Taylor + Joe // Kalamazoo Backyard Wedding Photographer

I love Joe & Taylor. They are both the kind of people that make it easy to become instantly comfortable around. They are so kind and thoughtful. I am always so happy when people like that find each other so they can preserve and grow that kindness in one another. The world has gone crazy but once you get off the internet and realize people like them are still around, it makes everything ok!

Needless to say I had an amazing time with them. When I can be this comfortable with my couples I feel like I do my best work and capture them just being them! There was so many great and happy moments in this day, I am really proud that I was able to document it the way I did.

I will say it was a little weird having only like 12 people in a big Catholic church but it still carried all the emotion of a bigger wedding in my opinion. I think this whole mini-wedding thing is so great. I hope it is still a thing even after life goes back to normal.

When we got to the reception I was kind of blown away with how it all looked! Big shout out to Lauren Koster on that front! I’ve never seen the woods look so classy! Joe and Taylor just rented this huge house in Battle Creek which I thought was so smart! It looked so nice and I bet they saved so much money over a traditional venue.

Anyway, thanks again guys. It was a special wedding for me that I will be sharing for a long time!

Mary + Nick // MSU Horticulture Gardens Wedding // Lansing Wedding Photographer

We as photographers have some weddings where everything just magically falls into place. Where the couple is super loving toward each other, the light is amazing everywhere we go which is crazy as the bulk of these were shot mid-day and the people are great and so was the venue. MSU, I came to find out, is just a photographic jackpot everywhere we went. My mind was going a mile a minute thinking about all the possibilities and the pressure to be great while I had limited time but a great couple.

I am super proud of the photos I came up with and the experience we had during the portrait process. Special thank you (times a million) to Mary’s maid of honor who just happened to be an assistant to a wedding photographer back home. She was so helpful and I couldn’t have done this without her! If I was rich I would 100% hire her to come to Michigan and be full time with us!

This wedding will be one of my favorites for a while and a memory I will definitely keep with me. It was all about family, with such great moments and the sharing of deep feelings that may not have a chance to come out if not for the joining of these two families.

Ok enough gushing, I hope you can feel some of what I felt through these images!

Andrew + Katie // Family Farm Wedding

Weddings have undoubtably been difficult this year. We’ve felt the stress and uncertainty with every one of our 2020 couples as they panicked trying to figure out the right balance of how to move forward. Not everything that is a challenge has to be bad though. If shooting weddings for 13 years has taught us anything, it’s about how to handle challenges and that you just have to keep moving forward, making the best of every change in your path.

The way that Andrew and Katie handled all the changes showed great maturity and teamwork. They were supposed to get married at Shadowland in St. Joe, MI. With so much uncertainty of what would be happening by the fall, they weren’t sure if they should just outright postpone or move forward with it or what. Eventually she told us they were going ahead with a small wedding this year with the big party at Shadowland next year. I think it was the best choice they could have made. The small wedding was now planned to be at her family farm. She talked about the halloween parties they had in the barns when they were younger and how they would play basketball on the pavement behind the barn that is now broken up with grass growing all between each piece of cracked concrete, her grandparents were married there. This place already had so many memories so adding to that is meaningful and honestly, isn’t that what weddings should be about?

Life will never be perfect, timing will never be perfect and choosing to pivot with grace when things are kind of a mess is the best thing to do. In marriage, there’s plenty of pivoting. In parenting, I feel like all we do is pivot when things are a mess and plans aren’t working out how I had them in my mind. Being able to handle that stuff together is what marriage is about. Loving each other in stress, uncertainty, disappointment. That is everything.

Katie and Andrew are just such exceptionally kind people. The way he looked at her during their first look photos will forever be stuck with me. He was in awe of her. The way they treat the people around them is just so authentic and true to who they are. I’m so glad they chose to pivot into this beautiful day and I’m so excited to shoot their big party next year.

Funny side story… I was listening to hours upon hours of true crime podcasts while working on their wedding so I’ve got all these stories of murderers and such in my mind so I found this pretty funny when I was going through and picking images for the blog. I’m glad you weren’t a murderer either Katie. You’d be a good one though because nobody would see it coming since you are so nice :)

The Raber Family // Kalamazoo Family Photographer

Marta + Peter // The Homestead Wedding Photographer

This has been a weird year. I have done more small weddings for obvious reasons but I honestly love it! Marta and Peter live in NYC and with all the craziness and stress going on over there, I think the Homestead was a perfect Northern Michigan destination to get some peace and focus on what’s important, the merging of these two wonderful families!

When I arrived early I was scoping out the property and I struck up a conversation with a couple ladies, nice as can be. Turns out one of them was Peter’s mom! I feel like in another life I would have been close friends with Marta, Peter and their families. They were all such warm and caring people which of course leads to some amazing wedding photos that document all the love they carried for each other.

This was just a chill, stress free and fun wedding and I just loved it. Marta is a natural beauty with no problem being in front of the camera (as you can see) and Peter was honestly the same! When that happens, getting beautiful photos becomes effortless and you can imagine how enjoyable that was!

Pair that with an amazing venue in the Homestead and I could do no wrong! Anyway I will stop gushing but this is just one of those weddings that make 2020 OK again. Thank you Marta and Peter for inviting me into your family for a day, I hope you love these as much as we do!