Sandy & Steph

Every wedding I photograph begins with a conversation, and it is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. I am a quiet person most of the time, but when a couple starts telling me about their day, I get so excited. With Sandy and Steph we talked about the decor and the details, the shots that mattered most and the overall feeling they wanted their wedding to have, and by the time the day came I knew just how much the people in their lives meant to them.

Sandy and Steph had a great wedding. It began with their ceremony at St. Mark and then carried everyone out to Foxchase Manor, where the celebration took over for the rest of the night. If I had to choose one moment to remember it all by, though, it would be the very last one, because it said everything about who they are.

A sparkler exit at Foxchase Manor

By the end of a wedding night, what is left is mostly love. The nerves of the morning are long gone, the formal parts are behind everyone, and the people still standing are the ones who wouldn’t have missed it for anything. When the doors of Foxchase Manor opened and Sandy and Steph stepped out into a tunnel of sparklers, every single person outside was there for them, with friends and family lining both sides, arms raised high and cheering them on.

Sandy and Steph didn’t rush it, and I love that about them. They walked slowly, laughed, stopped to twirl and shared a kiss right in the middle of it all, soaking up every second instead of hurrying through it. It was so cute, and I stayed close enough to capture all of it while giving them the room to make the moment their own.

I treat every couple I work with with love and respect, and my hope is always that their day feels magical while it is happening and memorable for the rest of their lives. When I look back at these photos, what I see first isn’t the light, as beautiful as it was. It is the people holding the sparklers, and the way Sandy and Steph looked at each other surrounded by all of them.