Twenty Seventeen was a year filled with wonderful humans. Every year I feel more and more blessed by the people that choose me to photograph their weddings. This year was no exception. Twenty Seventeen was a year filled with small, intimate weddings that made my heart burst. There is something so beautiful about a wedding that is just the dearest of the dears – even when it’s just your one true love. Twenty Seventeen had its share of big ol’ party weddings too. Laughter, tears, dancing, toasting – all the stuff this extrovert adores! Best of all, no matter how big or small the wedding, I was tasked with photographing moments that will mean the world to so many people for generations to come. It is not lost on me just how lucky I am to have this as my job.
I spent a lot of 2017 thinking about my place in the wedding photography industry. Things change a lot over the course of twenty plus years no matter what industry – but when it comes to wedding photography I feel like it’s a breakneck pace of constant change. Trends come and go with the blink of an eye or the upgrade of a software program or the release of a new kind of camera. Somehow, the color green is not something many people processing photos these days seem to care for or natural skin tones. The more I look around and see what is happening in my line of work the more I wonder if I’m out of the loop. I love green. I love skin that looks like skin. I love the perfectly imperfect. I love the in-between moments of a wedding day more than sprawling mountain-top portraits. I find myself searching out the look on parents faces as they watch their children marry; the glances exchanged between best friends during the toasts; those first emotional moments after walking back up the aisle together as a married couple. Those are the moments that keep my interest. I feel so grateful that the couples that trusted the memories of the wedding day to me this year share that same interest in the in between.
To my beautiful and lovely 2017 couples I give my wholehearted gratitude. Thank you for inviting me into the rooms I didn’t deserve to stand in and honoring me with your vulnerability and truth. It was beautiful to behold.
