To be 100% honest, I’ve procrastinated in writing this post.  With the craziness of back to school shopping and back to back weddings over Labor Day weekend, I wanted to wait for a quieter moment to reflect on Shannon and Chris’ wedding which took place just over a week ago.  When I told them that there was no other place on the planet I’d rather be, it was the truth.  For the backstory, first reference Shannon’s sister’s wedding post and then the post I wrote two months later.

In wisdom, Solomon wrote, “There is an appointed time for everything.  And there is a time for every event under heaven … A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance… He has made everything appropriate in its time.  He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.”  Ecclesiastes 3: 1,4, & 11 (NAS)

I think Solomon knew that occasionally those extremes would collide and that life in it’s chaos and simultaneously, in it’s beauty, just doesn’t make sense.  Weeping followed by laughter.  Mourning followed by dancing.  One holds the hand of the other in relentless intensity.  Documenting THAT kind of story taps into the deepest part of me and demands nothing less than the utmost tenderness and care.  It also requires me to shoot through my own suffocating sorrow and overwhelming joy, knowing that in telling their story, I am telling my own.  That somehow being reminded that wholeness exists in the middle of brokenness, God heals a small piece of me too.

Shannon and Chris’ wedding day was perfect.

*Special thanks to Melissa Jordan who drove up from Indiana to second shoot Shannon and Chris’ Traverse City wedding!  And a very special thank you goes to my dear friend, Alicia Caldecott of A Day In May… there are no words to express the magnitude of your heart and your care.  I’m humbled to be broken and complete alongside you.

Shannon’s Uncle had the honor of walking her down the aisle.

Sorry, Chris.  You’re related to him now.  ;)

A quick stop on an aunt’s boat.  Love Traverse City.

First look at the Opera House

I have a new love for baby’s breath.

Thanks for that flash Jessy… always trying to steal the show

Jerry Ross Band was also perfect.