Birmingham Michigan wedding photography at the Reserve provided by Kellie Saunders and her team. We had an amazing time working with Paige and Christopher on their wedding day at the Reserve in Birmingham. I won't lie, it rained buckets on their wedding day and I was very lucky to have ten minutes of rain free weather to take portraits, but this didn't dampen anyone's spirits. Paige and Christopher took it like champs and rocked on with the rest of the day without missing a beat. My favorite part of the day was when Christopher's sister gave a toast. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place, including my own eyes! There is definitely no shortage of love in both of their families. What loving, kind and compassionate souls! Paige tells her story best, so let me just open up the blog floor so you can read her very own words. I couldn't have said it any better if I wrote it myself. "Once upon a time, there were two high school teenagers from Michigan. Christopher was a seventeen year old "rock star" in a band, and Paige was a sixteen year old girl who loved going to shows and hanging out with friends. Christopher and Paige went to different high schools, and though it seemed unlikely that they would ever meet, fate brought their friends together. Christopher and Paige met like typical high schoolers: at a high school party through high school friends. This party started what would be a friendship amongst their groups of friends, where they always seemed to be hanging out at the same places and with the same people. Paige started going to Christopher's band shows and one day got the courage to put her number in his phone. The very next day Christopher called her, and they have talked every single day since. Seven years later, on their anniversary, Christopher and Paige went on a date to a Parisian bistro in Chicago. After dinner, Christopher took Paige to Montrose Pier with a view of the city skyline. Under the stars and city lights, Christopher asked Paige if she would spend the rest of her life with him, and she said YES (maybe even before he finished asking...oops!) Currently, Christopher and Paige live together in Chicago. They plan on moving back to Michigan in the future where Paige wants to further her nursing career and train as a flight nurse, and Christopher wants to continue growing as a software engineer. Most importantly, they are excited for a house with a yard, to get a dog, and to someday have their own family!" I don't know where the road will take Paige and Christopher, but I hope they enjoyed their wedding photos as much as I loved taking them! I also hope they get that house, dog and tons of kids!

Metro Detroit Michigan wedding photography at the beautiful Marriott Baronette Renaissance Detroit provided by Kellie Saunders and her team of the best Detroit, MI wedding photographers. What an incredible honor it was to photograph Alaina and Mike's wedding! Alaina is the niece of one of my best friends and fellow wedding photographer buddy. Alaina had a huge pool of talent to pick from as I'm sure my friend gave her great referrals. My friend as sweet as she is specifically told Alaina and Mike that she would not interfere with their process as they decided who to hire to photograph their wedding. She gave them a list of names of people she recommended and let Alaina and Mike take it from there. I'm incredibly honored that they picked me and it was such a special and fun day for everyone, me included! While Alaina and Mike both grew up in Milford, for them at least, finding one another wasn't as easy as coming from the same home town. As Mike says, "it took a campus of 50,000 people for us to meet". Mike said that right from the start he knew Alaina was special. He had a feeling she was the one and she felt the same way about him. When he finally mustered the courage to ask her on a date, he wanted to impress her, so he picked the fanciest restaurant a college kid could afford. Only, when they arrived at The Olive Garden for their first date, Mike started feeling ill. He tried his best to make it through their date without Alaina noticing his quickly failing health, but he couldn't mask his illness for long. He had to stop the date and take her home, hoping she knew that he really did like her and he wasn't making this illness up. He simply had to leave. A few hours later and one appendix less, Mike called Alaina to let her know it wasn't her, he had appendicitis, and she soon made her way to the hospital with a smoothie for him. It only took one smoothie to win his heart and she's had his heart ever since that day. Okay now for the wedding day. I started off with Alaina and the girls at her parents home in Milford. Her smile was infectious and she swore she would wear the smile all day and not shed one tear. I secretly knew that wouldn't last, but I didn't tell her that. I just waited for the moment it would happen, and it happened as soon as her dad saw her for the first time in her wedding gown. We headed over to Mike's family church where the two made it official. Alaina and Mike wanted to go to the city for some wedding portraits, so we hopped on the party bus and headed to the DIA. I love it when I'm actually able to ride the party bus with clients. I watched the group laugh and tell funny stories all the way to the city. We rocked it out at the DIA, but time was tight as it usually is, so we had to rush back to the Barronette for the reception. The Baronette is one of my favorite places to photograph a wedding. The staff is so friendly and attentive and they have a polished and well appointed lobby that works well for portraits. The food is also delish! Alaina and Mike had the best time with their friends and family and danced until the late hours of the night. What a beautiful and amazing day for them! I'm so happy to have had the honor and I wish them all the fun and love they can handle. Oh and cats - more cats for Alaina!!! It's a little late as this happened last summer, but I want to congratulate Alaina officially on not only passing the bar exam, but being top of her class at Northwestern! What an amazing achievement. Mike is also quite accomplished himself and the two of them are living happily ever after in Chicago right now. (Maybe one day they will come back to the Mitten???)  

What do you get when you pair a guy from Yale and a gal from Holy Cross? You get a couple who is not only in love with each other, but is deeply in love with their community as well. Mary and Bill are strong supporters of Detroit and just being the best human beings they can be. Take a look at their wedding day photos from the Townsend! Enjoy!

Z Lot Downtown Detroit Engagement Pictures with Nikki and Pete taken by Kellie Saunders, a leading Detroit wedding photographer. Now that the sun has FINALLY  arrived in our fine state of Michigan, it's time for some spring engagement session blogging! I wasn't able to blog everything last year as I did a lot of traveling with my family and a few destination weddings, but I'm happy that I have some time to catch up now. I was just finishing up Nikki and Pete's wedding album design and thought this would be a perfect time to revisit their engagement session, especially in case some other couples want to see how much fun you can have at the Z Lot in Detroit! Even though this session wasn't that long ago (technically only about a year), I've heard rumors that the Z Lot may require special permission or a permit these days. At the time of this engagement shoot they did not require a permit, but things are quickly changing in the city and the places we were once able to use for engagement photos are not always available. It's important that no matter who you are working with for your wedding and engagement photos you double check your locations in case permits or permission is required so you aren't disappointed if you get turned away. What I loved the most about Pete and Nikki was their fun spirit and ability to just go with the flow! They wanted to bring their cute pooch - who I LOVED by the way, but my advice is to always make sure you have a dog handler with you. The part of and engagement session with dogs is usually only a small portion of the entire session, so you'll need someone to hold onto the doggie while we are working on all of the other photos you need. Pete brought his best man with him to the session who was our "dog handler". He did a great job too! We started our photo session on the roof top of the Z Lot parking garage. The sun was out at full blast and I wanted to try out my new lights to see how much power I could draw from them. I had recently made the switch from Nikon speedlights to Godox and I can say I absolutely LOVE them. The reason for the switch (for any photographers reading this) was simply because Godox offers a wireless remote inside their flash unit for about a third of the price of Nikon units and they work flawlessly with their other lights. I only use Godox now. The first couple of photos were taken with one speedlight, bare bulb and I think it did a great job for me! The rest of the session was natural light which I prefer if possible, but I also like to jazz things up with light once in awhile. We stayed close to the Z lot since we had the pampered pooch with us but we still had a great time!!! I'll post photos from their wedding in the upcoming weeks so you can see what an amazing wedding day they had!!! Congrats Pete and Nikki!!!! Thanks so much for working with me and for the wine and chocolate! I absolutely loved it!!!!

Engagement photography services at the historic Belle Isle Casino and was provided by Detroit wedding photographer Kellie Saunders. Erin and Stefan's wedding was being held at the Casino so they had permission to shoot there. Please note that Belle Isle currently requires permits for professional photography. Check out their wedding photos HERE Have you ever dreamed of the perfect winter engagement session? You know the one where the snow is slowly falling, gently landing on your heads as you gazy into each others eyes. YES you know this snow. It's called magic snow. There's no breeze when it falls. It just falls so gently - almost whispering your names. Well, I have to tell you something. That snow rarely happens. It's time to stop dreaming of it. When it does happen and by chance it's during either a photo session or a wedding, it's actually rare. I've been lucky enough to catpure it once or twice in my ten years of photographing weddings, but it is rare. Come on guys, this is Michigan. Need I say more? Since Mother nature in our great state is such a fickle little beast, I wanted to share one last winter engagement session to share how the sessions really go down. I made a rule a few years back to not shoot engagement sessions in the winter solely for the reason that MOST of the time it's just too darn windy and cold. For example, we might be able to shoot for a solid fifteen minutes, but then your nose starts to turn red, my fingers want to fall off, you can't hear my directions because the wind is blowing so hard, your hair is flying away and the list goes on and on. I don't do this to punish my clients. Rather the opposite. I want to be a good stewart to my clients photography budget. I want to make sure I give them the absolute best that I can. The absolute best I can for the money they are paying me. Of course I do! On the wedding day we have no chances to reschedule due to rain, snow, ice, hail or whatever. We have to go with it. You will get what you get. But for your engagement session, I have a bit more control. If the weather and light is just not working out, we can reschedule for a better day. I found that sessions scheduled in the winter months almost always ended up being rescheduled due to weather issues and when they weren't we could only shoot for a limited amount of time before everyone turned into an ice cube. When the weather is nice and warmer, we can shoot longer, my clients can interact more, and at the end of the day I'm able to deliver photos that are more impactful. So with that said, I don't want you to look at this session below and think I didn't love it. Quite the opposite. I actually LOVED this session. But these clients were two people who could really go with the flow under in any kind of weather and were okay with WHATEVER happened. Erin and Stefan both work in emergency medicine. I say that because to be honest, my clients who work in medicine are typically very realistic and understanding. They see the bigger picture in everything. They understand that life happens and little things that may not go as planned will not kill them so they are able to just relax and laugh it off. Some clients are not as easy going and are looking for something more refined. So my advice before considering a winter engagement session is to really take a look at the photos you want and what you can and can't accept should the weather turn bad. Would you be disappointed if you only recieved 15 photos vs. 50? Would you be disappointed if your hair was a bit wacky from the wind in a few shots? Would you be upset if you had to wear gloves or the rain started slamming down on your face? Think of these things as you schedule your engagement session with whoever is photographing your wedding. So back to this session. Erin + Stefan = two of my more favorite people EVER! When the word cool was invented I'm pretty sure they had this couple in mind. I just loved them, all their friends and family as well. They are so in love and so down to earth that they knew they could handle this crappy weather during their engagement session. Now true to form, we met at Belle Isle on a day when the worst winter storm ever was about to hit. We spent about ten minutes on the island - really just staying where there was shelter and then we made a run for it and headed over to the DIA. Just as we arrived there the hail started and we had very little time to make some magic. But Erin and Stefan took charge and helped make my job super easy! We had such a good time, laughing and enjoying being smacked in the face by the hail. Oh it was sideways hail by the way. LOL We all ended up with a good story to tell and I was able to get them a few lovely photos! At the end of the day I think we would all agree that shooting in the spring would have been better, but we had a great time and I couldn't imagine going through a winter hail storm with any other couple! Make sure to check out their wedding photos by clicking the link above.