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Tina Jay Photography | Philadelphia Wedding Photographer bio picture

Welcome to my Blog-Site!

Here are a few things that make me....me:)


I love everything about Philly, from the authentic cheese steaks to the beauty of Rittenhouse Square.  I love Penn State – pretty much everyone in my immediate and extended family went to school there, and I have great memories from both my childhood years and my collegiate years.  I love my Mac... I will never be a PC again.  I love reading books on the beach and traveling for weddings.  I love my boyfriend, Jeremy.  He is a great man, and I feel lucky to have found him.  I also love our spontaneous dates in center city and remodeling our 1920s house to make it a home.  I love hanging out on our deck, talking the night away.  I love reading Vogue, and going to comedy clubs with my girlfriends.  Sometimes a girl needs nothing more than to laugh so hard her stomach hurts.  I love my family.  They are incredibly supportive of me, and I feel blessed to have each an every one of them in my life.

 

Most of all, I love documenting weddings.  I love the details that brides put together and the energy and emotion of the day.  I love how couples invite me to share in one of the most special days of their life.  I love connecting with each bride and groom, in order to bring out their unique qualities.  I love capturing the emotions of the day with my camera, so each couple can remember and hold onto those feelings for the rest of their lives.  And lastly, I love bringing a fresh perspective to a timeless tradition in this industry.

Thanks for stopping by!


Tina Jay is a wedding photographer based in the Philadelphia area, and is available for travel to any location.  For more questions regarding her photography, please contact her at tina@tinajayphotography.com, or click on the "Contact Me" link above.

(All images of Tina Jay on this blogsite were taken by Alison of Alison Conklin Photography)

I’m a Design Pro: My Save the Dates

Now that my save the dates have all been sent out (hopefully everyone got them!), I wanted to share the design with all of you out there:)  I thought I’d take a stab at designing them myself, so one night I sat down ALL night long and designed my save the dates – I thought they were AWESOME (if I do say so myself hah), and there was no way to improve them – that is until I sent the file to my friend who is a graphic designer, and she asked if I would mind if she made a few “tweaks”.  She sent this back to me:

Needless to say, I went with her version, I won’t embarrass myself by posting my original design:)  Didn’t she do an awesome job?  Thanks Julie!

(I just realized it looks a little odd because there is no border, but it’s just a 4×6 card, and the black swirls on the right mark the edge of the card:)

March 11, 2010 - 9:56 am Sam - my mom, sis, and I have ours and we're ready for october! Mine's on the fridge; everyone compliments it; they are awesome!

March 11, 2010 - 9:41 am Jaime - I love your save the dates! It's hanging on my fridge for all to see :)

25 Minutes…to 10 Miles?

Well, it’s again time for me to get my butt into shape.  I obviously want to look the BEST I can for my October wedding, but I’m SO bad about working out.  I have zero motivation to work out on my own.  Zip, zilch, none.  In order to start working out, I always need an end goal in mind to force myself to work out, so this year I decided to do the Broad Street Run.  Well let’s step back – some of my friends decided to do the run, and I reluctantly agreed:)

This is a 10 mile run that starts at Temple University, then you run through Center City and end at the stadiums in South Philly.  I know I’m capable of doing the run, because I used to run cross country in high school, but I’m SO embarassingly out of shape right now.  I’ve been going to the gym at 6am a few days a week for the past 3 weeks, and MAN, all of the sudden I am DRAGGING and it is such a struggle to just run 25 minutes!  I’m hoping it’s just a bad week – does anyone else just have weeks where you can’t get going and working out is a huge struggle?

I have to keep the training schedule plastered right next to my computer to keep myself going:)

And here are all of the PSU girls that are doing the run – thank god you are all doing it with me, because knowing you’re all working out keeps me motivated to get up at 6am to run!

I’m excited to do the run because it will be awesome to do it with all of these girls, but I’ll be honest, I’m not looking forward to it.  When it’s a struggle to run 25 minutes, I keep wondering how I’ll get up to 10 miles!  Hopefully next week is a better work out week…

March 7, 2010 - 11:31 am Jess - Woops, sorry about the spelling errors!

March 7, 2010 - 11:31 am Jess - You can totally do it! Stick to your training schedule and then it's all mind over matter. ANd it's a great swense of accomplishment when you're done!! I'll be there cheering you on!

March 6, 2010 - 11:31 am Joan - I'm proud of your efforts Tina! I know how hard it is but keep plugging away and you'll be able to do it. At least it's a flat run!

March 5, 2010 - 10:56 am Gail - WOOT! I'm SO proud of you girl! I've have been thisclose to giving up on training for the Mini with being sick, but Nick's pushing me to keep on. Here's to getting a run in with you at Central Park. I think we'll need a point-and-shoot for proof we did it eh? :)

March 5, 2010 - 10:10 am Jaime - I'm in the same boat! I can't seem to get past 3 miles without wanting to die...how the heck am I going to do 10??? Oh well, it'll be fun, we'll get good t-shirts out of it and we're going to eat like crazy afterwards :)

March 5, 2010 - 8:43 am Mary - Can you please blur out my lazy face here? You girls will do great! And besides, you don't have to RUN the whole time...

My Wedding Series

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how my wedding planning process is going, so I thought I’d start a little series on all of my own fun wedding details:)  One of the first things Jay and I did was pick our reception venue, because at the point we got engaged, we decided we were going to get married in less than a year from that date – oh, our wedding date is 10.2.10 by the way….CAN’T WAIT!  Anyway, it’s CRAZY how fast things book for weddings, so we knew we had to get a jump on the location.  The one thing we knew for sure was that we wanted to get married in center city Philly – we met there, started dating there, and got engaged there….so it was the perfect choice:)

I went back and forth between two places….there was the Fuel House (the house they had the Real World in when it was in Philly)….which is an amazing, contemporary location for your wedding – and there was the Top of the Tower, which was right in Center City, and had STUNNING views.  Ultimately I went with the Top of the Tower, because the views sold me – as soon as I stepped off of the elevator and saw the views through the floor to ceiling windows, my jaw dropped and I was sold….I just knew THAT was where I wanted to get married to my best friend.  I feel like this city is so much a part of us as a couple, that I can’t think of a better place to have our wedding:)

So here is a picture of the city sky-line, the brown-ish building on the left is where we’re getting married, on the top floor:)   And the little white building on the right is where I used to live when I was in the city – looking at this picture makes me TOTALLY miss living in the city….it was so much fun living there.   Jay and I already decided that when we retire we’re just going to buy a condo in the city and live the city life again:)

As if you can’t tell, this picture was taken WEEKS ago, because now all of Philly is covered with ugly brown snow.  I’m SO sick of all the snow we’ve been getting, and how gross and grey it looks outside….I can’t wait to see green grass and blue skies again!

March 9, 2010 - 7:50 pm Kylene - 10.2.10!! yayyyy :) Can't wait!

March 3, 2010 - 9:45 pm Jess - Aww, I miss living in the city too! It was definitely a good time! Def put your Save the Dates on here...they turned out great!

March 3, 2010 - 9:41 pm Sarah - more, more, more!

March 3, 2010 - 10:08 am Lauren - Can't wait to see what it looks like inside! PS You should post a pic of your save-the-dates....everyone that walks in my house comments on how awesome they are :)

Rachel’s Boudoir

Last week Rachel and I got together for her boudoir shoot in Philly, which is going to be a little wedding gift for her future husband on their wedding day:)  Boudoir shoots are great gift options for your soon-to-be husband, or for an anniversary or Valentine’s Day gift for your husband/boyfriend.

Check out the amazing-ness that is Rachel:

Your boudoir shots are then packaged in this discrete little album, from the fabulous Leather Craftsmen:

I am in love with the quality of these albums – I love the thickness of each page:

These are flushmount, hingeless albums, which allows each page to lay flat:

And of course, the only boudoir pictures that appear on my blog are approved by my clients first:)

And now it’s time to brace myself for the next snow storm…..is anyone else totally OVER snow at this point in winter?  Can it be spring already, or what?

March 8, 2010 - 4:08 pm Sarah Tiesing - I LOVE these boudoir shots - that is so creative and fun!!! Great idea for an anniversary gift too. I'm one of Jess's friends and stumbled upon your site...I just might have to holler at you for some pics sometime! You are very talented!

March 3, 2010 - 9:42 pm Jess - Very sexy idea...it's the new thing to do!

February 27, 2010 - 4:19 pm Mary - Looking steamy Rachel!

Jenna and Ryan: Engagement

Hope everyone had an amazing Valentine’s Day!  Jay and I celebrated by going out to a nice quiet dinner, just the two of us.  He took me to Devon Seafood Grill in Rittenhouse Square (it’s always so fun to pass by our proposal spot now:), so I was in a food coma for hours afterwards (from the lobster bisque to be exact…..I don’t know what they do, but that soup is heavenly).  It was relaxing and delicious, and just what I needed:)

My Valentine’s Day morning started off in a GREAT way – I shot my first engagement session of 2010 in Center City!  We met up at the Art Museum (the Rocky steps for all you non-Philadelphians out there) and hung out there for as long as we could last in the windy, cold weather.  I should have taken pictures of people sledding down the stairs on random pieces of cardboard while we were taking these pictures….just keepin’ it classy Philly:)

Anyway, on to the pictures!  I think BOTH Jenna and Ryan have the most amazing smiles ever  – don’t you agree?

Love this city:)

Hot couple.  That’s all I have to say about that:)

And I’ll wrap it up with my favorite image of the day:

Thanks Jenna and Ryan – I had so much fun spending Valentine’s Day morning with you – can’t wait for the wedding in July!

February 17, 2010 - 4:00 pm Jess - These are great, and I agree with Heather....I LOVE the black and white one with them both looking at the camera!

February 17, 2010 - 1:52 pm Erin - Tina these pictures are beautiful. They look happy and in love. My favorite is the black and white one they are both facing forward and smiling. Great job.

February 17, 2010 - 10:33 am Mary - Wow, I can't get over how pretty her hair is! They look so cozy even though I know it was freezing....must be the love haha.

February 17, 2010 - 10:05 am Jaime - Absolutely gorgeous!! This couple looks like so much fun! Just from a picture I can tell you completely captured their personalities.

February 17, 2010 - 9:59 am Lauren - Tina they look awesome!! I really like the one w/ the art museum in the background - they look like such a happy couple :) ps. I wish you posted the cardboard to show our philly class.

February 16, 2010 - 9:26 pm Heather - I love, LOVE that b&w with them looking at the camera! Great job!

February 16, 2010 - 7:59 pm Gail - Ooooh..I LOVE that last black and white shot! And girl, is it YOU or do these people have the most amazing skin ever? Your photos always look so creamy gorgeous :)