Amazing weekend in Michigan: Wedding and Engagement shoot

The DeLand Wedding – Michigan.
What a beautiful wedding, and what an amazing time I had. Todd is an old friend of mine from college who, instead of hiring someone local, opted to fly me out to Michigan from my home in Los Angeles, California to photograph his wedding weekend.
This was a HUGE compliment for me not only because of the expense in bringing a photographer cross country for a wedding, but also because Todd is a photographer himself – and as such he’s more critical of the quality of other people’s work.

Todd, his beautiful wife Jessica, and I had a great time creating some truly amazing and fun photos of their big weekend. I spent two full days with them and their families photographing all the weekend’s events. We also went out and made some gorgeous images, like the one above, on Lake Michigan, sunset photos on Crystal Lake, and we even did a night fashion-style type shoot in a crumbling abandoned building!

This is one of my favorite shots from the night shoot!
Why have normal boring wedding images when it’s so easy to create something like this!?! Jessica was an amazing bride to work with – so open to ideas, shooting, and walking through abandoned buildings in her wedding dress during the reception!! And I knew Todd was looking forward to doing a shoot like this, too.

Overall, I had a truly amazing time with the DeLand’s and both of their families. They went out of their way to make me feel welcome and part of the family. When I thanked them all and said what a huge compliment it was to me to have been brought out for the wedding, Todd responded with “Well, I knew what I was getting. And we’re really happy you could do it.”

..and the weekend didn’t stop there..

I even managed to do an entire engagement shoot while I was in town for the weekend.

Mike and Christina have booked me for their wedding next summer – also in Michigan, haha. It worked out perfectly that I was able to do an engagement shoot with them while in the state for Todd’s wedding. I stopped in the small Bavarian town of Frakenmuth on my way back to Detroit on Sunday.
The three of us were able to create some really fun, playful, and vibrant shots. I’m excited to edit down the rest of the shots. I already have a couple other favorites from some bridge shots that we took!

So check back soon! I’ll have a ton of updates to my portfolio for racing I’ve been covering. I won’t be updating my Wedding section for a while because I need to finish the images for the clients before sharing more with all of you, lol!

1 Comment

  1. HorsepowerHeels July 14, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    Seeing photos like this makes me sentimental too… AWWW! So pretty!