2022 Recap & Behind The Scenes

This Year in Numbers

96,239 images taken
16,680 photos delivered
3,893 miles driven
261.5 hours spent shooting
26 flights
25 miles hiked (while working)
22 couples married
19 new photography awards
8 national parks
7 additional shoots
6 states
5 albums
5 complicated photo permits
4 proposals (and 5 YESes)
4 nosebleeds
2 countries
1 grateful photographer (and a partridge in a pear tree.)

The Mobile Command Center parked in Central Colorado.

2022 Recap

I will attempt to recap the amazing couples whose Best Days I got to share. You are ALL my favorites! This year had so much head-spinning travel that it was hard to keep track. Additionally, 4 of my 22 couples had one partner named Sara or Sarah. So that wasn’t confusing at all. There was also the time when I forgot to pack wedding appropriate shoes so I shot the whole day in just socks. And the fire alarm went off and a parent took too much weed and ended up being hand-fed tortilla chips. And it just got sillier from there!

2022 Winter Couples

2022 was my last year shooting in Winter conditions, but it was incredible anyway! Meng & Molly kicked off the winter with an epic bash in the snow. Their first look was adorable AF and their style was effortless. We just won’t talk about the part where one of the brides forgot to bring her wedding dress to the wedding. Then it was tropical vibes in February with Las Vegas lovebirds Chais and Spencer. Or as I like to call them, Spais and Chencer. March brought me to Northern Utah to celebrate R&M on the snowy slopes. In April, we almost died getting to Sara & Kunyu’s elopement in Mammoth Lakes. Let’s just say they made the experience worth it with their incredible 16 hours of fun and adventure. And they brought their cats. So I almost didn’t mind sleeping on a blood-stained mattress at the Motel 6. Almost.

Spring 2022 Couples

May brought me all the way to New York to celebrate Tara and Aaron’s micro wedding at a perfect castle. They laughed, they giggled, they guffawed throughout the day and that made it so easy to photograph them. I’ve known Tara for 15 years now, so it was an extra treat to be there among her nearest and dearest. See their emotional, hilarious and beautiful castle microwedding here. Engaged cuties/weirdos Sophia and Patrick romanced under the spring blossoms in anticipation of their 2023 marriage! And I got to reunite with 2021 couple Meredith and Jeff and 2017 couple Adam & Amy!

Summer 2022 Couples – June

June is always my busiest month and this year was a humdinger! The RV that I live in was still broken down in Las Vegas when it was time for Stephanie and Cameron’s June 1st elopement in Ouray, Colorado. I flew to Denver, drove 6 hours to Ouray, then reversed it and went back the very next day. (Many thanks to my co driver and lifesaving assistant Catherine!) While eating dinner at S&C’s wedding, I ended up sitting across from a guest who attended my own wedding in 2019! When I got back to the RV, it was just about ready to hit the road and we road tripped through Arizona and Central Colorado. We rocked up to Black Canyon of the Gunnison for Kacie & Pete’s just-us-two all day elopement on the North Rim. We ended up saving the lives of three lost hikers, no big deal. Read all about their elopement shenanigans, the torn dress, shooting stars, private chef dinner and campfire smoreos here. Two days after that I was on a flight to California to share the magic of Sarah & Nick’s hiking elopement at Mcleod Lake. This one is too beautiful to believe and I had my first and second nosebleed of the year at their dinner. Natalie and Brian rounded out the month back in Colorado with their free spirited celebration.

July 2022 Couples

If you’ve made it this far, you know that none of this travel makes any Geographical sense so far. And It’s about to get crazier! Early July brought me to the Maroon Bells for a gorgeous proposal. Then Vail, Colorado for Izzy & Nate’s 60’s camping inspired friends and family elopement at the Tigiwon Community House. Celebrating my good friends Carl & Zoe in Summit County next was a huge highlight. It can be stressful to shoot a friend’s marriage because you want them to have the BEST photos of your whole entire career. These two made it easy for me, and their appreciation is the biggest feather in my cap. Congratulations!

Then.. Hawaii!

Our long-awaited trip to Hawaii was a treat, apart from Steven’s debilitating lung infection. We started on the Big Island and checked Hawaii Volcanoes National Park off my bucket list. I wrote an elopement guide on all the details and how-tos of eloping in this amazing volcanic jungle. We did scuba diving with Manta Rays and had so much fun exploring paradise! Then we island-hopped over to Kauai for a week of hiking and relaxing. We met up with three incredible couples in the mountains and on the beaches, and I intend to stay friends with all of them. A Kauai Elopement Guide was needed to show off all the incredible places to elope, so check that out here for more photos.

Late Summer 2022

On the way back to Colorado from Hawaii, we stopped in Southern California to celebrate Hannah and Dave and Sara & Pavel. Funny enough, Sara and Hannah know each other.. and Tara, my bride from May! We all met at summer camp in Vermont when we were like 15. Summer was so good to us with these incredible people! Sara & Pavel are the kind of people you go out for nachos with at 10pm, so that’s what we did. Then three more couples got engaged in Colorado, and I got to be there for 4 more yeses! The extra yes came when Kenny proposed not only to his girlfriend Alexis, but to her daughter, making them a unified family! Not a dry eye in the entire park! Finally, While Davis and Chris got married by a river, I had my third nosebleed, got soap in my pants and stepped in dog doo. After cleaning my shoes, I popped them in the dryer.. which then broke. It’s still broken. Pray for me.

September 2022 – Another Busy Month!

Busy again! And I’m so grateful for it. Coli & Shane got married with HRH Queen Elizabeth, Gordon Ramsey, Snoop Dog and Dolly Parton in attendance. To make a long story short, everything was super stinkin’ beautiful and so easy to photograph. Then Curtis and Christian married each other on the shore of a mountain lake after a scenic train ride, gondola & moose sighting and being unwillingly serenaded by an old man. True story. Then I was back to California (4th time this year but not the last!) for Tee & Danny’s EPIC Mammoth Lakes elopement. I officiated their marriage at sunrise and spent the rest of the day frolicking through waterfalls, hot springs, mountains, a canoe and everything in between. We even ended up buying their elopement lunch at the grocery store because their baker had a medical emergency. I got to see Meng & Molly again in Crested Butte while I was there to second shoot for Alex & Colton. September ended on a high note with J&J’s incredible jeeping elopement in Telluride – which I shot on behalf of Skyewater Photo.

October & November’s Amazing Couples

After a heckin’ busy September, October was more chill, though I spent most of the first part of the month catching up on editing. I helped celebrate Amanda and John in Western Colorado then returned to the front range only to immediately leave again for the Great Sand Dunes. Sarah & Tyler eloped with their toes in the sand and their hearts full of joy and adventure. Their day held my most epic fail of the year, as I accidentally peed my pants while overflowing my she-wee funnel AND had my 4th nosebleed onto my lunch while driving. It’s a long story, which you can read about here. We then packed up the RV and left Colorado for the season, stopping in Sedona to create another great Arizona elopement guide. After a personal trip to see friends, past clients and Bono in Indianapolis, Central Illinois, and Chicago respectively, I went to.. Utah, of course! Kelly and Mike’s heartfelt all day elopement in Snow Canyon State Park was the perfect mix of adventure and deep connection.

December in New Zealand & Tahiti

We traveled to New Zealand for Renae & Paul’s international destination elopement extravaganza! But first, we stopped in Tahiti. Because one does not simply pass through Tahiti! We met an indigenous man named Teuai who we hired as our guide to take us to the center of the Volcano in his jeep. While feeding the eels in the river, Steven got bitten by one and had his wound bandaged by Teuai and some walnut oil. What a story! Once in New Zealand, we had an AWESOME time. But.. chaos hit us pretty hard. I lost my diving fin on a night time shore dive. Then Steven left his passport in a hotel room a few hundred miles away. We flew to South Island, where the airline confiscated my flash battery and all my spare camera batteries. Then, Renae and Paul got swindled by a scam website that didn’t provide them their travel Visa on time, and missed their flight to New Zealand. When they miraculously got on another flight and arrived, their checked bags were left in Australia. These two tenacious adventurers were not going to let anything stop them from their dream elopement. (It was my dream elopement too.) I tell the full New Zealand Elopement story here, and below are some highlights!

2022 Behind The Scenes

It was a year full of hilarious disasters, epic calamity and ridiculous shenanigans. Who am I kidding, this happens every year! One of my favorite moments was on the beach in Malibu with Hannah and Dave. Hannah had a bouquet but no corsage for Dave, so I opted to take a flower from the bunch and add it to his lapel. This was a great plan, but my emergency scissors were too small to cut the stem. So I bit the flower off with my teeth.. you know, like a normal person. I also safety pinned a dad’s pants back together, got my favorite tiny planet published in a book, and laid in the dirt/shrubs/rocks a record number of times.