Charlotte & Sean's Westin Airport Wedding

What better place to have your wedding when most of your friends and family have to fly in for it? The Westin Hotel... of course! Conveniently located at the metro Detroit airport, it's just about the easiest thing to do. I truly felt honored to be part of their day. Charlotte's best friend and co maid of honor, Kim, is a wedding planner. So to have them pick me to be part of their day felt very special. The Westin is indeed a beautiful location, but technically it's also one of the most difficult to shoot in. The ceremony takes place in the atrium against a backdrop of huge bamboo and behind a reflecting pool. It's very romantic, but it's also very, very dark... even on the brightest of days. So you have to master blast from various balconies which is hardly subtle, but that's what it takes in order for it to even remotely resemble what it looks like to the naked eye. I love the shots at the reflecting pool. Both Charlotte and Sean where very laid back and very appreciative of everything all their friends and family did to help things out with the ceremony. I loved the ring shot so much, you'll see two different variations on my two different blogs. Check out the other one at www.themichiganweddingphotographer.blogspot.com.

Nikole and Eric at the Finnish Center

Super nice couple and great wedding party... especially the ever helpful best man, Prashanth. Their wedding day was full of coincidences... I drove past my bride’s house from the previous Saturday (I’d addressed the envelope earlier in the day) and since it’s in the middle of nowhere, I thought that was interesting. Then Nikole had a succulent flower in her bouquet (which strongly resembles a little artichoke). I’d never seen that flower before, except that my bride from the previous evening had given out potted versions of the same plant as their thank you gift to guests! Should’ve played the lottery that day, I guess! Their florist, by the way, was the most professionally dressed florist I've encountered and I loved the bouquet she created for Nicole. She's Janet from Floral Verde, so check her out.We took photos in what Nikole described as “a swamp” which was a lovely nature center in Novi. I couldn’t help but to refer to Eric and Nikole as Fiona and Shrek as I took photos in what was truly a swampy bog! Good sports and speaking of good sports... all the wedding party was pretty happy and fired up since UM beat Notre Dame. It was a true blue wedding... right down to the subtle wedding party colors. I got to work with one of my favorite DJ’s, Sara Gharacheh from Platinum Mix. I also have to give a shout out to the two little ring bearers. Not only were they cute (we’re talking mini Brad Pitt cute!), they were sweet, well behaved, funny little guys who had everyone at that party mesmerized. Totally adorable. I give 90% of the credit to good parenting. They were funny little angels all night long and their dance floor moves created more great crowd shots that anything I’ve seen before. Are they for hire, perhaps??? Looking to see more photos from this wedding? Try my other blog at www.themichiganweddingphotographer.blogspot.com.

Annie & DJ’s Flat Rock Wedding -

Perhaps one of the most uniquely themed weddings I’ve ever been to. Annie works at the zoo and collected hundreds and hundreds of peacock feathers over the course of a year (they shed their entire tails yearly... did you know that?). Not only was she artistic and detailed oriented, so was the groom, DJ. He hand drew the maps to the wedding that were cool and perfect. She made all the boutonnieres, hair pieces, and bouquets using flowers, twigs and peacock feathers. DJ made the center pieces in the hall using branches, lights and gel water balls... very cool, very pretty and very unique. Annie also made several hundreds of origami purple orchids that were in the flowers and center pieces. Really well done and such a cool personal touch.
Annie’s Dad is a photographer, a very nice, laid back photographer, so while he was shooting whatever he wanted throughout the night, it was funny because he was the one person who always knew where I was! The photo booth went over like gang busters and the wedding party handed out glow sticks to everybody which made for a cool effect on the dance floor and throughout the reception hall. Most of the guests kept their glow stick decorations pretty g-rated, but a few got, well, shall we say... creative? DJ & Annie were also my first couple who wanted to take advantage of a really big rock at the Flat Rock Community Center (think lodge, not YMCA) and Annie actually climbed the thing! Fun couple, easy to work with and I’m pretty sure they were rocking well into the wee hours of the night!!! I have lots more photos at my other blog, www.themichiganweddingphotographer.blogspot.com!

Phil & Jenefer ~ Cobblestone Farms wedding in Ann Arbor

Don't worry, folks... my spell check IS working! That is indeed Jenefer. No they don't make allowances for creative spellings! Phil and Jenefer got married in the same church his parents were married in way out on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. The beautiful hundred year old church was a beauty to shoot in. After being together for over ten years, everybody was happy to be included in this monumental occasion. While I have very nice shots of the ceremony (posted on my other blog at www.themichiganweddingphotographer.blogspot.com), I had so many hilarious shots of the three kids at this wedding that I HAD to post those. Glad Jenefer agreed with me that these kids were slideshow worthy... in fact she said she's going to dig these photos out for their weddings! So most often a wedding ceremony is about the bride and groom, but every once in a while, they get great competition with a kid or two or three who seems to inspire a nose picking chain reaction! The reception was at Ann Arbor's own Cobblestone Farms and the caterer was my all time favorite, Zingerman's Catering headed by their fearless leader Paul. Always great food, always gracious, accommodating AND I love the mutual admiration society we've joined! Jenefer and Phil had a couple of really unique things about their reception I'd love to share with you. Their favors were giant poppers, which they all opened together. Five of them held rings which the guests could trade in for a prize. They also were filled with silly paper crowns which all of the guests dutifully wore all evening long! Phil also wanted to have his bride's all time favorite song played... "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas" as a sing along. To honor their grandparents, they cut a Bill Knapp's cake (which was one set of Grandparents favorite cake) and they had Zingerman's make their grandmother's "famous" german potato salad recipe as one of the things served with dinner. I loved the personalized touches... very unique way to pay homage to their families.

Senior Photos!!!!

It took me WAY too long to do this, but I've finally gotten the opportunity to update my seniors photo web pages. Come check out the extremely cool new slideshow featuring Oakland County's most awesome seniors!

Colleen & Adam's St. Johns Inn Wedding

Colleen and Adam got hitched on a wonderfully cool and overcast August day. Really fun family to hang out with. Lots of great wedding party folks and I loved Adam's sentimental side. He was totally into each of the moments of the day. A couple of things made this a unique wedding. For one, camp call outs, songs and antics were prevalent throughout the evening. Colleen and Adam met as camp counselors at Special Days, a Michigan camp for kids with cancer and their sibling. Their toasts and tributes were touching, poignant and really showed the bonds that were created out of love.

Genevieve & Chris's Ann Arbor Botanical Gardens Wedding

AND SOMETIMES IT'S ALL ABOUT THE SHOES!
So if you’re a couple planning an outdoors wedding in the middle of August, you’re probably execting hot and sticky weather, right? Well, try 62 degrees and overcast on for size! The men in Chris’s wedding party were VERY happy guys indeed. Great three piece tux weather and Genevieve, who had gotten all of her worrying and fretting out of the way beforehand, relaxed in her very cool red shoes and just let the day unfold. Even though it looked like it might be threatening, it didn’t rain a drop. I loved that both Chris and Genevieve were really excited about having photos taken... they wanted lots of photos of the two of them together and while they had some special places they wanted to visit, they were truly up for anything... hence ending up face down on the working rail road tracks at the reception at the Gandy Dancer in Ann Arbor. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Genevieve’s mother hand made her wedding dress... her masterpiece as she called it. I can’t ever remember seeing a hand made dress that was made with such incredibe tlc. It was beautiful and fit Genevieve to a “T”. I also loved Chris’s family of endlessly tall boys. Great crowd. I also got to work with Blake, one of my favorite videographers and a cool DJ I’d never worked with before. For a less shoe oriented take on Genevieve and Chris's wedding, please visit my other blog at www.themichiganweddingphotographer.blogspot.com