The city that stole my heart

Alicia Ann Daw is a film & digital wedding photographer who specializes in New York City and European destination weddings. With over 15 years of experience photographing weddings, she's spent two decades globetrotting to over 37 countries and working with clients around the world. She delivers images that are effortlessly romantic and chic, telling a story about the start of your heritage in a way that will leave you in awe.

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Every time I visit it’s the same story. I promise myself I will capture the city of Copenhagen, a city that long ago stole my heart, in order to blog it. I also want to have fantastic pictures to show my future children of a place that, in so many ways, shaped who I am today.

But every time I go, I find it an impossible task. Because, for me, that city means so much more than what I am able to capture in a few photographs. I find that each time I go to snap the shutter, the image I’m taking doesn’t even come close to conveying the amount of emotion the picture in my mind holds of Copenhagen.

How, in one photo, do you sum up 5 years spent pouring your heart and soul out at a job you loved?

How, in one photo, do you sum up the fact that it was here where you “grew up” and began finding what your true passions were?

How, in one photo, do you sum up the city that saw the giddy smiles of a young woman head over heels in love and, subsequently, the weeping tears that fell after her heart was broken into pieces?

How, in one photo, do you sum up being 23 years old and having way responsibility than you should have, all because one person believed in you so much more than you believed in yourself? And through that, realizing how much potential your life had.

How, in one photo, do you sum up a community built on trust and friendship, one where those friends became family and over countless meals shared and movie nights, the deepest parts of hearts and souls were explored?

How, in one photo, do you sum up what it’s like getting on your bike and riding everywhere to had to go? To the beach in the summer. Downtown in the winter. Rain or shine, sub zero or sweltering temps.

How, in one photo, do you sum up your entire worldview being rocked to it’s core and gaining a much more global perspective through relationships with people from more countries than you can remember?

How, in one photo, do you sum up the struggle of sitting in countless meetings that were held in the foreign language you couldn’t understand? And not falling asleep during said meetings.

How, in one photo, do you sum up being stretched and pushed to your mental and emotional limits for the first time in your life?

How, in one photo, do you sum up the freedom that came with really working through all your baggage? Because it was there that I did that.

How, in one photo, do you sum up building relationship with some of the most genuine, caring people you’ve ever known?

How, in one photo, do you sum up a foreign land that still feels like home?

You see, for me Copenhagen holds so many emotional memories. One of my Danish friends jokes that I have a romantic view of the city and that I’m way out of touch with the reality of what it’s like living there. But I did live there. I spent 5 amazing years there. I remember the long, dark, winter days. But I also remember the midnight sun of summer. It’s just that there is something all encompassing about Copenhagen that so tightly grasped hold of my heart and refuses to let go. In the first week I was there, fresh off a life lived on American soil, someone told me that Denmark is like a black hole. If you don’t get out within the first year, you’re sucked in for life. There’s just something about it – it’s quirky people, it’s beautiful language, it’s landscape – that has me captivated. And because that’s what I think of every time I think of Copenhagen, I find it impossible to accurately capture the city. Because, to me, it’s so much more than a beautiful tourist destination. For once, I prefer to have the memories of that place tucked into the corners of my heart and mind.

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