Sam and Halie are married!

Yesterday I had the honor of documenting Sam and Halie's wedding day. It's getting late and I still have to proof my final exam I'm giving later this week, so I'm going to jump straight to the pictures...as always I had a hard time narrowing it down!

 First up, a picture of the bride getting ready...they had a morning wedding so we got to the church bright and early. There was so much excitement and energy though you would never know the sun had just risen! :)

 

I loved Halie's bouquet...the light pinks were so classic and feminine. With that being said, Halie is a bit of a tomboy and at one point, after a second rose had fallen off her bouquet, she exclaimed, "Geez! I have GOT to stop being so aggressive with my bouquet!" I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Don't worry...her bouquet was still beautiful at ceremony time. :)

 

Halie and her beautiful 'maids...

 

The bride and groom made their exit on a classic (retired) fire truck...how cool is that?! Since it was sitting out in the parking lot while we were getting pictures before the wedding we, of course, had a grab a few with the truck!

 



A prayer in the bridal room before the ceremony started....

 

Father of the bride getting ready to give his little girl away...

 

While I have of course heard many songs sang at weddings, I have never before been to a wedding where the bride and groom invited their guests stand up and sing together in worship. They picked three of the most perfect wonderful songs that not only gave so much glory to the Lord, but whose lyrics were so perfect for what was taking place that day...the covenant with God that Sam and Halie were entering in to. I love this next picture...the silhouettes of the bride and groom....and most importantly the words on the screen.

 

This next picture was a gem I didn't even know I had. As I was grabbing a few pictures for this post I pulled this one up on my computer screen. I wish I had taken note of the way Scott and Shanda were looking at Sam and Halie then...but I was too focused on the bride and groom. So even though they aren't in focus, I thought this picture was definitely worth posting.

 



 I just loved these next two pictures. It was kind of windy out when we first arrived at the Highlands but we decided to try and squeeze in a few more pictures anyways. And I'm so glad we did. :)

 

 I ran back up to the reception to see if they wanted any family pictures outside and left Halie and Sam waiting in a little alcove away from the wind. When I came back I peeked over the railing and they were being SO sweet. I wish I had had my camera up and ready. I grabbed it as quick as I could and snapped a picture after they spotted me. I think Halie looks so incredibly happy....just pure joy in her expression. :)

 

 Cake-cutting!

 

And one last one of the bride and one more of the happy couple to end the post. Sam and Halie, thank you so much for letting me photograph your wedding day! Hope you're having so much fun in Breckenridge!

 

Catching up!

Lately I feel like my weekdays and weekends have been busy enough that I could blog everyday about something! Which is great...so much material! But the flip side of that is that I am so busy I have no time to blog! So the next few blogs will just be catch up blogs. And first up on the catching up....Easter weekend!

Last year for Easter I went out to visit my family in Stockton for a night before coming back to spend Easter in KC with Rob. With Easter taking place right in the middle of baseball season, it will be a holiday we always have to spend close to home. Luckily for us, our home is now close to our loved ones' homes!

We spent the Saturday of Easter weekend in Wichita and enjoyed a delicious Italian meal with Rob's family. Although, after spending a week in Italy, my standards for Italian food have risen exponentially. :) I don't think anything will quite match up. We went to church with the next morning...and while we didn't get to sing "Every morning is Easter morning" (always one of my favorite parts of Easter service at FPC), it was still a great service and a great reminder about why we really celebrate Easter!

After church we headed over to my grandparents house for Easter brunch. Since I still have a young cousin on that side, we partook in an Easter egg hunt, which was a blast as always. Robby refused to hunt eggs on the grounds that he is too old...I, on the other hand, happily ran around with my grocery sack collecting as many coin and jelly bean filled eggs as I could! We need to make sure we always have young kids in the family because I don't want this tradition to go away anytime soon!

And I know I've mentioned this before, but after making it through 2011 with only one full family picture, my mom has made it her mission to get pics of all of us together as often as possible. Here are some possible Christmas card candidates (just the ones with Rob...the ones before that were taken while we were waiting for him to get outside. :))

Then Bets and I tried to grab a few pics with our brothers...Joe Henry was not cooperating! They make me feel so short! The whole family! :) My birthday was the next weekend! I stretched out celebrating as much as possible. Saturday night we took a risk and drove through the tornado warnings to enjoy dinner with my family at the Anchor Inn! One of my favorite restaurants...but not one of Robby's. As a result, he always wants to go other places, so I used my birthday veto power and Anchor Inn it was! My folks treated us all to delicious dinner while the we all kept a close eye on the weather channel playing on the big screen. We got to celebrate with some dear family friends (Hi Ackleys! Hi Merediths!), Baby Joe and Savs, my folks, and my aunt Mo! It was a great way to kick off the birthday week! Here is my balloon hat, courtesy of Brynn Ackley. :) The next morning we went to a birthday brunch at the country club with the Ramseyers in Wichita. I love going there because everytime I do I think of meeting my sweet husband! I point out the room to Robby everytime...and he humors me by not rolling his eyes (most of the time) but instead nodding and saying "yes, I remember" with only a hint of sarcasm. :) On my actual birthday my Momma came over and took me out to lunch and brought me a birthday cake! :) She sure knows how to make us all feel special on our birthdays! That night I went out to dinner with my Grandma and Grandpa Bear and Bets. Robby had a game out of town that day so it was nice to get to spend the evening with some of my other favorite people eating some DELICIOUS food at Bone Fish. The weekend after my birthday I went up to Kansas City to go WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING with Molls! One of our other BFFs Chels was in town, so we were all able to get together for a fun sleepover and lots of good snacks! After dinner at Molls we moved over to Jenny's perfect bachelorette pad for some late night snacks, wine, and lots of good conversation. I love those girls! Started off our weekend with some delicious wine... The late night snack spread....all of my favorite things! Chips, salsa, queso, big cookie, ice cream, cake, wine....YUM! Singing me Happy Birthday. :) I think everybody should have to blow out the candles on a cake on their birthdays. It will never get old to me! Although...you do feel old when you realize that a single pack of candles doesn't cover your age anymore. Maybe just stick to a random small number....like four. :) The next morning we got up and went dress shopping with Molls! It was so fun (but just as overwhelming as I remember it being). I'm so honored to get to stand up there with her as one of matrons of honor and can't wait to watch her marry Luke! This isn't the dress that she chose...and I know you can't see her face...but I wanted to leave some mystery! :) I have SO much more to catch everyone up on...including Baby Bammel (born over a month ago...LOTS of pictures to share), Mother's day (clearly my mother's day post will be late...sorry Mom, Grandma, and Mimi!), Baby Joe's golf tournament, and a few other odds and ends. This weekend I'm photographing another wedding so I will probably not get any other posts up until after that! But soon...they will go up soon! :) Until then....