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 :)
