The Benny Awards!

On Friday night, we went to the Benny Awards!! We received this fancy invitation in the mail created by the fabulous Amy Hannon a few weeks ago and have been looking forward to this fun event!

We met up with our great friends, Andrew and Casey, before the party to have dinner at Hugo's. When we got there, we were asked to wait in the lobby and enter one couple at a time. When we walked in, we were greeted with a red carpet where they took our pictures! We then walked into the main room and were greeted with amazing decorations designed by Jenessa and fun music playing! We grabbed a couple of drinks, chit-chatted, and snapped a couple of pictures!

 My best (and pretty pitiful) attempt to snap a picture of the decor

 Yummy desert bar

Chi O pic! Marion, Casey and me

 Cheers! Us with Casey and Andrew

A picture with the blog girls! Haha check theirs out for more pics and info on the night. Hillary, Lauren, and Casey

And here he is... our amazing photographer, Dale!!

After a lot of chit-chatting and picture-taking, Dale and Meredith began the awards part of the party! They had a huge projection screen that showed all of the nominees before announcing the winner in each category. Last year they had about 6,000 total votes. This year? Around 16,000 votes! Craziness! The category we were nominated for (Best Engagement Picture) is apparently one of the "biggest" categories (not sure why) and was saved for the end. We were THRILLED when he announced that out of almost 6,000 votes in this category alone, that we won second place but only "lost" by about 1%. We were honored to have even placed and then to walk up and be presented with a 16 x 20 gallery-wrap canvas of our portrait was soooo exciting!!! We are obsessed!!

Soo excited about this!

Dale posted his introduction to the Benny Awards on his blog today, and he will be doing posts each day for the rest of the week highlighting different aspects each day. You will definitely want to check this out because his pictures from the night are sure to be amazing. He IS the best photog in the world after all. Here is his schedule:

Monday - The Red Carpet

Tuesday - The Details

Wednesday - The Winning Images

Thursday - The Video and Wrap-Up

Friday - Thank Yous

We just want to say a super big thank-you to Dale and Meredith!! You all are amazing photographers, but your effort to go FAR above and beyond for your clients is more than impressive. We recommend you to anyone and everyone!!! Thanks again for a super fun night and a very exciting award!!