Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

Please click the photo above or follow the link to view our favorite photos from Kevin and Taylor’s perfect wedding at Copper Mountain.

From Alaska with love.

So, Taylor and Kevin live in Alaska. But they were married in Colorado. Taylor’s sister lives in Colorado, but she got married in Alaska. Make sense?

Therefore, Taylor needed a little help coordinating all of this from the North, so her sister helped find us down here in Colorado. Great team effort, ladies (if I do say so myself)!

Taylor and Kevin are warm and laid back, and they planned a not-too-small and still intimate wedding at gorgeous Copper Mountain. One of the neatest things to experience in Colorado is the ghost-town-quality of a high country ski resort mid-summer. It is surreal to be some of the only people at the whole mountain. And while that emptiness might be a little disconcerting, an empty Copper means we’re not fighting to get people-less shots in all of those stunning backgrounds.

Taylor and Kevin had an easy love. They were comfortable with each other, which translated in to an ease in front of the camera. The weather was perfect. The wedding was perfect.

Thank you, you two, for letting Char and I capture your amazing day!

Click the photo or follow the link to view Anne and Tim’s Irish/Scottish Wedding at the Lower Lake Ranch near Conifer, CO.

I’ve been around enough people from Iowa that I’m convinced there isn’t much to do in Iowa except pick corn, go to Phish and Widespread Panic concerts… and PARTY. Iowans are officially the rowdiest people, given to lots of dancing, and can consume cocktails and beer like it’s the top of the nutritional food pyramid. And I don’t say this lightly and without evidence: my wife, in-laws, most of my family, and even myself (5 years as a kid) are from Iowa.

All of this consequently means that Iowans are the best people to know if you like to have fun. Anne and Tim’s wedding was a case study in this fact.

To start with, men in kilts and bow ties may seem to indicate a sense of formality, but if you really stop to think about it, it’s the exact opposite. I have never met a man capable of wearing that venerable warrior’s man-skirt who didn’t do so with a twinkle in his eye and frequent (and gratuitous) displays of what is (or isn’t), in fact, covered underneath. I’m not Scottish or Irish, but I have worn a kilt, and I do have to admit that I too felt the overpowering urge to flash and moon everyone I met that day. *shrug* It’s a guy thing.

Secondly, Anne and Tim held a very moving and very traditional Gaelic/Scottish ceremony, in which there was a classic moment where the couple shared a shot of whiskey with the first person they met, who for the ceremony’s purposes was their officiant (and Tim’s best friend). He quaffed that shot like a champion, which was probably for the best becuase he’d announced to the guests earlier that he was very nervous. Ahhh, whiskey! Liquid courage.

Third of all (thirdly?), Anne is a fountain of laughter and joyous energy. She literally bounds at times, and her energy infected the day with constant laughter and fun. She didn’t stop dancing all night long, and becuase of that, neither did her guests. They had an eclectic mix of danceable party music, from hip-hop to jam band and a lot of hard Scottish and Irish traditional/rock. It was a treat to photograph, and the best part was I can shoot some video now on the Nikon D300s and I was playing around with it, shooting a little video in between photos.

This is what I got, put to “Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys, edited by me on my home computer. It’s pretty obvious that I should stick to my day-job (photography), and leave the videography to the professionals… but I still think it’s pretty cool!

http://www.vimeo.com/8980619

This time of year, every year, we comb through our weddings and collect all of our favorite shots from over the years in to our “Wedding Collections”. We’re exceptionally proud of these photographs, and we’d love it if you would take the time to review our favorite wedding photography to date!

The love of family and friends can equal an amazing energy and spirit of fun. Please click the photo or follow the link to view Emily and Neil’s rowdy and fun wedding in Grand Lake, CO.

16 hours of photography, lots of laughter, and a lifetime of memories later, I give you: The Rowdiest Wedding We’ve ever Captured.

Emily and Neil (whom you might remember from their cute and fun engagement portraits) did their wedding right!

First of all, they chose to have in the most meaningful place to them in their relationship: Grand Lake, CO. It’s where Neil proposed and where they love to escape from their hectic city lives as often as possible. Charlotte and I loved Grand Lake: it has that small town feel like my hometown of Fairplay, but it has so much more stuff to do (boating and skiing in the same town?!?)!

Second of all, they booked Charlotte and I for unlimited photography, which meant instead of being on a time-line, the vast majority of their day could be a lot more relaxed and chill. Without unlimited photography, we would never have captured Neil being thrown in the freezing lake after breakfast, we would not have had time for the couple and their wedding party to stop for cocktails between the formals and couple photography, and we definitely wouldn’t have been able to go to the after-reception-party at the bar at midnight.

But there was a certain apstect to this wedding that can’t be planned or purchased: the indomitable fun-loving spirits of their family and friends. Absolutely, positively, no question about it: Emily and Neil’s friends and family were the most fun loving, high energy group of people we’ve ever seen at a wedding. And it was everyone! No aunt or uncle, grandparent, parent, college pal, or work buddy stayed sitting in their chairs. Everybody danced and sang and drank and laughed and partied hard all night. It was amazing.

And I often brag about the caliber of people we get as clients, and I think this wedding is a testimony to that as great people attract great friends and usually come from great families. The success of a wedding really does  come down to attitude and personality. There were so many things that could have dampened everybody’s jubilant moods: rain sprinkled and threatened all day long, gusty cold winds tore through Grand Lake in the evening, the outdoor reception got so cold (in June) it had to be moved inside, the indoor reception was so cramped and impromptu that it must have been 90 degrees in that room. But did any of that affect anybody? Not in the slightest!

I couldn’t fit all the photos I loved from the day in our little sample gallery, but I’ve included some more of my favorites in the slideshow below:

Please click the photo or follow the link to view sample photos from Erin and Brian’s wedding at the Sylvan Dale Ranch, near Loveland, CO.

For those of you who don’t know, I spent my formative years (jr. high and high school) in a little place known as South Park (Fairplay, CO to be exact). It was in interesting place to spend your teen-aged years, seeing as it was a town of 500 people and all…

Erin and Brian are from South Park, too. So their wedding was like a school reunion, if not a town reunion! It was really fun to see everyone from back in the day. It was very uplifting to see that there doesn’t seem to be much of a “small town curse” for anyone. We’ve all moved on to some pretty awesome things: I mean, Erin and Brian are both in law school (sheesh, more lawyers), and that’s after Brian graduated from the Air Force Academy and Erin already has a degree in civil engineering. Pretty good you, two…

Say, has anyone noticed that high school’s 4 years seemed to take forever, and although we’ve been out of it for over double that amount of time… it almost feels shorter? Anyway, I digress…

This was the first wedding of the “official” 2009 wedding season, and it was a wet one, which has set the tone for pretty much every other wedding this year. Dodging rain for the ceremony, worried brides, teasing sprinkles, downright rain. Thankfully, the ceremony was dry and perfect, but we struggled with rain for the before and after ceremony shots. It was actually pouring rain during the couple photos, and Erin and Brian were troopers, and the photos turned out stunning even though we all were getting soaked (one of the joys of an outdoor ranch wedding…)!

Thank you both so much. Charlotte and I had so much fun at your wedding, and it was great to see everybody from South Park!

Please click the photo or follow the link to view the gallery of kelly and Jacob’s wedding at St. Mary’s Chapel and Thunder Mountain Lodge in Breckenridge.

I grew up near Breckenridge in Fairplay, CO (known as the real South Park, to some…), and I spent all of my weekends (4 day school week = skiiing!) and summers (job) over in Breck. It’s like my hometown, except I didn’t go to school there.

However, because of my familiarity with the area, and my “local boy knowledge” of the back country roads and trails, I think Kelly and Jacob really got a unique opportunity to capture some really special and one of a kind wedding photos in Breck!

The key thing that we did was, instead of hanging around in town after the ceremony, we all jumped in our cars (well the wedding party and the couple jumped in a limo, driven by a terrified guy from Denver), and headed up Hoosier Pass to some places I used to mountain bike as a teen. It’s a good 15 minutes out of town, but the views at the top of this box canyon looking back out onto Red Mountain are to DIE for.

We also had some fun shots with the wedding party near Blue River, in a meadow with a great view looking at up at Mt. Quandary.

But enough puffing myself up.

Kelly did amazingly well with a very stressful wedding nightmare scenario that occurred while all of the girls were getting ready: the zipper busted off of one of the bridesmaid dresses. But instead of stressing out, or giving up, Kelly and her family calmly found a seamstress down the street, and whisked away with the bridesmaid and her dress. Kelly kept getting ready, and Charlotte started her photography while they waited on the bridesmaid and the missing family members.

Meanwhile, down the street at the seamstress’ shop, the poor lady was apparently so busy that she was literally answering the phone and helping other customers with one hand, and mending the zipper with the bridesmaid in the dress, at the same time!

By the time Char was finished with Kelly’s photos, the dress was on and perfect, and there was absolutely no set-back to the shooting schedule. And no set-back to Kelly’s state of mind. Amazing.

It was a perfect mountain wedding for a homesick mountain boy (and his “honorary mountain girl” wife) to photograph.

Thank you Kelly and Jacob! I hope you adore the photos!

Please click the photo or follow the link to view heather and Carl’s wedding at The Wild Basin Lodge in Allenspark.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll probably be noticing a theme after this wedding: rain!?! Every bloody weekend!!! When I was a kid, I remember daily afternoon rain-showers like clockwork in Colorado, but once the El Nino hit in the late 90′s, the clockwork rain stopped. Almost 10 years passed without daily showers for any extended period of time, but now… it’s not raining every day, but it seemed to rain every weekend… at least in August.

The day after Tessa and Doug’s rainy wedding, we drove 275 miles to the tiny little mountain town of Allenspark. Unfortunately, I think the same rainy storm-front that had dampened Tessa and Doug’s wedding had pretty much kept pace overnight, and now was a guest of honor at Heather and Carl’s wedding!

This storm almost did the wedding in, and if it hadn’t been for the excellent meteorological skills of the coordinator of The Wild Basin Lodge, the outdoor ceremony would have been called and we would have been forced to hold it on the porch. However, after carefully consulting the live feed of the local Doppler for about 30 minutes, she emerged to state confidently, “… it’ll pass in 15 minutes.”

I had my doubts because a steady, medium-heavy rain had been falling unchanged for about 20 minutes. So all the guests, the couple, and Char and I, stayed dry inside the lodge, and the guests passed the time merrily sipping cocktails and chatting. It was actually a great opportunity for Heather and Carl to walk around and talk to everybody, and lo and behold… 15 minutes later it stopped raining and the setting sun broke through the clouds and I realized that we were going to get a gift from God, at least, in terms of opportunity for photos!

Looking back at these photos, I can’t believe how close we came to missing this wonderful dusk ceremony. I mean, a wedding is a wedding, no matter what the setting, but c’mon! It was stunning out. Brides all over the world would kill for a sunset ceremony in a natural, awe inspiring place like that.

I don’t know how they did it, but Heather and Carl showed no sign of worry or stress as they waited out the storm. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was the power of positive thought, or sheer will of the bride, but they really lucked out and got a one-in-a-million ceremony.

Thank you, Heather and Carl, for allowing us the honor of capturing your beautiful day! Now you have visual proof to show your future children that, in fact: the best things do come to those who wait!

Please click the photo or follow the link to view Tessa and Doug’s gallery of their Wedding at the Davie Family’s Ranch near Del Norte, CO.

Ever since I first watched The Legends of the Fall, I’ve been infatuated with the idea of someday owning a huge piece of the Rockies upon which to raise my children (I did name my son, Trystan…), and Charlotte and I could be inspired every day by the natural beauty that would surround us. We would spend our days hunting, fishing, and I’m sure, making more children. I haven’t worked out yet how we stay in business doing all of that, seeing as how my dream home is remote and located far away from here. But let me have my little daydream, I’ll work out the details later…

Until that day comes, however, we’ll continue to live in Briargate (a subdivision of Colorado Springs) and have only cookie-cutter houses, weathered wood fences, and a distant view of Pikes Peak to serve as our inspiration.

That’s why I feel so lucky to be able to zoom off across Colorado on the weekends to capture weddings for beautiful couples in very inspiring places. The Davie Family ranch was no exception.

Sprawling along the Rio Grande, Tessa’s parents had the perfect little slice of high country heaven in their ranch, and Charlotte and I were awestruck. And as I thought about what it must have been like for Tessa and her siblings to grow up on the ranch, I became more and more jealous. Not only did they get to have horses and work the tractors and 4-wheelers, and get to have a full basketball court in the hay loft of the barn, but Wolf Creek Ski Resort is only 30 minutes away, max! Plus, on top of all of that, the landscape is stunning.

Not that I’m implying that growing up on a ranch is easy. I’m sure Tessa’s dad put all the children to work like all good farm or ranch families. And if their efforts to put on a wedding for 200 guests by themselves were any indication, the whole family knows how to work hard.

Tessa’s wedding was probably a real test for the Davie family, because for the 2nd wedding in a row, we got rained on! But this time, there was no tent over the ceremony site, the storm didn’t “just miss” us, it was full on raining during the ceremony. But you know what? Everybody loved it, and it showed. And the photos are proof of what I tell every couple who gets rain on the wedding day, “It won’t show in the photos”. Keep in mind, I’m not talking a downpour here, but a light rain or drizzle shouldn’t put all of the couple’s carefully laid plans to waste.

It was beautiful out, with perfectly flat light, and once again like Kim and Jere’s wedding a few weeks before, the skies played their part and gave us an amazing backdrop for our photos.

This wedding also provided Char and I with one of the most emotional reception moments we’ve ever seen when Tessa’s brother (who was deployed to Iraq) made a surprise phone call to the couple during the toasts. Not a dry eye in the house. It was ridiculously emotional. Which then makes it very hard to see what your trying to take photos of…

Thank you Tessa and Doug, for choosing Charlotte and I to capture your wedding. Especially with it being at your home, Tessa, it really felt like we were capturing something very special, and personal.

Colorado’s high country can be a moody lover.

She is so giving: her majestic vistas, soaring tower-esque clouds, and beautiful greenery are a photographers’ dream backdrop, especially for the drama and romance of a wedding.

However, she can turn cold and stormy in a second. Her jagged mountain ranges can hold back even the strongest storm fronts which boil and rage just out of sight and out of mind a peak away, until the built-up energy of the storm front swells and boils over the tops of Colorado’s peaks like a volcanic pyroclastic flow. And just like that, a beautiful day in the High Country can turn from beautiful, to stormy and wet.

Such was the schizophrenic mood of Colorado on the day of Bree and Brian’s wedding at the Siverthorne Pavilion. Spots of sun would yield to cold wet drizzle. Calm would relent to gusting winds. It wasn’t a very fun day to try and capture Colorado for Bree and Brian.

However, through all of the changes in weather, one thing remained constant: Bree and Brian’s unshakable optimism and joy for the fact that this day was finally here and they were getting married. We may not have had sunshine, but their love for each other shined brightly on it’s own.

I love when couples say: “We don’t care what the weather does: we’re getting great photos done!” and we roar around in the drizzle and wind taking simply perfect photos of the two of them. All brides should take Bree’s lead and suffer for the art. Suffer for the art!

If I were to try and sum up Bree and Brian’s wedding in a few words it would be: laughing and crying. I was worn out just watching them vacillate back and forth between cracking up and barely containing sobs.

Growing up, I never understood “happy crying”. I’d always see my mom crying because I bought her a pretty necklace for Christmas or something, and ask why she was crying and she’d always answer, “… because I’m so happy.” Huh? I don’t know if it was because I was young, or male, or both, but I couldn’t get my head around that concept. That is, until I married the woman of my dreams (I cried), and then later when Charlotte, my beautiful wife, gave birth to my children (I really cried). So I think it’s obvious that I now fully understand “happy crying”.

Bree and Brian, I wish you the best in your marriage. I also heard from a little bird that Bree clearly has “baby fever”, and it’s probably going to be only a matter of months (9?) until there’s some new changes in the big picture for you two…

Please click the photo or follow the link to view Lisa and Jason’s Estes Park wedding.

To the outside world, I seem like a strong, confident man. A rare specimen of talent and testosterone, (if I say so myself).

But secretly, I have a debilitating fear that haunts me to my very core. The mere thought of it has sent thoughts of dread and self-doubt coursing through my being. What is this haunting fear, you ask?

It’s photographing a wedding without Charlotte: my fearless leader, my guide, my muse and the one who yells at me when the clients aren’t around (it helps her deal with stress… I hope). She is my other half, both in terms of my life and as a wedding photographer. We’ve become like one joined mind out there in the field; We can cover each others’ shots with perfectly complimentary angles without speaking a word because we know each other’s style and habits. We just know what is being covered (and how) simply by where we’re standing, how we’re posed for the shot, and by how much sweat is beading out on our foreheads.

I’ve only photographed one other wedding without my faithful Charlotte (and it went very well, by the way), but Lisa and Jason’s wedding was still looming like a dark cloud on the horizon.

So where was my fearless leader, my muse on this day?

Slacking off without a camera for most of the day. Instead, she was grasping a bouquet of perfect flowers and looking resplendent in her navy blue bridesmaid dress as she fulfilled her solemn duty of Matron of Honor. That’s right: she was carrying Lisa’s train, holding flowers, and generally just looking stunning. She did shoot when she could, but for the vast majority of the day, she was but a member of the wedding party.

You see, Lisa is Charlotte’s best friend. They were best friends in Iowa, and when Charlotte moved out to Colorado, Lisa was right behind. In fact, we were all roommates when Charlotte and I were starting this whole marriage/business/family thing. My kids even call her Aunt Lisa. And I call her a pain in the butt.

I don’t have any sisters, and Lisa has become like a sister to me. Yes, in the loving, I’d-do-anything-for-you sibling way, but also in the you-annoy-me-to-death kind of sibling way.

As “roommate” Lisa, she was there for all the trials and tribulations of young love, engagement, early marriage, business start-up, and she often was known to have an opinion or two about the aforementioned drama. Like I asked for any. I’m not saying her opinions were wrong, (they were mostly right for that matter), it’s just that when you’re fighting with your new wife about the logo design of your 1st website, I don’t necessarily need to be double-teamed (although, I am a force of nature unto myself, so Charlotte does need all of the help she can get…)

And that’s how it went for about a year until Lisa (finally) moved out, and shortly there after met this guy: Jason.

Now, don’t get me wrong: for all of our squabbling, Lisa is a rock in my life, and I’m indebted to her for all that she’s done for me and my family. So, let’s just say, I’ve always been a little critical of the guys she’s dated, much like the role of an older brother (but she’s older… much older).

Then, out of the blue, this Jason guy shows up. At first I was nice and cordial, but I’ve been known to ask a probing question or ten, and very quickly I came to realize this Jason guy was really something. From honest, hardworking Minnesota stock, he seemed to embody everything Lisa wanted in a husband, including a huge competitive drive and a penchant for bar related activities (as anyone who has been whipped by the dynamic duo at Good Company’s beer pong tournament can attest)!

Jason and I became fast friends. We lean on each other when trying to deal with these two women, and now I have back-up in some of the squabbles between Char and I, and I don’t hesitate to give an opinion or two to Lisa when she and Jason have some spats. Ahhhh, payback is sweet!

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