Many of you might be surprised to know that Cheridy and I never got great wedding photos. When we got married, it was before we were in the industry and we didn’t know what was available or what was possible. It’s been really difficult for us to see all the amazing things that we get to make for our clients because we didn’t have any of those things for ourselves.
A couple weeks ago, Cheridy and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity that we are greatful for. We were able to finally get those wedding photos done…8 years later.
A group of photographers were getting together on the west side of the state to hang out and take pics for a week. They needed people to photograph and we needed photographs so it was a great match.
The first day we did wedding photos and the second day we did family pics. The photographers out there were gracious enough to provide me with high res files that I could edit the way that I like. Thanks to the amazing photographers for the pics, this is a treasure that will last a lifetime! Their names are above each image (John Wiley, Ben Pancoast, Monika Caban, Denise Demarchis, Jenni Voorderman)
Thanks to Bryon Botorwicz for letting me borrow his suit! I’m not as suave as Bryon but I loved the suit and it was a perfect fit! Thanks to Craigslist for Cheridy’s “wedding” dress!
There are a lot more photos than this but too many to post here so I’ll be making a slideshow with them shortly.

Ben Pancoast:

Ben Pancoast:

Ben Pancoast:

John Wiley:

John Wiley:

Ben Pancoast:

Denise Demarchis:

Monika Caban:

Denise Demarchis:

Ben Pancoast:

Day 2 we got to hang out with Mayz and get some family photos taken which was also an amazing blessing for us! The weather in the morning wasn’t great so we did some fun photos indoors:

John Wiley:

Denise Demarchis:

Denise Demarchis:

John Wiley:

Denise Demarchis:

John Wiley:

John Wiley:

Denise Demarchis:

John Wiley:

This afternoon we had a fun photo shoot with Adam and Sara. I felt like we all just laughed for about an hour. Adam and Sara definitely have no problem having fun and being goofy together.
What an enjoyable day!!
Here’s a few photos from today’s shoot:

On Wednesday we went to the annual NACE (National Association of Catering Executives) awards banquet. Cheridy is a member of NACE and goes to all their meetings. This year my name was put in the nomination for “Industry Trendsetter” which was interesting because I’m not a NACE member. The competition I was up against were some amazing people who I can call friends. The winner ended up being our good friend Todd Lloyd who is the owner of Chair Covers and Linens (www.linenhero.com).

We were honored with a trophy for “Best Team Event” which was from an amazing wedding that we worked last year at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, MI. Click here to read the blog post from that event.

Our second shoot of the day, also at Cranbrook, was with Mary Allison. Nice weather, great light, and a beautiful subject made for a wonderful photo shoot.
Here’s a few highlights:

Our first shoot of the day was with John. We photographed John’s older sister Sarah three years ago and were really excited to get to shoot pics of John as well. Their Dad is on staff at Cranbrook which made it the perfect venue to shoot the photos there. In fact, they now live on campus so we were even able to do some of the photos at their place which was really cool.
Here’s a couple pics of John:

This is a photo that John’s mom really wanted. It was kind of a difficult photo to get but it’s pretty cool because John is actually up in his bedroom.

Yesterday was a day of photo shoots for students of Cranbrook academy. The grounds at Cranbrook are usually amazing, but yesterday they were even more spectacular with the fall color. Here’s a shot overlooking Cranbrook Lake. We feel very fortunate to be on their exclusive photographers list!

This morning we met with Matt and Beth and did their engagement photos. Their wedding is next month and everything is coming together quickly so we were glad to have the opportunity to get together with them. Matt and Cheridy have very similar senses of humor so when the four of us got together, there were a lot of laughs!
Here’s some of the pics from today:

Today was a very interesting day. I was feeling quite under the weather and wasn’t sure how well I would hold up photographing 4 kids. Then…along comes the Stabnick family who are AMAZING. This group of kids have to be the nicest, sweetest group of kids. They were so loving to one another, they were nice to us, they did everything we asked them to do, there was no complaining, just lots of fun and laughing and playing. The older kids were all so caring for their little sister, you could just tell that they all really love each other a lot which, to be quite honest, is a rarity for a group of four siblings. I think their parents should write a book about what they’re doing because whatever it is…it’s working! Not only were the kids fantastic to work with but we also had the perfect setting with great weather and beautiful color on the trees. Praise Jesus for today’s photo shoot!!
Here’s a few favorites:

Dale and Emily are friends with Jeff and Erin who’s wedding we photographed last year. We remember Dale really well because he was the groomsman with a really fun and crazy personality. We were really excited when Dale and Emily hired us to do their wedding next year.
We took them to downtown Rochester for their photo shoot, here’s a few favorites from today:

This afternoon we got together with Paul and Julie and had a great time doing their engagement photos. Today was the first day we met them and it was great being able to laugh and joke around like old friends. Here’s a few photos from today:

Josh and Amanda had the perfect fall day for their outdoor wedding on the beautiful grounds of Addison Oaks. All day long they laughed and smiled at each other and you could see on their faces how much fun they have together. We did their photo shoot on the grounds of Addison Oaks and took advantage of the fall color for their wedding photos.
Here’s a few favorites from today:

Today we did senior photos for Autumn. A few years ago we photographer Autumn’s older sister Allyssa and then just recently we did a head shot for her other older sister Erin. We also did photos of all three of the girls as a surprise gift for their parents. So it was really cool to get to see Autumn again who is the youngest of the three.
Here’s a few of my favorite pics from the shoot: