travel

I’m obsessed with Michigan beach towns. I’ll drive as far as I possibly have to if it takes me to a wedding on one of Michigan’s gorgeous lakes. Jeff and I have been scoping out places to keep our distant future dream sailboat, so I always—no joke—go early to beach weddings and shoots to scope out the local marinas.

Jeff and I were married in Mexico with 40 of our closest family and friends, so intimate beach weddings have an extra special place in my heart.

Jenna’s parents were married on this boardwalk in this exact place.

Check back next Tuesday for a brand new blog post.

Molly and Matt live in California, but Molly dreamed of getting married in her childhood backyard. Their ceremony was extra sentimental, because it wasn’t just about joining together the couple. It was about joining a new family, including Matt’s kids, Ashley and Josh.

I love it when couples transform their own homes or childhood homes into the perfect backdrops for weddings. My sister was married at home, and it’s so cool to see the celebration in a place with so much meaning.

Wedding Vendors:

• Hair: Holly Muscat
• Make-up: Marie Ann
• DJ: Dramatic Dimensions Entertainment
• Catering: Crank’s Catering

Check back next Tuesday for a brand new blog post.

It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with all things M22. My Grandma has lived in Northport, Michigan since the 1980s, and I’ve been going up that way for as long as I can remember. In fact, Jeff and I talk at least weekly about our five to ten year dream (which is, you’ll see, maybe a little crazy—at least that’s what my mom tells me, which naturally makes me want to do it even more). We would absolutely love to buy a sailboat someday that we can squeeze our whole family into for the majority of the summer. Ideally, we like the idea of being able to take it all over the state of Michigan, but ultimately, we’d love to park it in Traverse City and walk into the city to work at co-working offices while I run around the city and surrounding vineyards shooting gorgeous weddings. Not a bad dream, right? It may be more than a few years off, but hey, a girl’s gotta have a dream.

Anyway, Janna and Pete gave me a little peek into that dream world when they invited me up to photograph their wedding at Snow Moon Ranch, a llama and alpaca farm tucked away near Glen Lake. The laid back, low key approach from Janna and Pete, friendly family and friends, the natural beauty of the setting, my new llama friends, gorgeous details from Amy Kate Designs, live music from Sam Corbin and Sam Sygit, pie from Leelanau Pie and Pastry and ice cream from the local Moomers all came together to create the perfect, relaxed wedding day.

Check back next Tuesday for a brand new blog post.

Kevin and Kate epitomize why I left corporate America to become a wedding photographer. They were so vocal about how grateful they were to have me at their intimate wedding at Zingerman’s on Fourth in Ann Arbor, and it really made me feel like I was a part of something extra special.

Kevin is a designer, and he did an amazing job designing everything from the font on the chalkboard to the invitations and other little details (right down to stamps that matched the designs perfectly and flowers from Whole Foods).

This wedding was featured on Borrowed and Blue under the title Industrial-Inspired Elegance in Ann Arbor—I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Check back next Tuesday for a brand new blog post.