How has it been almost two months since my last post?!


January was a slow month here on the photography front, which was probably okay considering that Sam and I brought 14 new calves into the world between December 21 and January 3. It made for a lot of cuteness and a whole lot of extra work! Thankfully everyone is doing well, and now that the weather is beginning to look and feel more like spring my calendar is beginning to fill. Things are finally getting back to a new-ish normal on the farm, and I was able to take what I think is a well-earned night off tonight to get some blogging done.


Given the slow winter I was having, I reached out to my friend and fellow dairyman Matt Krenz down south of Eau Claire. Matt and I met on a trip to Washington, D.C. with the Wisconsin Farm Bureau and became friends pretty much instantly. Easy to do when Matt is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet! He and his wonderful wife, Debbie, and their three kids, Jonathan, Luke, and Rebekah, rang in the new year with seven (!) bouncing baby Corgi puppies, and I asked Matt if I could come down there some afternoon and play with the pups. I picked the last nice day we had for over two weeks in February to make a visit with the camera, and the puppies did not disappoint. In fact, their ears had begun to stand up that very week. Then again, Corgi puppies are basically perfect anyway with those perky ears and those little legs and those floofy butts and their sweet yips!

A couple days later, Debbie shot me a message and mentioned that her sister Missy was looking for a photographer for her upcoming wedding in June. Missy and I connected and after chatting a bit via Messenger, I was delighted and humbled to be the photographer that she and her fiance, Jon, chose to capture their wedding day. Missy and Jon have been together for eight years, and have forever to go once the knot is tied.


Missy and Jon are getting married at Jon's family's lumberyard, Goettl Logging, just west of Chippewa Falls, and we shot their engagement session at the lumberyard the weekend after the nasty cold snap finally broke. Their love for logging was evident and will be etched into every element of their wedding down to the cross saw that guests will sign upon their arrival. Their kids Derek, Emily, and Lacie, and Goldendoodle puppy, Poppy, joined in on the fun, too! A snowstorm coming in toward the end of their session was truly the icing on the cake. If their wedding is as beautiful as their engagement session was, I am going to be unbelievably stoked (along with all the other synonyms for excited).


I've been extremely blessed to have captured engagements and weddings in some of the most picturesque places on earth, and love being breathed into those places by those who enter make them even more beautiful. That's what I think, anyway.

It forever amazes me how small the world can be, and how an afternoon with a litter of puppies ultimately led to the privilege of capturing love and commitment for all time. I don't know that something like that will ever cease to thrill me.


See you all on the 25th of June, Missy, Jon, Matt, Debbie, and kids! Maybe not the dogs, though. ;)