We were able to work in a few photos with just regular clothes as well but the best of the session was at the whimsical, magical, amazing nature. We had such a great time with them and really went overboard on this shoot. Sometimes I have a hard time holding back and need to learn to find balance in things since I overwork so much but gosh darnit, I think this one was worth it!

I also did more black and white than usual. I kind of always felt like black and white was just a way to wuss out of doing a beautiful color corrected image. However, since I think I’ve mastered beautiful colors, I guess this is just a new skill done by choice, not necessity. :)

Whoa! Favorite! She has such cool hair and HUGE eyes! I am so jealous. I feel like my eyes are getting smaller as I get older. Is that possible?!Ok so that was all cute and fun but here come the REAL great photos of the session! This just demands to be printed as a gigantic canvas. Seriously. Love. How whimsical is this? Oh my goodness. I want to be her so bad. Twirling in a wedding dress in a whimsical forest. DREAM COME TRUE. 

Time for magic light! (This shoot seriously lasted forever, oh my word, haha) I think I’ve developed an allergy to whatever these are. I was about to itch my face clean off. …and more twirling. I just can’t get enough of it! :)

It was great working with you guys and I really hope you love all the photos!! :) Let me know when you are with child, we need to do something spectacular for maternity photos. :)

Amanda and Mark were so laid back, we have been so lucky to get really easy going couples. No bridezilla’s for the Gaupers :) I consider it a gift from God and I am super thankful for that. It’s wonderful to work for people who have the ability to just let the day flow and who are able to enjoy themselves.

When she first showed me her dress I was, to say the least, thrilled. I’ve shot the same type of dress so many times that having something different is just a huge thrill to me. It even had REAL buttons! haha :) Her dress was stunning on a hanger and stunning on her. Beautiful all around. I took these shots at the hotel we were staying at for the wedding. It’s our favorite in Ann Arbor, Webers Inn .

…and really, what is there left to say about me and rings. I’m crazy for them and that will never stop. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, someone please offer me a job where I get to photograph jewelry ALL DAY LONG. :) Thank you. I know, I know, a lot of ring shots for a blog…but I’ve got a problem and I’m just nuts about this one. Umm…tallest guy ever? I often wonder what life is like as a very tall person. I imagine the whole world is different from up there. From personal experience, I can say that the world is a little frustrating down here at 5’4. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of things that I just can’t see. Ok so if Ryan was writing this blog post I am sure he would sound super excited and say cool things about these shots. I, however, am 100% nerd and don’t like, watch or really care much for sports in general. Eep! I just felt a ton of hate vibes come my way I’m sure, haha. There’s nothing wrong with sports, I just never got into it. I embraced art and nerd things instead. With that said, I guess it’s pretty cool they were able to get inside and do these photos. I think the photos are awesome and sports fans would probably be super pumped about this. :) Ryan was pretty happy and excited and well, I’m happy for him. haha
I LOVE that I have not had a bride this year tell me no about anything I wanted to do with them. Laying down in the dress, no problem! Oh, and fishtail braid – please become super popular. I love it. The back of that dress, phenomenal! When we got to our location it was starting to rain so we literally made the majority of the bride and groom session happen in about 15 minutes before it started POURING. Amanda and Mark were seriously troopers. It’s not as fun to move fast and get it done, but it gets done. They had a great attitude about everything and the images prove that. If you let things get to you, it shows in photos. So after a stop for drinks, all the guys were a lot easier to work with… :) The rain had nearly stopped at this point as well which was SO great! Oh I just adore the image on the left. So cute!McDonalds Cheeseburgers? Ummm hands down favorite reception image of the night. hahah! 

Nathan and Carolyn were married at the The Grosse Pointe Academy in In Grosse Pointe Farms and had their reception at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown. I gotta say, I think the DAC is my favorite venue so far. The staff there was just so friendly and kind to us, the guest rooms were amazing and the whole building is just gorgeous. I really hope to shoot there many more times. It was just an all around awesome place.

They found out about us through Nathan’s cousin’s wedding the year before. I was not good about blogging things last year so their full wedding blog will be coming this winter when I show you all what we did last year. Brandon and Angela were awesome to say the least. They were the ones that jumped in the pool at the end of the night! http://www.theGAUPERSblog.com/wedding-pool-party

There was no pool jumping at this wedding, but there was a TON of elegant, beautiful, everything. We are typically always about fun and color and crazy things, but this wedding just goes to show that the Gauper’s can do elegant and lovely as well. :)

This might sound weird, but as I was going through and editing images for the blog I was kind of surprised at how many awesome images we had. It was super hard to pick. I knew the day was running 1 hour behind and we lost a lot of our planned shooting time so I kinda just felt like everything happened so fast and I didn’t think we got as much as we did. I felt good about what we had, but just didn’t realize it was so much. Sometimes I forget that Ryan takes photos too, haha. So, you guessed it, this is gonna be another huge post. I tried to narrow it down, I really did! Carolyn just had so many lovely details and the DAC was such an awesome place to shoot, how could I turn away images that so desperately wanted to be on our blog? I simply couldn’t. I am weak. Deal with it :) Bride and Groom images are always my favorite so most of this post is just that…. and ring shots. OH her ring, it’s just to die for.

Speaking of her ring, I just had to start this with the best ring shot of my life. Now, what I find interesting is that my first most awesome ring shot on the moon was at Brandon and Angela’s wedding the year before. There must be something magical about the jewelry these people have. I just am nuts about how the diamond is lit and the colors and sparkles. It gives me chills.

I will pace myself with the ring shots so your not all so overwhelmed and blinded by diamonds but I couldn’t help myself when I was shooting. I just couldn’t stop! Ryan eventually found me and told me to be done, haha. So I will just sprinkle a few more awesome ring shots throughout the post. :) 

I only had a few minutes to photograph her shoes. I had no idea they would be so amazing. When she pulled them out of the box my eyes probably popped out of my face. They are just stunning. Shiny, sparkly, texture…just perfect. I was most crazy about the heels. Oh my word, I LOVE that heel! If I had 20 minutes to spend photographing those shoes, oh the sparkle I could create!

The girls got ready mostly at the salon so while we were waiting for them to arrive Ryan got some shots of all the guys hanging out. It never ceases to amaze me how men can go from hanging out drinking to fully ready for a wedding in about 15 minutes.

I am typically all about color but I really loved this white/off white combination on Nate. It is perfect with the flower and the texture was great. Simple color with texture is always timeless.
They decided on doing a first look which I think was a great idea! This made the venue very happy as well. :) It just helps the schedule to flow nicely and also gives them a chance to be together and get to have an actual reaction to seeing each other for the first time. Inside the DAC was a lovely place for it. It just really went so well with the theme of the wedding and the classic simplicity of her dress.

The DAC was just an awesome place for everything. I can’t remember a time where we CHOSE to shoot inside over outside when it’s a beautiful day out. If your looking for a wedding venue in detroit, this is the best place hands down in my opinion. I was SO excited to see this awesome door! Many faces! :)Favorite! I demand cool lighting from Ryan and POW! He delivers every time! Behind these big curtains is a little thin balcony. I was warned about going out there for too long though since there is a giant angry bird who likes to hang around. The last thing I need is for my bride to be swept away by an eagle! hahaha ….so we stayed inside just in case :)
Oh boy, this is also a favorite. It’s hard to choose. It’s so simple and lovely, I’m really into that these days.When we looked around the day before the wedding, I knew IMMEDIATELY that I wanted to use the racquetball court. Ryan didn’t even seem my vision. With the right editing it’s magical!

Just so you can experience my vision with me, I’ll show you my before and after. I sometimes wonder how other people visually experience the world because I’m so used to the way I see things. When I walked into that court, I saw the room as the image on the left. Clean,warm, classic. I didn’t see the image on the right. I guess I see it through my eyes, but not in my mind if that makes any sense. What we do is more than just taking photos. It’s all about vision and the ability to make that vision happen.

I’ll jump off my artistic vision rant and back to wedding now… :)

We actually ran into a girl who is part of this project while we were shooting there. It’s part of a community art project which is really cool. They are still working on it so eventually if will be all fully striped. I think it’s so awesome and that girl might not fully realize how awesome it is. I can imagine this will be a common place for wedding photos since it’s so easy to spot and has such great colors. I just love projects like this. 

Getting smashed by a bus! 

Sometimes I think people might think I’m nuts when I do ring shots. To other people, it doesn’t look at all like this photo when it’s happening, haha. This was right outside the side door of the ceremony. Such a cool texture and I love when I can get rings to stand up!

HOLY SPARKLE! I quite love that the ring almost blends in with all the shiny madness. haha I love his face!  Their ceremony venue was SO pretty. It was crazy dark and the colors were nuts but I’m proud to say my mad color correcting skills come in handy again! 

Since we did all the photos beforehand, we were able to head straight to the reception which was great! They were able to enjoy cocktail hour with all their guests and we were able to get detail shots of the ballroom. Everybody wins! Their band was awesome, one of my favorites! Their name is Persuasion and are out of  Royal Oak, MI. At the end of our night, If I wasn’t so exhausted I would have loved to just sit around and listen to them and watch everyone for a while. Their lead singer was so fun and personable. It was really great. Having a good band or DJ is so important to the vibe of a reception. 

We had such a great day with you guys and I’m just so excited to share all these images with you! Thanks for taking the million hours that it took to get to the bottom of this post. :) hahaha

I have GREAT feelings about their album. I think it’s going to be full of big images and lots of simple white space. I’m super excited to design it!

Whew! Now I must go play with Duma, she is restless and has been crawling all over me and my keyboard while I’ve been trying to write this post, haha. Lots of backspacing out the things she wanted to add. :)

Alyssa and Ari were married on July 4th in Hacketstown New Jersey. Her dad actually found us through flickr and emailed me asking about weddings. We quickly hit it off and they booked us. That is the first time I have had the father be the main point of contact for everything pre-wedding. Lucky for me, her dad wasn’t some cold, grouchy man angry at how much this wedding is costing him like we see on tv, haha. He is such a nice guy and just adores his daughter. I have a really weak spot for fathers who outwardly love their daughters so I liked him right away. We have had some amazing dads this year.

Because of television, we all have this idea of New Jersey. Well this was none of that. Hackettstown is just a small place and it was lovely.  Alyssa and Ari actually live on a small farm and are part of a co-op which feels over 10 families I believe.

Oh! I forgot I have quite the story of getting there. I was pretty excited for this wedding since I liked them so much so I planned a lot of time. I am not a good flyer so we left for the airport with a time of time to spare. I would rather sit there and wait over risk being late.

Well, I put the wrong airport in the GPS. We parked out car, took a shuttle in and then wondered why united wasn’t there. I asked a woman who worked there and showed her my itinerary only for her to tell me we are at the wrong airport. I about died. I then go from calm because we have a lot of time to a stressed out mess. Initiate frantic heartbeat and a tsunami of tears. We got back to our car as fast as we could and started driving. I felt like such an idiot. This is why I always plan tons of extra time, you can never predict when your going to make stupid mistakes. Luckily, the security lines were not busy and we made it to our gate 10 minutes before boarding.

The ladies at the united desk were os rude and unprofessional to me. They told me my seats were not confirmed and we might not sit together even though I called earlier that day to confirm them. Again, not a great flyer, so I double check to ensure Ryan and I are sitting together. I tell them calmly that we had a rough day getting here and I’m just nervous but nope, they give me a bad attitude and send me off. Eventually they call us up to the desk and she slaps down the tickets on the desk and says nothing to us. So rude. When we were boarding the plane, the lady who took the tickets made some snarky comment to me about how we ended up sitting together in the end and I just said kindly to her that it’s just been a crazy morning and she says “oh you just like drama” which was completely uncalled for and unprofessional. They were rude from the first second I walked up to that desk and I was patient and kind to them through it all and she still had the nerve to be rude to me.

Needless to say, we will never fly united again. I sent in a complaint and what do they do? They offer me $75 off my next flight with them. Ridiculous.

With all that said, thank goodness we left so early because we made it to the flight in time and all was well. As a side note, we usually always leave to have an extra day there for scouting and such so if we didn’t make our flight, we would have still made it there for the wedding.

Once we got there, everything was awesome. Our hotel was great, everyone involved with the wedding were wonderful to us and we ate a lot of meals at Longhorn Steakhouse which was, and always is, great. :)

Alyssa purchased a wedding logo from me as well and used it in the greatest ways for her wedding! I really hope to do a lot of them next year, the ones I have done this year have just been really fun to do and so awesome to see them used so much at the wedding.

Whew! Now let’s begin all the snazzy photos :)

She had TWO dresses. Both were absolutely lovely. This is such a cool idea for a boutonniere. Probably my favorite ever. These Shoes! OHHHH these shoes. The second she showed them to me I about died. I just love them. They fit her personality just perfectly. This is Ryan’s shot which was done on the hood of their car. I am so glad they wanted to do a first look. We did all of their first bride and groom session at their house since it was very green and special to them.Can’t forget about the kitty! hahaha…and of course, this giant turtle was hanging out there too. Alyssa was just so laid back and happy all day. She was really a joy to be around. I LOVE her thick bangs and giant hair. When I first saw her that morning I was just thrilled to see how big her hair was. I LOVE big hair. This was also the first bride we have ever had to have thick straight across bangs. I like it! Her parents were just wonderful. I absolutely love this photo. I just find only traditional family photos to be boring and they just don’t really show the love, they just show who was there. Families who are into expressing themselves more is always great to have. It just makes me love what I do so much when I can take great family photos at a wedding and not just fall into a habit of only doing traditional family stuff. That is certainly something I’m putting a higher priority on this year. Just to show how awesome her parents are, they had secret hello kitty items on them! Alyssa loves hello kitty and had a cute hello kitty cake topper so they thought they would surprise her by joining in. :)While waiting to walk over to the ceremony location, her dad comes up to me and shows me this pin and asks me to pin it in there so she is just peaking out. haha I love it!
Alyssa had so many great details. The fans were a BRILLIANT idea. I took a couple, haha. She used her wedding logo in everything and I was just so proud to look around her whole wedding and see my work used in so many cool ways. :)I LOVE their ceremony site. Oh my word. The trees were just super cool.Gotta make sure you get that shot! I do sometimes wonder if guests think we don’t let anyone see the photos that we take? haha I especially love that both Ryan and I took the same photo but from different positions. Great use of the logo, right?! I love that they are in those jars and the ribbon is super simple, but just perfect. It’s laid back and lovely all at the same time.
This was at their cocktail hour outside. How cool is it that bird just hanging out up there?Her dad used to be in a band and did a bunch of weddings back in the day so towards the end of the reception he joined in and he was really good! It was a lot of fun to watch everyone enjoy this part of the reception. I did a blog post about this ring shot already but it’s only right to include it in with their wedding. I’ve been thinking about this shot for a while and this just felt like the right time to break out Mr. T! This is certainly one of my favorites. The reception was earlier in the day so when it was over, we did a few more bride and groom shots around Perona Farms in her second dress. This is probably my favorite of the day. My new staple shot, they do it so well! I just love how their awesome style is shown off here. It’s just perfect if you ask me. :)Yet another awesome way to use a wedding logo! So get this, since Ryan and I met in 2007, we have NEVER seen fireworks together. Thats crazy, right? After we were finished with bride and groom photos and our day was technically over, we decided to tag along with them for fireworks. We got there literally right as they were starting so we had zero time to get anything set up but Ryan did his best with the little time we had. I figured we just can’t have a 4th of July wedding without any fireworks.

Oh, and if you’ll notice, that’s her THIRD dress! I didn’t even know about that one until that night. It had beading on the middle that looked like little firework explosions even. It was adorable.

We had such a great time at this wedding. It was just super laid back and everyone we met there was just awesome. I was happy to be working on the 4th of July when it was for such wonderful people who we could really tell appreciated us and what we do. It makes just a world of difference to us when our clients understand us and enjoy who we are and our work.

We felt so appreciated and loved the whole time we were there and just can’t thank you all enough. We hope you enjoy the photos! :)

I am SO excited to finally be posting Derek and Sam’s wedding. I will warn you right now that this post is just stupidly massive. I tried to cut it down  but well, I’m too invested so I decided it’s just gonna be an overload of images.

I have been working with them for about a year now so my anticipation was all built up for their wedding! Last fall, they drove to Kalamazoo for us to do their Engagement Photos which were just a blast. It was the perfect time in fall and we just had the best time.  I did their wedding Logo and Save the Date then moved on to design their Wedding Invitations as well which I’m super proud of. :)

We have not really done much with video since we haven’t had time, but decided to try it out for their engagement session. For a first attempt, I think we did a decent job. :)  The location where we shot them talking was just on the fly so I would do that differently and also have a better way to record audio. Everything is a learning experience though. :)

They played this video on the big screens at the beginning of their ceremony before Sam walked down the isle. I think this was just the perfect time for it because it really shows how adorable and in love they are. They are and probably will forever be one of my favorite couples because they are just so simply in love. There just isn’t any drama surrounding them. You can just tell that Derek will always protect and look out for Sam and put her first and that she would do the same. Love it at it’s best when it’s simple. You put your spouse first, simple. As long as both people always do that, gosh, love isn’t complicated at all.

Now that you guys know them a little better, I really hope you enjoy the wedding photos. We were there early since it was my birthday and I didn’t want to be driving to Iowa stuck in the car on my birthday. So we went early and did all of the bridal detail shots the day before. So there are lots.

I LOVE her dress. One of my favorites. The shape of it is my absolute favorite. The organza overlay was just phenomenal. It was just perfect. I would love to have been married in that dress. Oh boy, I am really into dark and mysterious photos these days. I just love the moody vibe. This makes my heart beat irregularly. I did the ring shots the night before the wedding in our hotel room so I had LOTS of time to play around. Her ring was super clean and crazy sparkly. I learned lots of new things about photographing diamonds that night that I’m VERY excited about. She gave me all the family rings as well. I think this is just the greatest idea. I took individual shots of each pair as well but I love them all together. Theres so much history there so I’m really happy I was able to make something really unique and great with all of it. oh my word, this kid just cracked me up all day. Their first look was so cute! Gosh I love these people. A first look is just so important. I think people who decide against it just because of tradition are really missing out. It’s not just to get photos beforehand, it’s an experience. Getting to have a moment together without having 200 people watching you, getting to hug, talk, laugh, enjoy each other…your missing out on all of that. The look on their faces here should be enough to convince anyone in my opinion. What! We are doing nature a lot this year and this officially puts my stamp of approval on it. I. LOVE. THIS.We found this amazing parking garage to shoot in and it was by far my favorite location of the day.FAVORITE! Right after Ryan took this I gave him a BIG punch on the arm because it was so awesomeThe girls were a lot of fun. We didn’t get as much time with them as I would have liked since we lost some time with a few failed attempts to shoot at cool barns but it all worked out in the end. The junior bridesmaid was hilarious. I just love this shot of her as well as the jumping one. Sam’s personal attendant, Amye, actually took this photo! She was such a huge help, I wish everyone had someone do this for them! Having a bridesmaid do it is just not the same at all. I was busy placing people for family photos so I had her hold my camera and there were a couple gems in there. This is probably my favorite though. :) Sooo many kids! Possibly my favorite family photo ever. I love that it’s not in a formal location or in a formal pose with formal faces. I would love to do more stuff like this. If I could get married again, I would do this. Such a cute idea. He writes the SHE, she writes the HE. Totally adorable.
This was when they were just about to do down the isle. Her dad was just awesome. Best cupckaes of my life. Ryan would only let me eat one… so I snuck 2 back with me to the hotel.  This was such a cute cake! It was actually the grooms cake. Their regular wedding cake was never made. I guess there was a bit of a snafu at the bakery so that was really unfortunate. I had high hopes for what their cake would look like with their theme.

How great is this guestbook, right?! I love for people to get engagement guest books. It really ties everything together nicely.
One of these times, I want one of the non-aggressive girls in the back to get the bouquet. :)
These boys were so funny! He got some pretty great shots of me too!  …taking pictures of him taking pictures of me…. :)

Last but certainly not least, the tallest people ever. :) This is Amye and her husband. She was so helpful all day and he went to get a quickie replacement wedding cake so they were a good team. I felt like the shortest person alive compared to him. This picture doesn’t accurately show anything but just take my word for it. I often think the world is more awesome for tall people because they can see everything. I’m eternally jealous. 

By the end of the night, my face hurt from smiling so much. Sam, Derek, all their family and friends were just awesomely great people and I really do feel honored to have been able to not only spend the day with them but to able to provide memories that will last forever. I’m really excited to get started on their album design. I have good feelings about how awesome that will be. :)

Now, go forth and have babies that I can photograph for you guys. :)

VENDORS

Reception, Park Place Event Centre
Cedar Falls Iowa

Wedding Designer Joan Ney, JNey Designs

Cupcakes (Scratch) Natalie Brown
111 West 2nd St.
Cedar Falls, IA. 50613

D.J. (John) Ultimate Entertainment
(319) 266-0717
6322 University Av.
Cedar Falls, IA. 50613

Videographer,  Perpetual Bliss

Bridesmaids Dresses
Simply I Do (319) 277-1117
Susan Willms
3205 Hudson Rd.,
Cedar Falls, IA. 50613

Bridal Dress – Maggie Sottero
Weddings by Design (515) 222-9662
2020 Grand Ave. #800
West Des Moines, Iowa

Florists Hy Vee, Jan
(319) 266-2950
Cedar Falls, IA.

Hairdresser, Katrina Cook
(319) 232-8239
Visions Hair Studio
3674 University Avenue, Waterloo, IA

Make-up Person Chelsea Ostrem

Tuxedos,  Milroy’s
(319) 277-5315
323 Washington St.
Cedar Falls, IA. 50613

Shoes: Etsy Parisxox

I like doing these because it gets people to loosen up a bit. Some people are more crazy than others, but sometimes you can just get lost in formality and these are a great way to break into being more relaxed and fun. There’s NO chance anyone is going to look amazing in them so there isn’t anything to worry about which adds a nice “free” quality to them I think. :) It’s a staple of GAUPERphoto that will be around for as long as I’m around.

When I was looking through the images to find the best ones, I noticed how funny they all looked together so I thought it would be fun to put together a little video of them all. Please don’t judge me on the editing, I just batched these real quick just for the video since there are so many. :)

There are SO many great images from this wedding, I can’t wait to get caught up with my other weddings and get to editing. I’ll hopefully have a blog post up soon about it to hold everyone over. :)

Ryan went to school back in the day with Kelli and Jeremy. Kelli is one of his sisters best friends and one of the owner’s of Ellwell Salon in Battle Creek where he gets his hair cut. There is a story to Kelli and Jeremy but I’ve only heard bits and pieces in passing. Since everyone else has known them forever, thus I’m sure it’s common knowledge and funny and interesting. From what I understand, they went to high school together but didn’t date then and then TADA almost 10 years later are married. :) Frankly, all the details are just details. Happiness is what it’s all about.

That is precisely why I chose the picture I did for this first one. Not only is she the perfect height for him, but they both just have such joyful faces. It’s a simple photo but I think it’s classic, timeless and full of happiness.

They had a small ceremony on the beach in South Haven, Michigan. Just close friends and family. We have only done a few beach weddings and this one might be my favorite just because it was a nice cool stormy day and the sand didn’t feel like the surface of hell. Our last beach wedding was last year in Hilton Head South Carolina. I don’t get out that much so I just forgot that sand gets hot. I kicked my shoes off really quick because I knew it would be hard to walk in them out there and quickly scampered to catch up to the bride and her father to get the shot of them going down the isle. It was the most alarming feeling to have my feet melt into liquid. I shot the rest of the ceremony standing in guests shadows.

Anyways, enough of my stories…

Although I don’t have a shot of the back of her dress here, keep an eye out for it later. It’s amazing. I love dresses that have unique touches to them since I’ve shot the same dress over and over a bazillion times.

So I guess I should clear something up. I’m not perfect. I know, It’s shocking, especially to me. That is why I firmly believe in having 2 photographers for a wedding day. Nobody is perfect and things can simply be overlooked. Ok, so this is her cake. I did not realize that at all. I sat right in front of it doing ring shots and it never even registered to me that was a cake. It was sitting in the middle of the table like a centerpiece and was completely off my radar. It was camouflaged.

Thank goodness Ryan wasn’t fooled by it’s chameleon qualities and got photos of it. My blunder aside, what an amazing cake! They were having a really small, short wedding so in the back of my mind I didn’t expect much in the way of details but I was really impressed with how consistent she was with her design with the heart throughout everything. It was simple, but done really perfectly for her wedding. The cake was just amazing. So very amazing I didn’t even know it was a cake. :)

Oh my word, he is adorable. Enough said. Ok so remember how I said the back of her dress was awesome? Well, apparently awesome things are complicated. It started with just mom and then grew into a pile of everyone to get it figured out. We found one cool spot to shoot the guys and then found out they were getting ready here at these docks so hooray for bonus shots!
Probably my favorite shot of the guys. I just adore this one Ryan shot. This composition is one of my new favorites. There’s something mildly mysterious about it to me.
These shots will NEVER get old to me. Hahaha Every group of girls is a whole new level of hilarious when I do these. I would like to take moment now to note how awesome everyone’s hair looks. The one on the right is Rochelle who also own’s Ellwell’s Salon. She is my favorite up-doer ever and with weddings, I’ve seen a lot of stylists do a lot of updo’s. She leaves a trail of creativity and wonderment in hair I think. When we had our bride and groom redo pictures taken I had a pretty short asymmetrical cut and she was able to get all of it back and up and it looked so awesome. It looked exponentially better than it did on my wedding day. Oh my regrets for not knowing of her then! I love shooting cool looking hair A LOT so look them up people, Right Meow! :)  …. or click this link to like them on facebook :) –> Ellwell Facebook

Oh and to finish my rant on hair, doesn’t Kelli have the greatest bang swoop? It kind of makes me sick. Long bangs with a perfect swoop is like a gift from the hair gods. Perhaps I just need to sacrifice a goat or something and my bangs could look like that too. hahaa They did a first look which was a brilliant choice since the weather held off just long enough to get some great photos of Kelli and Jeremy together. This shot was Ryan being sneaky. :)Once again, Ryan showing me up being far more awesome than I expect. Look at those stormy clouds! This is their puppy bailey :) I love that they brought her along. I would just die to have a photo like this with Duma but she doesn’t like to cooperate as well as Bailey did.  Since ALL the bride and groom photos can’t be with her, I was shooting with her leash around my wrist. I think we bonded. In my last blog post I said I’d do this for everyone and I mean it. You may get bored of it, but I do not care! I Love it! It seems to look good on everyone.
This was Ryan’s perspective. BEAUTIFUL!!!WHAT! FAVORITE!! Yep. The flower girl outfits were just the cutest thing ever for a beach wedding. How do we get this thing to work? Nooo let me see it, I can do it! hahaa adorable. Very cute idea to send the lantern this off but with the storm that was happening as you can see from the dark sky, it wasn’t taking off so well. When it did finally go, it was headed straight towards very leafy trees. I was fairly certain it wasn’t going to clear them, get stuck and burn the forest down. It didn’t though. It was all ok. :)

After raining the whole ceremony, the sky cleared up and it was super pretty out right afterwards. I was waiting for Ryan to bring the lighting down for family photos and saw this happening mostly on it’s own and jumped out of my skin a little. So I did some nudging, as in, HEY! THERE! YES! KISS!! and this little gem happened. Also a MAJOR favorite of the day. This just begs to be a giant print. I was shooting just the wedding party and saw dave looking nerdy over yonder with his camera strap and bag…and khaki pants, haha and I had a vision. I’m super grateful he was such a good sport to help create this nerd-tastic masterpiece. :)
EWW hairy man foot. 

It was a short day for us but we surprisingly packed in a ton of stuff for the amount of time we had. I was so dehydrated by the end I was about to fall over dead. Well worth my near death experience though. :)  The End!

We trekked it up to Charlevoix Michigan for Audrey & Nick’s wedding. They were married at Castle Farms which I guess is the like THE place to get hitched around there since there were like 6 other weddings going on at the same time. That place is one well oiled machine that’s for sure. While we were there, I saw 3 other weddings happen in the same ceremony site as theirs. There are also a few other places on the property as well so I can just assume it was at least 6 or so happening. Thumbs up to them for making everything run so smoothly!

We had never met Audrey or Nick prior which has been happening more often lately since we do a lot of out of town weddings. Lucky for us, they were super laid back and fun. Audrey was completely at ease about her dress and her bridesmaids were willing to do pretty much anything. From the photos, I assume the guys were cool too. I don’t spend a lot of time with the mens and Ryan doesn’t write a lot of blog posts so I guess thats all I have to say about that.

Her Maggie Sottero dress was STUNNING. I just adore the shape of it, the little flowers, the tulle, it was just magical.

Typically the first time I see the groomsmen’s photos is when I am editing so it’s always fun for me to see what shenanigans happened with Ryan. I thought this BOOM was super cute.
FAVORITE groomsmen photo! I love that the little boy is laying down, hahaa I think it’s hilarious when a group of white girls act ghetto. This never gets old for me. Of course, you can to commit to this for it to be funny, which they did. :) Oh my word, the little blonde one on the left was HILARIOUS. When she had the idea to leap I was all for it. Someone did catch her even though it really doesn’t look like anyone is planning on it in this photo. :) Speaking of the little blonde as I like to call her…. I’m not sure how these things happened, they just sort of…happened.  We take formal “pretty” pictures, but one of my staple shots is always crazy faces. I like to show a broad range of emotions, you know. :)
Before the rest of the girls were ready, since bridesmaids always take a long time if there are a lot of them, I took Audrey outside for some bride only shots and I’m so glad I did. These turned out beautiful!
These little girls were so adorable. I just love the bows in the back of their dresses. Flower girl dresses are just crazy cute to me for some reason. I would wear things like this just to go grocery shopping. Simple and whimsical, enough said. We found this cool outside theatre thing in downtown Charlevoix. I felt really awkward talking and working on posing this because I kept standing in the perfect spot for my voice to amplify and echo from it. I tend to say weird things so thank goodness there wasn’t a lot of people around. :)I’m doing this shot for everyone now. It’s my new favorite. Gosh I’d kill to have a shot like this with ryan! They had this huge chess set at castle farms which I’m sure everyone must get their photo taken with so I was trying to do something different and I’m really quite pleased with it. It could be one of my favorites. It looks to me like they all joined up as one army and are plotting something…

One of my favorite bride and groom shots of the day. It’s moments like this where Ryan and I just become one brain and make magical things. I had the idea that I wanted them to have a spotlight and for it to be moody and mystical. Ryan has the technical skill to make this happen. Gah! I love it! I would kill for some of those pretzels right now. SUGAR! Scratch that, I’d rather have the cake right now. Mmmm

We had such a great day with you guys! I hope you love the photos :)

If you’d like to see more from their wedding, check out their album design: http://www.gauperphoto.com/JacqmainAlbum/
VENDORS:
DJ- Sound Productions – Jim Paetschow
Caterer- Grey Gables

Event Coordinator- Sarah Hagen
Photography: GAUPERphoto

Hair Stylist- Emily Hilgendorf
Florist- Marvin’s Gardens
Pastor- Jim Nihiser
Wedding Dress Designer- Maggie Sottero
Shoe Designer- Vera Wang

I actually enjoy large wedding parties like this. This wedding, specifically, was really laid back and just trusted us to do our job. There were no crazy bridesmaids freaking out about the dress every 2 seconds or questioning every move we made. Everyone was just easy to work with and happy. So in this case, more is certainly better. More happy people is always more fun and generally more awesome. This group was great.

Last year we decided to make individual portraits of each member of the wedding party a staple shot we always do and I’m glad we did. They are great for album content, and it’s a nice gift for each of the members of the wedding. I don’t think a lot of people have professional photos taken of them all that often, so this is a good opportunity to make that happen.

I’ll have a more complete blog post about this wedding soon. This is just a little sample. :)

…now lets just wait and see how long it takes for this to be copied. Mr. T will show up in weddings everywhere! haha