West Norriton photographer and Lansdale tattoo artist collaborate on weddings

WEST NORRITON>>The Wedding Tattooer and the tattooed bride photographer: It seemed inevitable that their paths would cross one day.

Mike Allebach's and Rob Fiore's paths didn't just cross. They collided, converged and fused into a partnership as iconoclastic and prolific as the sum of the two men's talents.

Where many conventional photographers might prefer that their inked-up bridal clients go heavy on the concealer and mask their tattoos or simply have them airbrushed into nonexistence, Allebach, who lives in West Norriton, built a reputation as a professional who not only accepted the body art of his clients, but celebrated it in creative ways.

As Allebach was growing his renown, Fiore, a Lansdale resident, had been operating as The Wedding Tattooer, an artist who performed his magic on the bride, groom and anyone else who provided an epidermal canvas.

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"I'd been doing wedding photography and photographing tattooed brides since 2008, and Rob had launched his business doing tattoos at weddings when some mutual friends brought us together not long ago," Allebach explained. "I recorded a video in my studio in North Wales about him and it went viral. Now we're booking weddings together. Collaborating really helped both of our businesses out and it's gone all over the world."

Allebach's work, which has earned him five stars on Yelp, Wedding Wire, Google Local and The Knot, keeps him steadily employed in Montgomery and Lancaster counties, Philadelphia, New Jersey and everywhere in between.

The word he likes to use when describing the bulk of his wedding agenda is "offbeat," focusing on subjects that might feel like the misfits and the disenfranchised of the typical wedding planner's world.

"I have photographed offbeat, gay, trans, straight, straight-edge, roller girl, nerdy, steampunk, punk rock, rockabilly, tattooed, not tattooed, interfaith and couples with disabilities," Allebach notes on his website, Allebachphotography.com.

"Celebrate who you are and who you love," is the essence of his philosophy.

"When we started, there weren't punk rock brides featured in magazines or online ― nobody was featuring LGBT wedding either. And couples boudoir wasn't something anyone was talking about. In 2008 we set out to change that. We put together a tattooed bride photo shoot. The results were unlike anything shown in wedding magazines. Both Offbeat Bride and Rock n Roll Bride picked up the photos," noted Allebach, who, in 2014, produced a calendar with the support of tattoo shops raising money for cancer research through the Eli Seth Matthew Leukemia Fund.

"Some people just have crazy ideas about what they want to do at their wedding. Maybe it's a Halloween masquerade type of wedding. And they know I'm going to be cool with it," Allebach said.

"People hire me because they're looking for something different or they're looking for someone who is sensitive to what they want to do, someone who not only wants to take on the job but who really wants to photograph them. They feel accepted."

Source: West Norriton photographer and Lansdale tattoo artist collaborate on weddings