Dear 2022,

Wow! Where do we even start? 2022, you were so good to us! This year has been unlike any other in both our personal lives and business! Although it was a year full of obstacles and a few bumps in the road, we wouldn’t change it for anything. We’ve emerged from 2022 stronger than ever and we have nothing but gratitude for all that you had in store for us as Minnesota wedding photographers!

Gratitude has become a huge part of our lives in recent years. Through gratitude, you can free yourself from the negative emotions regarding a situation and make the conscious choice to be thankful for being granted the experience in the first place. Trust us, it’s not always an easy thing. But we truly believe that it was through gratitude that we were able to have such a prosperous year of growth and joy.

So to express our gratitude for 2022, we want to go over some of the highlights of our year and where we found gratitude in each of these special moments. So come along as we race back in time through our whirlwind year and touch on some of the amazing moments we were able to experience!

1.) Destination Wedding in St. Thomas of the Virgin Islands

Now this was some way to kick off our 2022 wedding season! By the time the date to fly out finally came, we were itching to get out there and shoot (Most likely a combination of cabin fever from being cooped up all winter AND a desire to get those creative juices flowing again).

And as the kickoff to our amazing year, Cassie and Tyler’s wedding blew it out of the park. It was our first beach elopement/destination wedding and we had been so eager to shoot something like this for the longest time! To see those dreams come to fruition all around us was one of the most amazing things! It was one of those “Hey! Look, Ma! I made it!” moments.

This wedding and this trip really set it into perspective how grateful we are to have the careers we do. The fact that we were able to visit literally the most beautiful places on Earth FOR WORK! We never could have imagined that this would be our lives! We spent so much of this surreal trip engrossed in conversation with each other of how fortunate we are to have a career that allows us to do these things and to have built a business from the ground up that made it to this point. it was a celebratory moment, not only for Cassie and Tyler, but for us as we hit a milestone in our business!

If you want to hear about all the nitty gritty details from Cassie and Tyler’s wedding and more about our experience shooting this wedding in St. Thomas, you can read all about it in our blog: Intimate Island Beach Elopement: Minnesota Elopement Photographers Take On the United States Virgin Islands – St. Thoma

2.) Retro Vegas Wedding Photography Workshop/Styled Shoot

One of the hallmarks of this year came from hosting our first workshop/styled shoot in July! Hosting a workshop like this had been a dream of ours for the longest time and we were ecstatic when we finally set the idea into action!

But not every idea can be executed exactly as we had planned… This workshop threw us so many curveballs! This was just one of those things that started out as this big idea that was so exciting and failed to meet our expectations! And we learned that it’s okay for that to happen!

Beyond learning so much about what it means to host, budget, and plan for an event like this, we learned how to be resilient. That even if our ideas didn’t turn out exactly how we wanted them, we could still go and have a bomb ass time! We were so grateful for this experience, even all the headaches it caused! This way, we know what NOT to do the next time we want to host an event like this!

If you want to hear more about our experience (and mistakes) with hosting our first photography workshop, you can read more here: Living and Learning: MN Wedding Photographers Host Their First Workshop

3.) Madeline Island Sailboat Proposal

When we had a chance to shoot a sailboat proposal in Madeline Island this summer for my (KC’s) childhood best friend, there was no chance we were going to miss out on this opportunity! Not only was this a spectacularly beautiful moment but the fact that we were able to use our business and our art to capture this moment for someone who has made such an impact on my life was the icing on the cake.

Now we weren’t necessarily blessed with a beautiful sunset and we had more overcast than sun for the trip but we still found the beauty in this trip! To share this moment with my childhood best friend and her now fiancee and spend some couples time with them was a great moment for us. This trip was so needed for us as it came to us in the thick of wedding season and even though we did “work” for some of it, it was just what we needed in that moment and we are so thankful for that.

Additionally, it’s not everyday that you shoot a badass proposal like this! We have shot a few proposals before but nothing like this! It was a great feeling to switch up from what we normally shoot and share in that electrifying energy of getting engaged! We cannot wait to shoot more proposals in the future!

If you want to hear more about this sailboat proposal and how it all went down, you can read all about it in the blog: Madeline Island Sailboat Proposal in Bayfield, WI 

3.) Cornucopia Beach Engagement Session

While we were out in the Bayfield/Madeline Island area for the sailboat proposal, we booked an engagement session at a stunning beach in the area. Cornucopia Beach had been on our bucket list for quite some time and we were so excited when Sami and Natalie wanted their engagement photos done there.

Sami and Natalie traveled all the way from Chicago to have their engagement photos shot at Cornucopia Beach. Now, not every couple would be down to do this so we knew then that Sami and Natalie were our kind of people. It also amazed us with the reach of our business! The fact that our business that started in the small town of Wyoming, MN is reaching couples all the way out in Chicago is an absolutely bewildering feeling!

And Cornucopia Beach with Sami and Natalie did not disappoint! At the time, this was such a breath of fresh air for us to get out of our element and shoot somewhere completely unfamiliar to us. This session perfectly captured that summer feeling and there have been a few times just this winter that we have gone through this gallery to bring us right back to that perfect summer evening!

4.) Impromptu Pumpkin Head Photoshoot

It wasn’t deliberate but pumpkin heads sort of became our thing this Halloween! Last year, we had seen a few shoots where these photographers had their couples put carved pumpkins on their heads. We thought this was a totally awesome idea and so we carved up some pumpkins and asked one of our engagement couples if they wanted to grab some cool shots with the pumpkin heads after their engagement session! Thankfully, they were avid Halloween lovers and were completely down for it.

For the Halloween season this year, we had shared some of the photos in a reel on Instagram that caught quite some traction! It was so cool to see our work be shared and featured by so many people, especially considering it was more of a creative shoot. From this reel, we had a fellow wedding professional, Jen from Champagne and Lace (She does the most BEAUTIFUL floral arrangement AND she offers wedding planning and coordination) reach out wanting to do a pumpkin head shoot with her BOO!

We knew we wanted to up our game with this shoot so we ended up carving FOUR pumpkins for the shoot! Two pumpkins were just regular jack-o-lantern style pumpkins while the other two were something special! One was painted all black and the other was covered in disco ball pieces!

We were so grateful to connect with Jen from Champagne and Lace for this shoot! She was an absolute rockstar and it was awesome being able to connect with another wedding professional that we vibed so well with! She even designed some stunning spooky fall bouquets to go along with the shoot!

5.) All of the Amazing Weddings We Had The Honor of Being A Part Of

Last but surely not least, we are so thankful for 2022 for bringing all of the amazing wedding couples we had the chance to work with! We had the honor of being a part of so many beautiful wedding days and there are no words to fully describe the feeling of being able to share those special moments with all of these amazing people.

Your wedding photos mean just as much to you as they do to us. We look back through galleries so fondly as we can transport back to your day and share in all the laughs and special moments! We made so many memories with each and every one of our couples and we are just so blessed to attract such amazing, bad-ass people! CHECK OUT AN AWESOME COLLAGE OF ALL THE WEDDINGS WE SHOT IN 2022 DOWN BELOW!

We had the opportunity to shoot at so many amazing venues too! To shoot a full wedding at Pinewood had been on our bucket list forever and we were able to make that dream a reality (Check out more from that wedding HERE!). From the amazing rustic barn weddings to the dreamy backyard weddings to the sleek, modern weddings at awesome venues, we are so grateful to have had the chance to shoot at so many beautiful places.

Moreover, all of the wedding days we had the honor of being a part of would not have been able to happen without the help of so many of our amazing fellow vendors! It was a pleasure to get to work with so many amazing professionals including wedding planners, coordinators, caterers, florists, DJs, officiants, and so many more! We appreciate you more than you know!

So Long 2022! May 2023 Be Just As Fulfilling!

To all those that we have been able to reach with our work, we want to thank you from the bottom of hearts! Thank you for allowing us into your lives and giving us the opportunity to capture such amazing points in each of your lives! Your love and support means the world to us.

If you want to be a part of our 2023, check out the rest of our website HERE and submit all inquiries HERE! We’d love to hear from you and make some memories together in 2023!

Peace out, 2022! Thanks for the memories and we cannot wait to see what the universe has in store for us in 2023! xoxo