Montana native newlyweds Lisa and Noah got married on his family’s property in Kelly Canyon just outside of Bozeman Montana last weekend. Perfect sunny weather blessed the day where these two celebrated their Quaker wedding with their close friends and family. I’m working hard to edit through all of the fun photos I made throughout their wedding day.
For now, check out a preview of some favorite photos I made for them. Stay tuned for more… -M
A few weeks back, I had the absolute pleasure of photographing the Livingston KOA Montana Wedding of Erika and Josh.
For this engaged couple, their wedding day was all about returning to the source of where they met.
Little did they know after a chance encounter over a foosball game table, two years later they would be celebrating their wedding at the Livingston KOA in the beautiful Paradise Valley where it all started.
Both Erika and Josh are well-versed in the art of hospitality. Josh is a chef at Feast Raw Bar & Bistro and Erika is a former wedding planner and now operations manager for the Shane Center for the Arts.
Erika and Josh wanted to have their wedding day focus “be about letting their friends and family know how much they’ve impacted us in our lives.” They intended to create a personal wedding experience for their guests. They wanted their wedding photography that honored their guests in the same way.
In a wonderfully intimate setting along the Yellowstone River, guests were met with great food, meticulous decorations of 1,000 paper cranes and rock cairns, homemade booze-infused cupcakes, and the right tunes to keep the dance floor busy.
Not even the constant rainfall throughout the afternoon could dampen the spirits of those in attendance.
The sounds of the consistent rain and the high waters of the nearby Yellowstone River serenaded the evening. The big pavilion worked as a perfect, versatile space. It began as the ceremony site and transformed smoothly into the catered dinner area. Soon after, it transitioned into an energetic, all-night dance party at their Livingston KOA Montana Wedding.
Happiness smiles, and good times abound. What a fun day!
Here are some of my favorite highlights from my day photographing their wedding celebration. Congrats again to the bride and groom Erika and Josh! Wish you guys a lifetime of happiness! -M
I had the pleasure of photographing the 1915 Barn Bozeman Wedding of two incredibly giving and generous Bozeman people this past weekend.
I’ve known Dee and Chris for years through volunteering with the adult special needs non-for-profit Reach, Inc. I would be hard-pressed to find such selfless individuals as these two. They both have done so much for the Bozeman community. These two decided to have their friends and family gather at the beautiful 1915 Barn in Bozeman, Montana for their DIY wedding day.
The large remodeled barn was the perfect setting to shelter their indoor wedding festivities. The evening was spent conversing with good people, eating great food, and dancing to the live tunes of Montana Rose. It was a true pleasure to photograph their wedding celebration. Wishing these two newlyweds all the best! -M
After celebrating the holidays with friends and family here in Montana, I jumped right into my 2016 wedding photography season to photograph the Gallatin River Lodge wedding of Kiera & Collin in Bozeman Montana.
I’ve been looking forward to this wedding for a while now. I had a great time earlier in the year photographing this couple during their couples portrait experience in downtown Bozeman. These two are great and brought lot of energy to their photo session.
For their wedding day, this couple brought a small gathering of their loved ones together to help them celebrate their union at the comfortable, top-rate fly fishing lodge just outside of Bozeman, Montana.
When wedding couples have their wedding day in Montana, it goes without saying that you need to have some portraits taken out in the majestic Big Sky scenery. Kiera and Collin were a blast and were up for anything.
In this case, we all braved the chilly 10 degrees of Montana winter weather for a series of quick Gallatin River Lodge Wedding portraits around the perimeter of the lodge. Despite being freezing cold, these two were beaming ear to ear with smiles. It was so cold that I had to ask them to hold their breath so that the cold fog wouldn’t block their faces.
It’s so much fun to photograph people in love. I had a great time with these guys and their crew. A great way to kick off the New Year! Wish these two all the best, -M
I’m happy to share the Springhill Pavilion Wedding Day Preview of Sara and Cory’s celebration!
I wish all Septembers in Montana could be as nice as this year has been. Over this past weekend, I photographed the wedding of Sara and Cory at the Springhill Pavilion near the base of the Bridger Mountains. In a rare window of opportunity, the smoke from the summer wildland fires eased off giving way to a clear blue sky day and calm warm conditions. A perfect backdrop to a wonderful wedding day. I’m busy editing through all the awesome. Here is a preview of some photos that have stood out to me so far. Many more wedding photos to come. Stay tuned… -M
Update: Check out their finished wedding day photos on my blog here.
About a week ago, I had the pleasure of documenting the wedding day of Julia & Peter out at Chico Hot Springs outside of Pray, Montana. Located in the heart of Paradise Valley, these two along with their friends and loved ones, took over the historic venue for a night of celebration, laughter and get down dancing. It was an absolute hoot to be apart of. It was a wonderful day. So many more photos to show you all. Good things come to those who wait. -M
Wow! Is it August already? Time does fly when you are having fun. Looking back on my summer, I’ve been keeping busy photographing weddings and spending the remaining free moments mountain biking around the mountains of Bozeman, Montana. Life is good. I feel lucky to have found such happiness and fulfillment in documenting the love of others with my camera. It’s a continual reaffirmation that fills me with gratitude daily. The only thing better than documenting the big day of my new wedding clients are those times when an opportunity to document a good friend’s wedding comes around. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching my buddy Levi marry the love of his life Christina in a beautiful and intimate ceremony on a family friend’s property outside of Manhattan, Montana. Levi and his family have been dear friends of mine for many years running. Having grown up in Bozeman, Levi was the guy who introduced me to great people and many places to explore when I first moved to Bozeman and I didn’t know a soul. It was a kindness extended at the time to the new guy in town that I will always be grateful for. I had been looking forward to them tying the knot for some time now. These two love birds met at a kundalini yoga retreat and quickly fostered a strong bond with each other. When it came time to planning their wedding, they decided to have a small ceremony with close friends and relatives contributing food in a potluck fashion. It worked out great. Their wedding day was simple but elegant collaboration. It’s was a great feeling to watch my friend be filled with such joy at having found a wonderful woman and partner in Christina. Here are some favorites from their wedding day. I wish them a lifetime of happiness! -M
Montana! I love it! Especially when it means I get to make a road trip through the state to photograph a wedding up near Glacier National Park. A couple weeks ago, I headed north towards Bigfork, Montana where I photographed Cierra & Brian’s wedding day festivities at the Cougar Trail Ranch. These newlyweds have been making a life together working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but decided they wanted to marry closer to home, their friends and their family and opted for a Montana wedding. The place they found, the Cougar Trail Ranch, was in a classic northwest Montana setting complete with dense, surrounding lodge pole pine forests that opened into golden grass pastures bordering the property line. The big fancy house offered tons of space for the wedding party staging and it’s huge big windows offered this photographer great light to work with. Cierra, an old college rugby friend of mine, contacted me about a year in advance to book my wedding photography services and it was great to finally watch her walk down the isle to marry the boy of her dreams. It never gets old photographing the weddings of old buddies. The day went off without a hitch. As the festivities turned to dancing, I struggled to hold in my laughter at the sight of seeing some of the wedding guests cut loose and begin tossing kids into the air as they danced, celebrated and sang the words to every DJ song. It was one big, awesome Montana party! Such wonderful energy throughout. I had a blast documenting these guys. I wish them all the best for many years to come. -M
I’ve been excited to post these photos for a while now. A couple of weekends ago, I drove over to western Montana to photograph the wedding day of Ashley and David at the fantastic Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn in Corvallis, Montana. Ashley has been a longtime friend of mine since our time together attending The University of Montana and the two are making a living in Butte, Montana as social workers. You would be hard pressed to find a cuter couple. I had an awesome time photographing the fun throughout their wedding day. Thinking back on it makes me smile. The entire time I was hanging out with them, you could tell their excitement by the big grins they had on their faces all day. It’s such a fun thing to witness two people completely head over heels for one another. I think that emotion really shines through in their wedding photos. Having photographed at the refuge years ago, I had a pretty good idea of where my best images would come from. This place was a Montana wedding photographers dream. I used the rustic Montana farm backdrop to it’s fullest by exploring the variations of color schemes and trying to capture the feeling of their wedding day. It is such a joy for me to document the union of friends. I’m thrilled for these two and wish them all the best! -M
This past weekend, I traveled towards the Flathead Valley in northwest Montana to the town of Big Fork to photograph Cierra and Brian’s wedding day held at the beautiful Cougar Trail Ranch. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the fun photos I got to make on their big day! This is just the tip of the iceberg and I’m excited to show you all the rest. Many more photos to come. Check back soon. Congrats you guys! -M
The fun continues! I just got back from photographing Ashley and David’s beautiful Montana cowboy styled wedding at the Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn in Corvallis, Montana this past weekend. Here’s a sneak peak at a couple snaps from their wedding day. Many more to come. -M
I can not think of a better way to start my 2013 wedding season. A couple weeks ago, I went out for a fun, wedding engagement shoot float with Candace and Andy on the Madison River. The two found me through a recommendation from a friend here in Bozeman, Montana and reached out to me in a bit of a panic. The two were disappointed with a previous photographer’s engagement photos and they called me looking for a last minute remedy. I was happy to help. The two wanted photos that conveyed their relationship while mixing in their mutual love of floating Montana rivers. For those of you that haven’t met me personally yet, flyfishing and floating a river are two of my favorite past time activities. Mix in a great photogenic couple, some great Montana evening sunlight with a photographer in his ultimate happy place…well, you have yourself a recipe for some awesome and unique engagement photos. I had a lot of fun with these two. We set out west from Bozeman (boat trailer in tow) towards our river put in. Candace and Andy brought along their English Springer Spaniel puppy “Bobo” for his first floating experience. Sometimes it’s those little added ingredients like a curious, young dog that can help set the stage for some fun moments. Upon casting off shore, two things were quickly revealed to me: first, Bobo had never in water before (let alone floated on top of it) and secondly, this dog had never seen a trout before. Hilarity ensued as Candace and Andy reacted to their pup’s new experiences in between each portrait set up and I was there to document it with my camera. The end result was some uniquely Montana-style engagement photos that they were really happy with. The two will be tying the knot later this summer. I wish them all the best. -M
Last weekend I wanted to tap into my autumn nostalgia and celebrate the new Fall season by hosting a apple picking event and BBQ at my house here in Bozeman, Montana. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs of Illinois, one of my favorite activities was to go apple picking in the local orchards. So I invited some friends over for my First Annual Apple Pressing Party last Sunday. The idea was to all meet up on bikes and to go ravish the local Bozeman area apple trees then bring our bounty back for cider pressing, micro brews, BBQ and campfire into the evening. The reality was that this year was a lousy fruit year for the apple trees in the area and we ended up buying boxes from the local grocery store. Still, we borrowed a apple press from the good folks at Rocky Creek Farms and pressed about a gallon of delicious cider that everyone got to sample around the warmth of the campfire with nice rum and whiskey and smoked ribs. As part of the celebration, I also set up my photo booth over my cast iron yard tub/stationary hammock and we all went to town making fun, spontaneous photos throughout the evening. It was a great time! Here are some of my favorites from the evening.
Winter quickly approaches here in the Big Sky and I’m already starting to book wedding dates for my 2013 wedding season. If you or someone you know is in the market for a wedding photographer, now is the perfect time to be the early bird and book Greener Visuals Wedding Photography for your wedding day. I’d love to hear from you. Happy Fall everyone!
Well, this is always a fun email to wake up to. I found out the other day that a photo I made at Christina and Ryan’s wedding last summer placed in the the most recent Wedding Photojournalism Association quarterly photo contest. It’s a shot I made of Christina’s grandmother giving her toast. What a sweetheart. There is an incredible amount of talented wedding photojournalists in the organization and I’m thrilled that my work was able to stand out amongst them. My first wedding of 2012 is one week from today! I’m getting excited. Sonoma, California here I come!
I’m almost finished with my latest wedding photo shoot where I returned to the Big Sky state to photograph Christina and Ryan’s Montana wedding. Stay tuned for a big post soon.
You know you’ve done something right when one of your past wedding couples refers you to their friends. I consider those gestures one of the highest compliments a photographer can receive. It lets me know that I am doing my job well.
Back in 2006, Abby and Johnny asked me to photograph their Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn Wedding in western Montana after hearing about my photojournalistic style through their friends and my former clients.
It was the ultimate picturesque Montana cowboy wedding. Their outdoor wedding was held at this cute little ranch where the men were decked out in their cowboy boots and hats. They twirled the women in their summer dresses as they danced to the upbeat rhythms of bluegrass music. Summer was ending and with it, the days grew longer. Because of it, we were blessed with beautiful afternoon sunlight that made the dried wheat fields glow with a golden hue as the sun set over the Bitterroot Mountains. What more could a photographer ask for?
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