They both walked the halls of Ludington High. Four years apart though, their paths never crossed. Same teachers, same classrooms, same small town, yet high school wasn't the beginning of their story. Still they have the sweet air of being High School sweethearts and those 4 years have made no difference because eventually boy met girl and they and fell madly in love and will be married in the spring. Spring, however, was the farthest thing from our minds. The weather map looked a bit more like this.
Okay, so I'm being dramatic. It was not this cold Sunday during our shoot, but what this lousy map doesn't show is that the wind was blowing the snow sideways and that our bride weighs about as much as a feather, so we were very concerned that she might be swept away. Anyway, the task of taking beautiful portraits becomes a bit tricky in these conditions. It's hard to hold still, noses turn red, eyes water, glasses and camera lenses get foggy and appendages go numb. The trick on Sunday was to change location frequently, I don't think we stayed in one place for longer than 10 minutes.We got things rolling in the protective shelter of the doorway in an old downtown building.
Sufficiently frozen we headed to a more sheltered location. Once there we settled in for a few more pictures since we were safeguarded from the North wind.
We left our protective shelter and headed out into the open.
After about 5 minutes we had all had enough and decided to head to McDonalds for coffee and defrosting.
While we coddled warm coffee cups and blew on icy fingertips we got to chatting a little and found out that Courtney is very girly and has an affinity for all things pink. This means we are going to have a blast shooting her pre-wedding prep. Girly girls have the most fun getting ready pictures on their wedding day! Cory is a brainiac engineer and his line of work brings him into contact with the trains and the railroad. If you have watched any old films from the 1940's there is always a romantic scene where a train steams into a station and the camera goes all soft focus and dreamy. So we decided to suck it up and head back out into the frigid outdoors and find us some dreamy railroad tracks. We had also been waiting on Mother Nature to deliver us some glorious snow...and deliver she did.
Beautiful! We were so thrilled with the pictures we were getting here that we stayed until noses started turning red. We packed it in and headed out to the State Park and enjoyed our 15 minute heat blasting drive. Now, can we take a second to admire the winter beauty in this place we call home? Great job sister! I love this shot.
This next shot is so adorable and you were such troopers sitting there for a good 5 minutes with frozen bums.
As Courtney said, "You can't live in Ludington and not get some shots at the beach." True dat Courtney. Beach shots in January are brutal but uniquely beautiful. Anybody can sit pretty on the lakeshore in August. You have to be a hardcore Michigander to handle the big lake in January. Unfortunately it was as we were midcalf in snow heading down to the beach that I realized after all this time, Cory was wearing shoes! Not boots. He never made peep through the entire shoot. Ever. Not a single complaint. Courtney, I think you got yourself a real man.
I particularly love this next shot. When I look at it, it feels like we are not even there. It has a real feel of privacy. I like that.
Now that we all know Cory didn't have boots on I feel like maybe Courtney should've been carrying him up the hill.
While we were at McDonalds, Courtney spotted their fireplace and thought she would like a few indoor shots in front of a fireplace, so with a quick call to mom, who was not expecting us, she set it up and that is where we ended our shoot for the day.
Thank you so much for allowing us the privilege of documenting this special time of your lives. We had a great time shooting you last Sunday and we can't wait for your big day this Spring.