A Winter Wonderland Wedding | Karyn & Henry

Every so often I get an inquiry that sets in motion a process that’s wonderful from day one. Everything may not be set in stone, or even planned, but there’s a confidence that no matter which direction it goes, it will be amazing. When Karyn reached out to me for her wedding with Henry, it was that kind of experience. Not knowing exactly when the wedding would be, Karyn and Henry would make it beautiful. Spoiler alert, they did!

Many months had passed and Karyn reached out to me and mentioned several things have changed and they wanted to know if I would still be available about one year earlier than the initial date. I was and we were off!

There were a lot of moving pieces with their wedding mostly due to scheduling and the fact that Karyn and Henry were planning a wedding for Iowa City while they were currently residing in Chicago. Naturally, it complicates the process, but with clear direction, it all came together!

I traveled from Des Moines to just north of Iowa City to the Palisades Kepler State Park. The scenery is unbelievable and we based the whole engagement session traveling down the banks of the Cedar River, just really getting to know each other. I could see their natural candor in the images and I knew they loved them, which was confirmed when I saw prints of them throughout the entire wedding venue on their day!

Karyn really wanted a magical winter wonderland wedding and when they were looking at schedules between grad school semesters and breaks, December made perfect sense! Being a Des Moines wedding photographer, I’ve had my fair share of shooting in all kinds of weather. In fact, the very first wedding I photographed was a winter wedding, so approaching their day evoked a certain familial sense of why I started in the first place.

The wedding itself was absolutely beautiful and I’ve got to say, the wedding party (being composed mostly of Karyn and Henry’s brothers and sisters) made the day! They were so much fun and real champions in the cold winter weather. We managed to add to the close-knit family approach by spending a good amount of time capturing moments at Henry’s Great-Aunt’s home. She was kind enough for her to let us walk about her acreage as well as take several images by the pond. They turned out so well!

Now I mentioned that for Karyn & Henry, everything fell perfectly into place, but during the planning process, Karyn mentioned a few challenges she was worried about. One of those being the amount of daylight we would have in December. We would have to use the time we had efficiently. So, as you’d have it, time always slips by and we were left with no daylight when we wanted to take a few more couple portraits. Still determined, the three of us went outdoors a few hundred feet away from the church into a field. And out of nowhere, snow started falling. It was a magical winter wonderland. I grabbed a light and instead of sunset photos, we composed amazing winter snow nighttime images. Karyn and Henry held each other close (for warmth) and we made the most of the night! A few weeks later and I get to give them these images which only allow them to remember their beautiful wedding day.