Katie + Paul // Holland Wedding Photographer
Sarah + Brendan // Holland Wedding Photographer
Seebeck Family // Northern Michigan Family Photographer
In 2018 we shot Maisha & Nicks Wedding and it was so incredible. We just loved their families and they were so much fun, it was just a dream to shoot for us. So when Maisha wanted to plan a big family session for when they were all up north on vacation, we were all in! I’m so glad we were able to make this happen because I just love this session so much! There is so much love in this family and it’s such a privilege to be able to capture those memories for them in pictures. Honestly, if it were for me and my family, the first image above would make the whole thing worth it and everything else would be a bonus. I think that picture is so perfect, it just makes my heart sing!
Towards the end of the session, a tree branch behind their house landed on a power line and caught on fire! So that was quite the excitement. We didn’t stay long enough to see fire trucks but I imagine that was fun for the kids haha.
Hillary + Jeff // Detroit Engagement Photographer
Ramanavarapu Family// Lake michigan family photographer
Maria + Matt // Muskegon Engagement Photographer
Sarah + Jeff // Muskegon Engagement Photographer
Lindsay & Ryan // Grand Rapids Engagement Photographer
Lexi // Grand Rapids Bridal Photos
Welcome to all my dreams. Bridal sessions are more popular in the south and I sure hope that is something that changes! I loved being able to just play and Lexi is all about it and just had fun with her dress and was pretty much up for anything. Being in a wedding dress is just…I don’t know, it’s a magical experience so if you can be in your dress more than once, I think thats the best idea ever!
Ryan and I had a Dr. Seuss themed wedding back in the day and my goodness, these stripes would have just made my heart explode if I had photos like this! Ahhhh I’m jealous haha
The Bostic Family // Lake Michigan Extended Family Photographer
It’s been a couple years since the Peterson Family was up on the blog and being one of my all time favorite extended family sessions, I was super jazzed to hear that the other side of Stephanie’s family wanted the same treatment! I was even more excited when they booked me for extra time because they wanted mostly candid photos. You definitely want more time if candid is what you are looking for but it also helps to plan to do things that mean something to your family. When the Bostics get together they enjoy Kayaking, sitting around the fire with s’mores and a fun game of tag with a twist… Cooking utensils!
This is what I wish every family session could be. Just hanging out, doing what you love making memories that you want to remember forever. If they were ever having a bad day, I hope they would be able to look at these photos and remember what an amazing family they have.
Thank you Bostics for inviting me into your family I hope these will always make you smile.
Alayna + Nathan // Michillinda lodge wedding photos
Once in a while you get one of those wedding days where everything goes your way. The venue is great, the light is great somehow, even though it’s mid-day. Best of all, your couple is GREAT. When all those pieces come together I can just focus on capturing the love and joy that I am witnessing and there was a lot of love and joy on this day. So much. It was just such a pleasure all day and I am so excited to just share what an awesome day this was.
Alayna and Nathan, thank you for trusting me all day and thank you for being awesome humans!
Ron + Whitney // Muskegon Engagement Photographer
These two just bring the fun. We are extremely lucky to seem to attract awesome, laid back people. I laughed so much during this session which helped the blinding pain of sciatica that decided to flair up when we got there. With so many things in life, laughing it off is really the best way to deal with anything! I love that there are these really lovely normal photos and then as you go along, things get a little strange and then we found a puddle so Ryan and I freaked out and just HAD to have them go splashy in it with the jeep.
I am so excited for their wedding!
Shelby & Marc // Detroit Wedding Photographer
Shelby and Marc were one of the couples caught up in 2020 rescheduling. They decided to get married last year in a small, family only ceremony and then have the big wedding this year and I'm so glad they did. It was such a great day!
Shelby is just the most encouraging, sweet, authentic person and Marc is her perfect for her and he just beams happiness out of his face, especially with her around. Being able to problem solve and then problem solve some more, that is what marriage is about. Watching these couples go through such disappointment of last year but just turn around and plan a whole new wedding that provided its own new challenges and roll with it is really something.
Ultimately, it's just about being together and celebrating happiness. It is not about stress and clinging to disappointment in changed plans. We had so much fun and are so glad to have been part of such a beautiful day.
Linda + Mark // Grosse Pointe Engagement Photographer
Marcus + Hanna // Castle Farms Wedding Photographer
Well this wedding was amazing. This was a solo wedding for Ryan but I decided to come along at the last minute to tack on a little day away together in Charlevoix and it was a Harry Potter themed wedding so I thought that would be fun and I’m so glad I did!
They were just up for anything and running around and it was just so fun! There’s a lot of gifs in this one because they just moved so much, I couldn’t resist!
I just love when people are themselves for their wedding. Ryan and I had a Dr. Seuss themed wedding back in the day. We always tell people, there are no rules or requirements in weddings other than you somehow end up married. The rest should reflect who you are and have fun because the rest is a party. I love the images of just Hanna and Marcus in this wedding a lot because it reminded me of when Ryan and I got married and I just loved being playful and having photos of just the two of us before we were around all the people. It’s fun to look back on them all these years later and be amazed at how much things have changed but just being with him and laughing is still my favorite thing to do.
The Buren Family// Austin family photographer
I am sitting here trying to think of how I could possibly describe my feelings about the Buren family because we have so much history and I just don’t even know where to begin. I Met Steve and Ang in 2005 when we were all youth leaders at third reformed and I started working for him, doing construction shortly after.
Those 3 years shaped me as an adult and helped me for a lifelong friendship that has withstood many struggles, teaching me that relationships like I had with Steve are worth pushing through when we butt heads. We are polar opposites, yet we understand, appreciate each other and aren’t afraid to tell each other things that we don’t want to hear. The reward has been well worth the effort. Steve has impacted my life more that any person in this world outside of maybe my mom and of course Holly.
He was there when I first met Holly actually and he played a huge role in saving our marriage when Holly and I went through some really hard times. I just don’t know where I would be without Steve. I honestly think God placed us in each other’s lives and I am so thankful for that.
After 16 years our situations have changed greatly and for the better, unfortunately separating us by 1,000 miles, but time has proven that we still need each other just as much as before. Luckily Steve is probably one of my only friends that I can go without talking to for a long period of time and pick up right where we left off. I really enjoyed my time down in Texas a couple weeks ago, reconnecting with his amazing Family.
The Buren family will have a great ripple effect on this world and I am happy to be at ground zero. Can’t wait to go back! Anyway, I could go on and on but I have undoubtedly embarrassed Steve enough already. Enjoy all the cuteness and love of this session. I know I did!
Crystal + Spencer // The Barn at Monterey Valley Wedding
This was our last wedding of 2020 and what a way to end a crazy year!
When we first met with these two, you could tell they were meant for each other. I love a good proposal story and Spencer actually made a whole Youtube video of him building this awesome tree house on their property, about how hard it was to keep it a surprise. All to use it as a spot to pop the question. It was a great insight to their appreciation for one another.
You can probably tell that photographing them together was effortless. This is one of those portrait heavy blogs because we just couldn’t keep them out. The crazy part is that we had about an hour less than planned but still had some of the best portraits of the year! It also helped that the wedding party was a riot. Spencer and his brothers were pros when it comes to movie lines and since that is the basis of my entire sense of humor, I was having a great time being entertained by all the shenanigans. Did I mention their amazing German Shepard was a groomsman? I mean… day made just with that!
How about this venue by the way? The Barn At Monterey Valley was incredible and the whole experience there was top notch. It was such a beautiful place especially with peak fall color! Honestly it was kind of a vendor dream team. The catering (Enza’s Pizza) was probably the tastiest of the year and there was even this magical hot chocolate / coffee station from Clique coffee) that was so good. Holly still talks about it that hot chocolate. The high energy and fun that Curtis of Avison Entertainment brought was the perfect way to celebrate an amazing day.
One more thing that made this wedding special was the slideshow Spencer made for his grandma complete with audio of unheard voicemails of his grandfather who he was really close with before he passed. Sometimes it’s hard to see all the emotions in the room and keep doing your job without crying and that was one of those times. It was just such a faith in humanity restoring moment. Honestly seeing all the relationships through the day was what we needed after such a hard year. The world is so much better in real life outside of the internet and I am so honored that we get to have a front row view of the inter-workings of people’s lifetime relationships. We have a truly awesome job.
We so appreciated everything about this wedding. We will definitely be remembering it for a long time!
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 :)
