Drake and Paige scored a legitimately perfect Saturday in June for their wedding day. Drake might have told you that it could have been 10 degrees cooler, but we're still calling it perfect. They enjoyed the convenience of having both their wedding ceremony and reception at the DoubleTree in downtown Cedar Rapids, which was awesome! Having getting ready, photo ops, ceremony and reception all within a block is a beautiful thing that I highly recommend if you can make it happen. It's so convenient for your guests and for the wedding party. It's especially helpful if your wedding venue is as awesome as the DoubleTree as well. Allow me to go o ... READ MORE

Bug Soother. We'll just start this one off with Bug Soother. Why do the gnats in eastern Iowa have to be soooo bad?? Honestly, I'm getting tired of editing them out of every single photo! But, let's all give thanks for Bug Soother, which makes it actually possible to be outside this time of year. Once we got rid of those stupid Iowa gnats with LIBERAL Bug Soother applications, Jacob and Kensley's wedding day turned out to be really beautiful, contrary to the week's weather forecast. They had both their wedding ceremony and reception at Myers Tree Farm, and they were the first couple to experience the newly renovated space for their wedding. I ... READ MORE

It was a privilege and a delight to partner with Ben and Mattie on their wedding day. They are so genuinely in love and were so genuinely excited to begin the journey of marriage together. They take marriage and its commitment seriously without taking themselves too seriously. They are humble, kind and appreciative of all those that surround them. I'm pretty sure they sent out a blanket of thank yous that encompassed basically everyone at the reception. They're our kind of people. :) We started their day getting ready at the always wonderful Hotel at Kirkwood, which was also the venue for the wedding reception. We traveled to Hancher in Io ... READ MORE

Abbie and Mikael’s wedding day was very chill despite having so many not chill circumstances! The ceremony and reception were both at Hillside Event Center outside of Dubuque and Peosta. The original plan was to have the ceremony outside, but gusty winds in the country are never good for wedding hairstyles or veils, so they moved the ceremony inside for the comfort of everyone involved. We were fortunate to get most of the main activities of the day knocked out before a pretty legit wave of storms rolled through in the evening, not long after the ceremony. We were scrambling around in the raindrops at the start of the storm, taking a few phot ... READ MORE

It was my pleasure to photograph Scott and Kari's engagement session in St Louis recently. We already had a wedding scheduled the next day in St Louis, so we went ahead and piggybacked their session onto our trip. That said, we had one day for the session in St Louis, so the conditions needed to work and out, and fortunately they were perfection! The spring flowers were abundant and we tried to take full advantage of them at the beautiful Missouri Botanical Gardens. We finished up at the St Louis art museum with a very different vibe of simple, classic architecture and sunset photos over the water. READ MORE