sheena and nate…the surprise wedding

i am struggling with how to start talking about sheena and nate's wedding. it was definitely a day I will never forget. I met Sheena last fall when I needed a second shooter to join me for a wedding in Milwaukee, our mutual friend Jess  suggested I ask Sheena. And Sheena was the sweetest ever. Even though we had never met she drove down from "up north" and spent the entire weekend with me. I adored her from the moment we met. 

So when she contacted Jess and I a couple months ago with her plans for a secret wedding I was overjoyed for her. I was even more overjoyed when she asked me to photograph the wedding alongside Jess and using film. I was technically on maternity leave....but a secret wedding? in the woods? on film? for some of the nicest people ever? there was NO WAY I was saying no. 

I know some of you may be wondering what exactly a surprise wedding is.....well....only sheena, nate, jess and I, the videographers and a few family members knew they were getting married that day. Sheena's fabulous friends came from all over the country to attend her bridal shower, not knowing what the day would come to. Others gathered later to attend a party to celebrate Nate and Sheena's engament. Imagine the excitement and joy when they all found out what exactly this special day was. 

Words cannot adequately describe this day. Everyone knows that I love weddings. I love gorgeous unique details. I love beautiful spots for weddings. I love touches that speak of the couple.  Sheena and Nate's day had ALL of that. But beyond that, their day was full of love. It was a celebration of two of them, and of their faith and the fact that God has brought them together. It was an intimate celebration of joy that their friends and family surround them with. It was an inspiration to see Sheena and Nate together, their every guesture speaks of love. They made this day THEIRS. An intimate loving get together that touched everyone there. I am so so honored that I was a part of it. 

you MUST go to Jessica Sands blog to see her post and images from this day. I absolutely adored shooting alongside Jess....and she tells the story of this day in such an amazing way. (I dare you to not tear up or get goosbumps by her post). we also got to work along with Sky Blue Weddings, the amazing videographers. You must check them out on facebook.

*all my pictures are on film. my absolute favorite. i would LOVE to shoot more weddings fully in film. I am SO blessed that sheena knows my love of film and wanted it for her wedding. THANK YOU!*

friends gathering to shower her with love at Nate's parents house. It was so great to attend, everyone was so sweet and SO happy for Sheena

they played a couple of games and in the last game, the guests had to see who could unravel a ball of yarn the fastest. when it was unraveled there was a special message in the middle that said "I am getting married......today". the room erupted. what a moment!!!

emotion abounded all day. one of my favorite moments was when nate opened the presents sheena got for him. 

and their first look was amazing. amazing. 

everyone rode on horse and cart to a path leading to the ceremony site. then nate and his parents led the guests down the path to where sheena and her mom janet were waiting. 

remember how I mentioned gorgeous details. well...here they come. nate and sheena built this gorgeous wooden tent in the middle of the woods...and filled it with such gorgeous touches. i was in heaven. there in the middle of the woods, with the campfire, and the forest sounds their guests dined on a meal that Sheena and Nate cooked TOGETHER. it was amazing...

amazing desserts were in abundance as well, all handmade by the couple, PLUS everyone got to take home the yummiest little pies. for a sweet tooth such as I am, this was beyond fabulous. 

sheena and nate had their own little table. it was adorable

as day slipped into evening the tent just got more and more magical

congratulations to sheena and nate. thank you so much for having me help document your day. it was an honor. I say on my site that while I love weddings and people that are excited about the day, I get much more excited about people that are MORE excited to be married to each other and their life beyond the wedding day. and that was so you guys. Your wedding was just a glimpse into the wonderful love you have and the joy and love that you surround yourself with in the form of family and friends. 

wedding bootcamp workshop

this past weekend dani stephenson and I hosted a workshop focusing on wedding photography. it was a great time to get together with a bunch of fun girls and talk photography. I could talk about photography for forever. (those of you who know me know this is true. I have probably talked your ear off about it, if you would let me). We had a great group of girls and some awesome people involved. A couple of thank you's to start out:

thank you to dani. she is my partner in crime in photography projects and I couldn't have done this alone. ever. you have to read her blog post about the workshop. she is much more eloquent than I am right now. and what she says...that is what I want to say 100%

to all the attendees: thank you guys so much. it was GREAT to meet you all and hear about your passion!

to the models: you guys are the best. seriously. we couldn't have asked for better models. thank you. thank you. THANK YOU! 

to ginny's cupboard where we held our workshop. AMAZING. thank you so much for all the work. If people haven't been there. GO. adorable. awesome. cannot rave enough.

to Wild Apples who supplied the GORGEOUS bouquet. wowzers. seriously. the flowers were BEYOND perfect. and smelled amazing. Man. seriously. brides. check them out. 

to Kristi of Kristi's Cakes and Pastries who supplied our adorable cookies! everyone LOVED them! 

AND to Georgia who hosted one of the shoots at her house. YOU ARE THE SWEETEST! THANK YOU!!!!

and now. on to the photos...... 

   

 

  

our first session was supposed to be like an engagment or love shoot. the adorable zastrows... (you probably remember them from my blog before and because laura ROCKS.) were our models. these too. they made our job too easy. the are naturals. and so very in love. I ADORE them. just the CUTEST! 

  

 

  

  

for our wedding couple, rachel and mark graced us by coming by. You have seen them all over my blog and site as Dani and I have photographed them a ton of times. They are so in love. another perfect set of models. we never get sick of having the two of them in front of our lenses. unfortunately a freak storm cut this portion short, but it was still awesome! 

  

 

  

the birthday project

first off...did I really not blog once during the month of april? wow. that is definitely a first. thank you guys for holding on during my maternity leave. it really has been blissful to spend so much time hibernating and snuggle my little ones. i DID photograph an amazing amazing amazing wedding this past weekend, so when the film scans come back from that I will have an actual wedding to share. also, in may i am slowly but surely coming off of maternity leave...so things will pick up. 

this post has little to do with my photography, and a lot to do with kindness. a few years back i met an amazing wedding planner, Robyn, when i was in florida with a few photographer friends. she was one of the sweetest people ever. I had heard of her before we met from this blog post. on her birthday she did 38 random acts of kindness to celebrate it. The amazing response she got from this led to The Birthday Project. Please go to the site and read all about it! 

Inspired by Robyn and The Birthday Project, I plan on doing 32 random acts of kindness for the month of May (my birthday month!) Lots of people do their random acts all in one day, but with packing and moving (fingers crossed) at the end of the month, along with having 3 little ones, I think a month long goal is more reachable for me. Besides, spreading out the love over a month will be awesome, I think. When I am done I will blog about the experience...hopefully with pictures. 

I need your help too....ideas of random acts I should do (especially low cost ones) would be appreciated. AND if you would like to help me celebrate my birthday, please do your OWN random act of kindness over the month of May. Everyone that does, and sends me a post (or message if you wish to be annonymous) on facebook telling me about your ROAK and I will put everyone's name in a drawing for a free film shoot with me. UPDATE: the gorgeous Ashley from This Heartmade Life is partnering with me to shower loveliness on the winner of the drawing. (remember, if you do a random act of kindness this month and post on my wall about it, you could win a film shoot with me?) well now the winner will ALSO receive a personalized set of stationary handmade by ashley. this is AWESOME!!!! 

I am super excited about this, and I hope others are too. Once, when dining in a local restaurant with a kind of big group (my mom, brother, sister in law, matt, I and amelia) we went to pay and found out our meal was paid for by a random person. It was one of the most touching things. I want to help spread that feeling to others. 

thanks everyone! and like I said. stay tuned. things are picking up (photography wise) around here. AND if you really are jonesing for a dose of muellenberg, you can always check out my personal kid-blog . 

raina….film photography

a couple of weeks ago I started getting the "shooting" bug. as you all know I am on an extended maternity leave, and am having a lovely time with my little family and focusing on them. but....photography is in my blood. if i go too long without photographing something other than my kids I get a little bit crazy. so....I put a call out on my facebook page for a model....which the lovely Raina took me up on, invited my friend Alice to shoot with me and stocked up on my film supply. I did this shoot on film....because I LOVE it. and when I shoot for myself I can indulge in my love all the more. Everytime I shoot film it just cofirms to me that this is the direction I want to take my business in. 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

natasha + wade

remember my last post? where I gushed about my family. yeah. i love them. we got to spend time together this weekend for natasha + wade's celebration. it was fabulous. just check out the pictures.....

  

i love the moment in between family formals.... (ps this picture and all other family formals were taken while "wearing" grant in my moby wrap, another reason i love family weddings) 

  

  

  

  

  

congratulations natash and wade, thank you so much for having me photograph your day! it was fabulous and i am so happy for you. 

an ode to my family. at weddings.

today, as I am gearing up for another fabulous family wedding in a little over a week, i started thinking of my family. how much I love them. i seriously ADORE my family. (you want to know how much? in between contractions when I was in labor with grant I was asking my midwife if I would make it home in time for christmas so I could be with my family) christmases, family get togethers, game nights, camping, chatting, creeping on their facebook pages. i love it all. i come from a big family. I am the oldest of 23 first cousins on one side (and now we have 8 cousin-spouses and 10 great grandkids mixed in). the other side? I am the oldest of 23 cousins  ranging in age from me to my youngest cousin, Connor who is only 6 months old(this side we have 7 spouses and 6 great grandkids). and altogether I have 27 aunts and uncles, 3 grandparents, and my mom and dad. so yeah. a lot of family.  and I have been more than blessed to photograph quite a few of my cousins (and my brother and one uncle's!) weddings. So....I decided to post a picture from each wedding I was able to document. just because. because I love them all so much. and miss them. 

mandy+michael  (2004--before I was doing this professionally!) ohhh man. noticed I spelled that wrong at first. now THAT is professional. ha!

talia +mike (2005, ditto above)

ken + tammie (2005, ditto above)

sammy + lauren (2008)

logan + anto (2009)

kyle +nicole (2009. two because it is my only brother.)

miriah + nate (2010)

dyani + isaac (2010)

and now as I get into this blog post, i am thinking about how important to me as part of a family it is to have family moments documented at these weddings. how much it touches me. not the line up of smiling faces, but moments like these. between grandparent and grandchild, parents and children, siblings, cousins, etc. here are some of the moments that are super important to me.  (some of these will only make sense to...you guessed it. my family)

I am so glad i took this picture. it is one of the only pictures in recent years i have of me and my

papa. and we lost him about 10 months later. 

why consider birth photography? THIS is why….

i know. i know. if you follow my photography at all, you know I will have talked about this a million and three times. but i am going to talk about it again. actually I WAS going to talk about it again...but then my dear friend ashley (whose birth to beautiful baby allison I was blessed to document) agreed to write about her experience. i think I will let her do the talking!  

Okay, so you’ve heard about birth photography and you’re hesitant. Maybe more than hesitant. Maybe you’re thinking, “There is no way on God’s green earth that I want a camera or photographer anywhere near my lady bits”. Just hear me out. This is our birth story.

When I first brought up the idea of having someone photograph the birth of our daughter to my husband, I was met with a blank stare. “People actually DO that?!” I explained to him what it would mean to me to have someone capture those first moments of our (possibly last) child, how the photographer would be tasteful and unobtrusive. How memorable it would all be. He wasn’t totally against it, but he also wasn’t convinced. Until he met Krystal.

We worked with Krystal to do a winter maternity session in the hills of the Ontario area. Krystal was warm, engaging, funny, and just had a way of making us feel comfortable with her. She earned major points with us when we heard her joking around and laughing with our middle daughter, who was just shy of 5 at the time. Krystal was a genuine person, who clearly loved what she was doing. When we got into the car to warm up and head home after our session, my husband said “I like her. Let’s do it.”

We went into labor in the middle of a snow storm. As soon as I knew we were a go for Labor and Delivery, I sent Krystal the news. She braved the storm and drove the 2 hours to join us at our hospital. Since I was being induced, we had no idea how long we’d be in labor and honestly, we were a little worried that Krystal would get bored or that the conversation would stall and things would get awkward. As it turned out, we were in labor for a loooong 24 hours and Krystal joyfully stuck it out with us. She was there when I needed her for ice, or water, or something on the side table that I couldn’t reach. She sat with me and chatted for hours. She slept on the floor of our delivery room. She was discreet and slipped away when we needed her to, without even being asked. And throughout all those long hours, she captured the quiet, tender moments between my husband and I, without us ever seeing her camera. The way my husband rubbed lotion on my back and held my hand during contractions. The way he whispered softly in my ear while I was getting the epidural. His watchful eyes on the monitors, keeping track of every beep. Moments in our love and anticipation that I might have forgotten if it weren’t for those photos. 

As long as all those hours were, when our little one decided it was time, everything flew by in cyber speed. I remember saying I was ready. I remember the rush of nurses. I remember Krystal seeming to disappear. I remember our excitement. And I remember how it all went SO FAST. Like I had been possessed by Flash Gordon and the whole event was a blur. All of a sudden there was this itty bitty warm bundle in my arms. Allison Marie. And she was perfect.

Before we left the hospital, Krystal sent us a slideshow she made from our birth photos. My nurse and I watched it together and wept at the beauty of it all. There was the story, right there in front of us. There was every single beautiful moment. When I thought Krystal had disappeared, she had actually blended so seamlessly into everything that was happening and like only an artist can, she was there capturing some of the most intimate moments of our lives – without us even really being aware of her. There were no bright bursts from a flash, no constant click of the shutter, no camera right up in my business. Yet, there were these brilliant photos – these profound glimpses of our life. Krystal was tasteful and delicate, and there isn’t a single photo that is gory or “too much”. There is love, and joy, and the sheer abandonment of bliss right there in every image.

There are no words to adequately describe how grateful I am to have made the decision to have Krystal photograph our daughter’s birth. Or how incredibly blessed I feel to have had such a wonderful person share those moments with us. Krystal became a dear, dear friend that day and she will forever have love from our family for the gift she has given us. I could go on and on with the adjectives, and they still wouldn’t quite say how much this whole experience meant to me.

If you’re hemming and hawing over whether or not birth photography is right for your family, just stop and go for it. Because all that back and forth will keep you from being able to look back on the photos of the moment your child took her very first breath. Sure, you’ll remember it without photos. But the feeling I get from seeing images of the exact moment my daughter first opened her eyes on God’s world is a feeling beyond description. It wasn’t gross, or awkward, or rated R (or even PG-13). It was beautiful. Those photos take me back to those moments and are more precious to me than even our wedding photos. They make me cry, they make me grateful, and they make me incredibly proud of the work it took to welcome our daughter home. It was an amazing experience, and even my husband agrees that it was worth it.

-Ashley Bores

I will say this:

I have had three kids now. and I wanted photographs each time, but alas, it never worked out. I was BOUND and determined to have grant's birth photographed, but since he came 30 minutes after we got to the hospital I didn't have someone come and I am KICKING myself that I didn't. Or even have someone come in AFTER he was born to photograph the moments afterwards...like when Amelia met him and cried for an hour out of sheer love for her new baby brother. We will never get those moments back. and even though I have my memories (and a couple of shots matt took) of it... i must admit, my memory fails me already! and that was 2 months ago. I would give anything to go back and to call someone. even though it was the middle of the night when I went into labor. even though I wasn't at all pleasant during labor. even though they may have missed it. 

If you are expecting and even a LITTLE interested in having the birth--or the time immediately after documented, contact me. Even if you aren't sure and just want to chat about it a little bit and find out more. CONTACT ME.  please. 

hello

blog silence is a pet peeve of mine. even though i am on maternity leave and not shooting other than for myself, letting my blog sit here untouched just gets to me. and...while I am LOVING maternity leave, I am also itching to get out and shoot again. I seriously cannot wait for all my weddings this year. they are going to be aaaaammmmmazing! i got my first invitation to a one of them. and holy cow, i was blown away by creativeness. my couples are the bomb! I've said it before, but I love.love.love seeing the details and planning behind each wedding I shoot. I had another bride send me some sneak previews of her dress and details and it just gets me all the more slaphappy to document the day. 

other notes of interest. 

* my amazing friend and fellow photographer Jessica Sands came to our house and documented a morning in our life this weekend. It was SO FUN to be photographed just as we are. I didn't go all crazy with finding the perfect outfits (and I usually do), we didn't worry about chase looking at the camera (because he almost always won't) or amelia not giving a fake smile or sitting still (because she almost always won't). we just were. it was amazing. I want to remember us just like this in years to come and jess is SO talented and documented US. I am so in love with the story she told of us through our lens. CHECK IT OUT HERE! 

*I am booked for weddings in 2012. I am still getting inquiries, so I just wanted to let everyone know I am taking on NO MORE weddings for 2012. I can refer you to other amazing photographers if you do contact me though, but I am not available for any months. 

however.....

*I am finally booking 2013. I was holding off, but I am booking it now. I have added film packages and film/digital packages to my offerings as well. So if you or someone you know is getting hitched in 2013 you can call me. I AM taking on a limited amount of weddings in 2013 as well though also...just an FYI :) 

* I am going to be starting a personal project I am really excited about soon.... more details on that later, but just suffice to say (for now) I am super excited about it. 

*if you just can't get enough of me and my family (HA!) I do have a personal blog HERE and post on that A LOT, so if the blog silence here gets to you also, you can find me there! 

just a couple shots to end with...of my wonderful family

happy love day.

today, and every day. remember this. 

winner winner chicken dinner.

okay. i had to say that. Matt says it all the time... so yeah, it just came out this morning. OH MY GOODNESS. this was the closest race EVER for one of my contest. annnnnd.... i think it ends up as a tie (actually one of these got one more vote than the other, but that vote came in past midnight....sooo....I say TIE!) 

the winners are:

#3 Vanessa

and #21--Jessica and Brent

thank you soooo much for voting everyone! and thanks again to my fabulous clients!!!!