I was so tired from this hike. Getting there was fine, it was the trip back that killed me. We got lost about 3 different times as the signs going up to the castle and back down to the town were not very clear. We took a path that started in Karden and ended in some other little town called Moselkern. Suffice it to say, it was a long hike up and down hill.

The town of Karden, Germany

Rachel and Matt on our hike.

Valley on our way to Burg Eltz.

The castle was beautiful! It’s original construction dates back to 1157. There were several other parts of Burg Eltz and residences added to the castle all the way through the 1600’s. The castle has remained in the same family for over 800 years. The Eltz family still owns it today.

Castle Eltz near the Mosel River

At the end of our hike we decided to take the Bahn (train) two stops to the town where Rachel and Matt’s car was parked. We couldn’t find the ticket machine in time so we had the choice to either hop the train or wait for the next one 30 minutes later. We decided to just get on the train and hope for the best. Unfortunately there was nowhere to buy tickets on the train, at least not that we say. The 4 of us decided to head to the one stall bathroom and wait out our two stops. Like that doesn’t look suspicious! Thankfully we only had a passenger laugh at us while watching us pile out of the small bathroom and not a train worker hand us a ticket. We read a sign that if we had been caught it would have been a 40 EUR ticket ($55). We were so worried that we were going to get caught! It was hilarious as we walked quickly off of the train knowing that we got away with that!

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**All content on this website is property of Heather Ahrens. 2009 copyright HA! Photography. If you would like to feature our work on your wedding blog or in your magazine please contact Heather for permission.**