When Emily’s mom reached out to me last year to photograph Emily’s wedding, I was so happy. I have known this sweet family for several years, and have watched from a distance Emily grow up. I got to know her better when I did her senior pictures a couple years ago and so enjoyed working with her and her family and thrilled to be able to be a part of the big day in their lives!!
The wedding was at Something Blue Berry Farm . This was my first time at this beautiful venue and I hope to go back again and again….it is amazing. 🤎
Emily and Alex….I hope you enjoy your sneak peak…..lots more images to see very soon!!
Alex and I met completely by chance, nothing either one of us expected. We truly believe it was God driven. Summer of 2017 we were both unexpectedly invited to a friend’s birthday party that neither of us were super close with. Alex knew her because of homeschooling and I knew her because she did dance with my sister. We all got put in a group chat together and talked for about a month. This caused me to decide to want to go to the party. It was a lot of fun. Alex showed up fashionably late from a cousin’s wedding dressed very nice, so he caught my eye. It was definitely a night to remember. We didn’t date right away, but we became friends. We hung out a few more times with the friend group. Around Christmas time of 2017 the main friend and I threw a Christmas party at her house and invited everyone over. Alex was there and we really began talking a lot more and I became interested in him. Fast forward to January of 2018 we had been texting to each other. He asked me to go skiing with him. So we went to bittersweet and we got to know each other more. He then asked if I wanted to to to a movie and dinner with him, and I said yes. January 18, 2018 was our first official date so we have been together for over 2.5 years.
The proposal day was very sweet. March 10 of 2019, we were planning on seeing a movie that day already. So we went to the movie and I expected that would be it. He started to drive a different way home and said he wanted to go to the park. So we walked around Bronson Park for a little bit. It wasn’t anything crazy and we didn’t have anyone take pictures, but it was a sweet moment between the 2 of us. While walking around the park he stopped me at one point and that was when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
The main thing I had incorporated into the wedding was my passion for horses. I have been riding horses since I was really little. I asked a friend if I could borrow her horse as my horse would not be the easiest to bring to the wedding. I wore a very big princess dress that was able to drape perfectly over the horse’s back as I rode him bareback up to aisle where my dad would walk me the rest of the way. Riding horses is a major part of who I am and always will be, and everyone in my life knows that. So there was no better way to add something so important into my wedding day.
Alex is a really kind person with a compassionate heart. He always goes out of his way to make sure I am happy and always reminds me how much he loves me. Emily’s best characteristic is her perseverance. She works hard and studies a lot to achieve the goals she sets for herself.
We both love the outdoors. While we enjoy our dinner and movie dates, the times we really connect is when we are going for a walk in the park or spending time at the beach. Being active is the best thing for both of us. It’s fun for us to go bowling or maybe spend a day at the air zoo. Something we both really want to get into now together is roller blading. It’s super fun and hopefully soon we can find a roller rink nearby that is still open. The hardest part of COVID-19 has been finding things to do for a date night. Date night doesn’t always have to be dinner or bowling, though. We would take turns making nice dinners for each other or just walking around the park nearby. We found time to prioritize each other.
I asked Alex what his best memory of the wedding day is and responded “All of it.” I agree! It’s so hard to pick certain moments of the weddng when the entire day was just so perfect. At the wedding I rode up to aisle on a friend’s horse. It was so magical and as an equestrian it was just such a perfect way to incorporate a huge part of who I am into the wedding. As I was walking down the aisle with my dad to Alex I just knew it was truly the best day of my life I was currently experiencing. A moment both of us really enjoyed was when we did the shoe game. It was really fun showing people what our relationship is like amd how well we really know each other.
We chose the Something Blueberry Barn because we were looking for an outdoor or barn venue. Neither one of us wanted a super traditional wedding and we wanted to cater it to the type of people we are. Alex is more of an outdoors person and I enjoy riding horses, so the venue for perfectly to who both of us are.
Looking back on the wedding day is just an unbelievable experience. It couldn’t have been more perfect and there’s not a single thing I would change about it. The weather was perfect, we had our friends and family there, and it was just so much fun.
The best advice we can give to other brides and grooms is to just have fun. It’s just one day, so don’t stress about it too much. There will be people who don’t show up last minute or a random thing will go wrong, and that’s okay. The day goes by so fast you won’t even remember or care about those minor discrepancies to your perfect day.
Alex and I went up to Cadillac, MI for our honeymoon. My grandparent’s own a cottage on the lake up there so we stayed the week in the cottage while exploring other areas of northern Michigan. We went to Sleeping bear dunes, Mackinac Island, and torch lake. It was all so beatiful and lots of fun. On the days between exploring we would stay at the cottage and go out on the boat or just tan in the sun. It was a week where we were able to just spend every second with each other and have fun.
