Follow along with my photo stories and journeys on my blog. My passion is candid and intimate shots, so wedding, engagement, senior and lifestyle are a few of my specialties.
With summer officially here, I thought it was only appropriate to feature a summer wedding full of color and fun! Christina and Ashwanth mixed American and Indian cultures seamlessly and created a unique and beautiful experience for their family and friends. I'll keep it short (because this might be a huge post with lots of images) but I hope this wedding fills you with happiness and gets you inspired for summer fun :)
I'm digging deep in my hard drives this week to feature a wedding from a few years ago! I've been traveling a lot lately and kind of missing home, so I thought it would be fun to feature a wedding that was more unique to Wisconsin! When anyone thinks of Wisconsin they immediately think of beer and cheese, but I love to think of the rolling hills that are dotted with beautiful red barns. Kristin and Alex chose one of those barns for their charming wedding venue!
Sugarland has a beautiful farmhouse for couples to get ready in, but then the barn is kind of a blank canvas for couples to make their own. Kristin and Alex chose beautiful rustic details to enhance the barn and give it even more character! My favorite detail though has to be the gorgeous combination of flowers in Kristin's bouquet.
I am getting in full summer mode this week, so why not feature more from this super gorgeous engagement session! Theresa and Aaron wanted to head out to Pope Farms when the sunflowers were in bloom and that is one of the few things I'm actually excited to get up before sunrise for! With such a popular place sometimes you have to go outside your comfort zone a little bit and get up early so you don't have to worry about having other people in your images, and the light at sunrise is just as dreamy as the light for sunset :) The moral of this story? Grab the one you love and lets go have an adventure somewhere and get epic images because going the extra mile (getting up for sunrise, driving a little further, or having to hike in) is always worth it!
Over the years I have really come to define and know my style of photography, and I can say without a doubt that my favorite thing to do is just to wander or go on an adventure and document two people that are in love. Couples that like to explore, laugh, cuddle, be silly, share a quiet moment together all while letting me document those moments and preserve those memories is really something special. I am so grateful to all of my clients for letting me do this for them!!
So, when I got to hang out with Sam and Chris a few weeks ago and do exactly that as we wandered around Cedarburg, I was super excited! The love that they have for each other is seen in the ease and comfort that they share and the way they smile and laugh with each other :)
Last year I got to explore some pretty gorgeous places around the United States with my wonderful friend, April, and while sitting in a coffee shop this past winter we started to dream of more places to explore and visit! Since we did so much traveling within the country, we figured it was about time to grab our passports and explore somewhere new. After an overwhelming amount of ideas, we finally decided to spend our time exploring Portugal!!
With only a week, we had to try and narrow down our list of places we wanted to see so we decided to focus on southern and central Portugal. After flying in to Lisbon, we got our adorable and tiny rental car (Chip, because what else would you name a tiny mint green Fiat) and headed south to the coast! Our first couple days were spent leisurely wandering around Lagos and Luz! These charming coastal towns were so laid back and easy to explore.
Then after a quick trip out to Sagres to see the Fortaleza de Sagres and Cabo de Sao Vicente, we loaded up Chip and headed back up north to central Portugal and my favorite of our trip, Sintra!!
I thought driving around on the super narrow roads was fun in southern Portugal, but in Sintra and neighboring towns like Cascais took that to a whole new level! You'll see below how the houses open up right to the one lane cobblestone streets and having them built on giant hills just added a little extra challenge to driving and parking :)
After exploring the coast, palaces, and oodles of character and charm of Sintra we headed to our last city, Lisbon!! Being in the bigger city was a fun change of pace for our last couple of days and the hills of Lisbon gave us plenty of a workout as we walked around the different neighborhoods.
If you get the chance I would highly recommend taking a trip to Portugal!! As you can see, the bright colorful buildings with the never ending variety of tiles, patterns, colors, character, and charm are so fun to wander around. And having beautiful beaches and relaxing breezes through the palm trees doesn't hurt either ;) I really thought that Portugal was the perfect combination of a tropical vacation and old European charm and character. While there are SO many places I want to see yet, I hope to get back to Portugal again someday!
