images that embrace your personality
Sweet little Pepin loves the outdoors. We photographed her family under a crisp bright autumn sky and had fun exploring the woods and playing with mom and dad.
Getting toddlers to sit still is SO much fun! 😉
We resorted to flying, flying always gets smiles out of littles.
Then it was time to explore!
By the end, Pepin’s favorite owl came to help play in the leaves. Sooooo cute!
Enjoy the sneak peek! As always, it was great to see your lovely family again!!!
Nick and Erin were married this weekend on beautiful Lily Springs Farm!
This eco conscious outdoor loving couple chose the educational farm in Wisconsin for a weekend long celebration with their friends and family. Friday’s festivities were just a warm up for the love filled ceremony and raucous party that made up Saturday. This weekend was all about community. A dear friend married the couple, friends did all the set up and take down, created the flowers and decor, provided entertainment, helped each other set up camp, watched each other’s children, prepared the meals, and danced the night away together. It was the ultimate family reunion and friend gathering.
Erin prepped for the day at a sweet little B&B in Osceloa. There were a lot of laughs and a lot of tears, and mostly gasps of awe when she slipped into her stunning gown from A&Be Bridal…lacey and completely backless, it added instant glamour to the day.
Nick started his day off nestled in the woods, prepping with his buddies.
The first look was so sweet and romantic, their smiles were huge when they saw each other!
How cool is this tent for a bridal suite!?!?!
Though these two can sure pull off a sexy portrait…
…this one fits their personalities to a T. We have the best out-takes from this wedding!
The bridesmaids picked their own orange gowns, which perfectly popped against the green of the forest.
oh look…one of those fun outtakes!
Look at these dapper guys!
We met the most amazing people at this wedding! What a fantastic community of friends. And there was always some craziness going on to keep us photographers on our toes.
The ceremony was held along the lake, and seating was music festival style. Guests grabbed a drink and enjoyed a lovely ceremony with a surprise (even to the bride) exit in a canoe!
The whole wedding had such touching and sweet decor. Local artist Steph Guidera not only designed the floral for the day, she also created lovely chalk board art and signs that perfectly blended with the custom ketubah designed by Paper Thick Ink. Decor referencing the couple’s love of travel and natural simple beauty created the perfect ambiance at the farm. Eat for Equity wowed everyone with their amazing food, featuring venison hunted by the groom and his friends. The dinner and pie were made even more delicious knowing that 10% of the proceeds would go towards keeping the Minnesota north woods pristine.
The sun started to set, and an epic series of speeches began, featuring Nick’s dad.
Spontaneous swimming (for kids and adults alike) was par for the course this weekend.
Time to get the dance started! The crowd begged for the dance to stay outside under the stars and I’m so glad that decision was made! It was such a fun night as the sun set, guests were surprised by fireworks, amazing conversations happened around the campfire, and friends and family danced the night away.
Erin and Nick, thank you so much for trusting us with telling the story of your spectacular wedding!
Our family loves road trips, and decided to do the road trip to end all road trips, the Alcan Highway!
So this trip is Minnesota to Anchorage, Alaska. 3223 miles. Four CDs of music from the 60s to today from showtunes to bluegrass to pop. Three kids. One van. Camping half of the time to save money. Trying very hard to not watch any movies or have screen time of any kind. Trying very hard to make history come alive and let our kids see the world with an empathetic eye towards the first nations peoples as well as the pioneer spirit. Showing them first hand how our earth is changing and how we have to take care of it. Being a family, enjoying each other, spending 24/7 together, giving ourselves time to do nothing but just BE.
We couldn’t take off too many weekends during wedding season, and didn’t want to spend our whole time just driving, so we opted to give all our time to the trip up, then sold our van (which was still in good shape but getting older) and flew home. And just because it was pretty tough for me to organize this trip in doable drive times evenly paced each day…I’m listing our drives for future families that may want to do the same thing.
Day 1 – Minneapolis to Glendive, MT (our longest drive was first to get it out of the way)
Day 2 – Glendive, MT to Medicine Hat, Alberta
Day 3 – Medicine Hat to Banff (I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Banff, so this was where we stayed a few days)
Day 4 through Day 6 – Explore Banff, Lake Louise, John got to assist a wedding with Two Mann Studios, lots of camping and adventure
Day 7 – Banff to Grande Prairie
Day 8 – Grande Prairie to Fort Nelson, British Columbia
Day 9 – Fort Nelson to Watson Lake, Yukon
Day 10 – Watson Lake to Whitehorse
Day 11 – Whitehorse to Tok, Alaska
Day 12 – Tok to Anchorage
Day 13 through Day 17 – Kat shot a wedding and a family session, lots of cousin adventures, hiking a trip to Homer, and soaking in Alaska’s gorgeousness
Yep, a lot of driving, a very busy trip, but so much fun. With 7 or 6 hour drives a day it was manageable for sure, but it does wear on you after a while. If we were to do this again, I think we’d find one or two times in Canada where we would have stayed a couple days just to have time not in a car. But overall, we had a blast.
Though we’re photographers, we don’t take a ton of pictures when we are on vacation since that is family time. But we did take some images that you’ll find below! Enjoy!
The Dakotas get are given a hard time for being flat and boring, but northern Montana and the plains of Canada are FLAT. Like, see for miles while not seeing another person at all flat. There is a beauty in that starkness, but I was also glad we could drive 80mph to get through it. We definitely got our fill of wide open spaces!
We take a lot of pictures of clouds. We love weather! And our drive had a lot of it, sometimes we knew we were driving through the mountains but just couldn’t see them.
I love black and white landscapes, especially when the subjects have a lot of tonal variety. This image is of dead trees at Sulphur Lake.
The Canadian Rockies are gorgeous, just go there someday, totally worth it!
Cooper directed this image of him, he was so proud he got up on the building! This was at an abandoned coal mine near Banff. In Canada, their parks and historic sites are very kid friendly, they leave artifacts right in the ground and it is fine to climb all over them. Very different from our American experiences.
I love this one of Lyra.
Since I’m not a morning person, John took an early morning to himself and hiked around Lake Louise, he got some lovely images.
And then there is Lake Louise, my mecca. It is MAGICAL. Seriously. Go there. Do it. Visit. It is the most lovely place and pictures do not do it justice.
Maxfield Parrish is one of my favorite painters. His work is how I first fell in love with Banff and Lake Louise, so we had to recreate his painting “Daybreak” with the girls. We got there nice and early so the waters were still, and they were such troopers doing this! John shot for just about 5 minutes, that is all it took. Not bad! Especially considering we had slept in the van the night before as the temps dropped really low and we were freezing! Promises of hot chocolate helped. I love Ainsley’s pointed toe, and the reflection on the water is just perfect!
So now I’ll divert a bit to the travel blog side of this post…this is what a lot of the Alcan looks like…
…quite a bit of this…
…but you also get to see some fantastic animals, close up! We saw ground squirrels, pikas, mountain sheep, wood bison, moose, black bears, eagles, ravens, and we think a porcupine. Wildlife is everywhere!
We really loved the Yukon. The Goldrush is a fascinating part of our history, as is the Alcan itself. Where America built a highway in another country without their permission, then said “my bad, here you go!” and gave it to Canada. Canada actually got quite a bargain in that deal, especially with all the tourism that now happens in the summer. Below is an image of the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. It started out small, but now people from all over the world (including us!) nail their city signs or license plate or basically anything on these posts, wandering through here was so interesting!
This image is from the Sourdough Campground in Tok. The owners are awesome and every evening they have a pancake toss. If you get a sourdough pancake into the bucket, you win a free breakfast!
ALASKA! YOU ARE GORGEOUS! Every turn of the highway brings new stunning vistas! And we know we barely scratched the surface in what there is to see.
The kids were getting squirrely, so John had them run around in a field, they paused to check out the ocean and mountains, and I got this image. I love it so much. This was on the drive to Homer. Homer quickly became my happy place.
This is not photoshopped, these are the real colors from a Homer sunset at about 1030pm.
We were at the beach for low tide and got to see jellyfish, shells, birds, and play in the Pacific Ocean! John and I have now been in this ocean as far north as Alaska and as far south as Nicaragua! The kids LOVED playing in the surprisingly not freezing water and had a good hour of just exploring. There aren’t many pictures of Cooper because he was chest deep in the water most of the time and running around like a puppy.
Some of the most wild and beautiful places on earth. We were so fortunate to be able to give this experience to our kids! Cooper is already talking about working for a summer in Homer when he is a teenager and the girls want to work at the horse ranch in Banff when they graduate high school. We love all the things we saw, the time we took to spend together, and the people we met and visited. It wasn’t all perfection, and living through the crazy experiences were part of the beauty of the trip as well. Road trips are amazing! I hope you enjoyed our images!
Tracie and Di were married today! Actually, they have been married for 15 years, but tonight they made it legal in the state of Minnesota!
These two wanted to just have a simple pot luck get together, but their family and friends wouldn’t have it. The couple was flooded with requests to help decorate, design flowers, play music, and contribute in every way they could. Tracie and Di are both very giving loving people, and their tribe wanted to love on them right back. The brides planned this entire wedding in under a month. It was stressful and crazy, with so many things to consider and decisions to make quickly. Fortunately, they hired Gretchen from Rocket Science Weddings and Events to help guide the process.
The wedding took place at Sokol Hall, a true part of St Paul history. It is a lovely theater, and has a variety of antique backdrops to choose from. Di and Tracie chose a woodland scene, and Avant Decor hung cafe lights across the front of the stage to give it even more charm. As it got dark outside, guests arrived for the wedding, all bringing a favorite dish to share, made with love. Beloved nieces and nephews started the processional and then the brides were escorted in by their parents to live bagpipe music.
Music was a huge part of the evening. With various friends and family performing.
The vows and ring ceremonies were full of laughter and love, shared respect and appreciation. Pride in their state for being brave and standing up for equality. I truly lost it when the officiant asked for all the LGBT couples in the hall to stand that had been together for 15 or more years…and to see so many stand! Such loving relationships, it was so moving.
After the recessional, Tracie and Di were completely surprised when all of their guests flash mobbed them with a performance of Glory of Love.
Then, it was time to eat! The smorgasbord of food was quite impressive! Guests enjoyed eating at long tables, sharing stories, drinking wine, and celebrating.
After heart felt speeches, there were two performances to kick off the dance!
Tracie and Di, it has been so fun getting to know you in this whirlwind time! I hope you had a magical evening and I’m so thankful to have been a part of it!!!