So a few short months later, their big day arrived. They were married at the beautiful High Street United Methodist church in Springfield, with the reception following at the nearby Marriott.

It felt easy to take pictures of a couple this totally in love with each other. And now, a few of my favorites!

Thanks for allowing me to share in your wedding day celebration, Jackie and AJ – I had a blast! Congratulations and a lifetime of love to you both!

Awesome pictures of an awesome wedding – these and hundreds more available now!

I loved that their wedding felt so personally theirs; everything from the main event to the table decorations and favors. And that’s just about all I have to say about this amazing couple and their amazing wedding. Sometimes, I just gotta shut it and hope that my pictures will tell this wonderful story much better than I can put into words.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a huge fan of the private “first look” …

Because there shouldn’t be anything “formal” about a formal portrait …

Sarah and Nate wanted to dance with both of their mothers … one of about a hundred things that I loved about their entire day together.

Best.

Bouquet toss.

Ever!

Helloooo beautiful backlight!

Thank you for making me a part of your amazing wedding day, Sarah and Nate! Congrats and a lifetime of love to you both!!!

Wanna see more? Or maybe order a few prints? Hundreds more available in my print gallery, here!

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, how about a couple dozen of them? …

Often when I am shooting the “formal” portraits I ask people to “do something crazy” or unexpected; whatever comes to mind. Their wedding party came up with some pretty comical stuff …

I could’ve posted a hundred pictures of Luisa and Gordon dancing. They made it look like so. Much. Fun!

Congratulations and a lifetime of love to you both! Thank you for the opportunity to share in your day together!

Check out hundreds more from Luisa and Gordon’s wedding day; order a print or two if you’d like!

I’ve been finishing processing a buncha’ beautiful weddings, engagement shoots and designing a few albums to boot; I hope to blog each and every one within the next few weeks. So until then, because every post is better with a picture, here’s a favorite from my recent shoot with Selvi and Lamar … an awesome, fun couple who made it an equally awesome, fun shoot:

Be back soon.

Where words fail me, I like to think that my camera doesn’t. And since I was there to photograph their wedding and not talk about it, shall we look at some pictures?

Yes, we shall.

As your wedding photographer, I am *very* partial to the first look. And I do understand not wanting to see each other until you walk down the aisle in front of your guests! Really, I do get it. But not only is a private first look an opportunity to see each other in an arguably more intimate setting, it’s also a great opportunity for some awesome photos. That’s my two cents on the topic – and here is Jenna and Andy’s first look:

I had a blast shooting your wedding, Jenna and Andy! Thank you for making me a part of your special day together; congratulations again and a lifetime of love to you both!

[View and choose from nearly 400 other pictures of Jenna and Andy's awesome wedding day. Hundreds more on the way soon!]

Yeesh, where to begin? I had an absurdly difficult time choosing pictures to blog; there were just too many. Kaylee and Eli are just fun together. They are such fun people and a fun couple! More than their beautiful relationship and their family and friends who shared in their wedding day, I also loved every detail of the celebration – from the beautiful venues, to the flowers, the table settings, the menu, (with mucho credit to Amy Dison for masterfully coordinating it all! Brides and grooms, drop her a line – you will be so glad you did!)

Finally, as a photographer, I like that Kaylee and Eli chose to devote some extra time to shooting a few portraits together (more on this in a future post.) If I could encourage every couple that I work with … this is time well spent! It isn’t every day you’ll look this great together and it’s worth taking a few extra minutes to remember it by!

Is it picture time now? Yes, it is. Look, and be glad.

Congratulations and a lifetime of love to you both, Kaylee and Eli! I had an awesome time at your wedding!

View over 1,600 other awesome pictures from Kaylee and Eli’s wedding day – order a print or two if ya’d like!

These are just a few of my favorites from their amazing wedding day. Enjoy!

Congratulations to you both, Trillion and Barrett, and I wish you an awesome lifetime of love and happiness together!

[Choose from these or over 1,400 other prints from Trillion and Barrett's wedding day celebration.]

Stay tuned for the rest of their wedding

Coming soon are a three recent weddings and my thoughts on portraiture … and by the time I put those up, there will be more in the works! Thanks for checking, and come back in a few!

Because every post is better with a picture, here’s a recent shot from Kaylee and Eli’s beautiful Jeffrey Mansion wedding:

Anything yet?

While I most love capturing real moments and unscripted joy, I still have fun with creative portraiture. For some reason, I got it in my head (maybe about four months ago now) that our good friends’ son, Luca, looked kinda like Charlie Brown. And I don’t mean that in any derogatory way, because Luca is already one of the cutest, happiest kids I’ve ever known! But a round head is a round head and I can say that because I have a big biscuit myself. I tell all this to his parents, Anthony and Linda – who like the idea too – so I went to Amazon.com and ordered the shirt.

Of course at this age, he is growing up so fast. So I don’t know how much he still looks like Chuck (or for that matter, if he ever really did.) But the shirt still fit him and we were wrapping up a low-key, fun Friday night barbecue at their place. Luca had just woken up from a late afternoon nap, so we weren’t sure he would be in the mood, but it didn’t take much prompting for him to unleash the cute on us all.

Okay, so I’ll never ghostwrite for Charles Dickens, but I snapped these pictures months ago and just found a few while cleaning out my hard drive …

This bird was perched literally 50 feet away from me, but I was in the midst of fiddling with my settings and he flew off before I could get a beautiful close up. D’oh!