This wedding is very close to my heart! Sarah is my sister’s best friend since elementary school, so she’s always been like my little sister too. I feel so honored when close friends ask me to photograph their wedding day, so when Sarah set the date I immediately started making plans to head out to Colorado!

I didn’t meet Mike until the day before the wedding, but by the end of the weekend he and his family had made me feel like one of their own. They are quite a special group of people so I’m happy to say that Sarah is in good hands! It was also great to reconnect with Sarah’s family who I hadn’t seen since my own wedding 3 years ago. Their wedding all took place at the beautiful Black Canyon Inn in Estes Park, a 90 minute drive north of Denver. The weather was so nice and cool, it was the perfect getaway from the stifling Florida heat!

Sarah and Mike had a relaxed, laid back wedding day and they just enjoyed all of their guests and had a true party! Wish I could shoot a wedding like this every weekend! It was even more fun since my sister (also named Sarah) was a bridesmaid and my brother-in-law, mom and stepdad came too!

Ceremony Site: The Pavilion at Black Canyon Inn

Reception: Twin Owls Steakhouse at Black Canyon Inn

Florist: Karen of Estes

Cake Artist: Schmidt’s Bakery in Loveland, CO

Hair and Makeup Artist: Jeanice Prohs

Bridesmaid Dresses: LocaLovesPirate on Etsy

Scenery: Sarah wanted to “Thank the man upstairs for providing the beautiful backdrop for the ceremony — the Rocky Mountains!”

I especially love Sarah’s story about her engagement ring: “The engagement ring is my favorite part 🙂  I picked it out about 1.5 years ago at an antique store in New Orleans called Cohen’s.  When Michael proposed, he got me a wedding band, until we could afford a traditional engagement ring.  However, when he went to get the ring from Cohen’s, it had already been sold to another antique dealer.  Since they remembered Michael from his childhood antique coin collection (most of which he purchased from Cohen’s) they agreed to track down the ring for him and he gave it to me about 3 weeks before the wedding.” It’s a cognac diamond which I just loooove!

Pink shoes….sigh…..

Sarah looked STUNNING!

Mike, you don’t look too shabby yourself! 🙂

They based their First Look on the weather. If the weather was great at 3 o’clock, they wanted to do it to ensure we had some good portrait time. It was good, so we did it! Love this sequence:

In Estes Park, elk roaming around are just as common as squirrels! See the elk in the back left?

This is one of my favorite portraits:

The lovely ladies!

The ceremony location was absolutely breathtaking. It was under this huge pavilion, so we were covered but still got the effect of the beautiful Rocky Mountains in the back:

Sarah and Mike did a “Celtic Hand Binding” during their ceremony which was really neat. It’s where the phrase “tying the knot” comes from:

Mike’s sister, Elizabeth, read a beautiful poem at the end of the ceremony, “Love’s Philosophy” by P.B. Shelley :

Since Sarah was like another sister to me, I was also very close with her mom growing up. I love these two pictures of the two of them:

Sarah put together these sweet little centerpieces herself. They’re succulents, and each one was a different masterpiece!

I think we can all agree the cake was our favorite detail! Sooooo cute! (Quick sidenote: the next day everyone said how amazing the cake tasted but I never got to try any. So Mike disappears for awhile and comes back with a slice from the TOP of their cake! For me! It was DELICIOUS!)

The night before the wedding, everyone went out for some karaoke. Here is Sarah reenacting her turn at “Midnight Train to Georgia” with the boys as “The Pips”!

Love you guys!

“Love’s Philosophy” by P.B. Shelley.

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another’s being mingle–
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;–
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?