Ben + Jess Welcome Baby Brantley

It has been an honor to photograph Ben and Jess Novinger over the years - first for their engagements, then for their fun wedding at the Rusty Rail. They contacted me in August to announce their first pregnancy, and we spent an evening romping around the October fields, catching up and laughing. When I came to their cozy home to meet Brantley Everett a few weeks ago, my heart felt so full. Our two hour session turned into a day-long event of chatting, eating takeout, and playing with the dogs in between photographs. It very much brings me to my knees in gratitude to have such relationships with clients, who have now turned into friends.

In my years as a wedding professional, I have learned so many things. There have been ten thousand different lighting situations and a hundred venues and a zillion hours of sitting in front of my computer editing. But without question the thing I've found most precious is that I've been a witness to such deep connections of love.

I am thirty. And a strong thirty - I have a business, a house, a life crafted by my own hands. I've spent years traveling, met hundreds of beautiful strangers, had my share of hostel and hiking adventures and wouldn't trade them for anything. But oh how I've been enamored by love. By all the times I get to witness it - in the very first consultation over coffee, hearing about how they met, to the engagement session, giggling on the bed in their first apartment, to the very day I stand across from them at the alter fighting my own tears.

Ben and Jess, especially so, have been a beautiful example of love for me. I admire them - as individuals and as a couple. They have been very much an inspiration to me, and I mean that very sincerely. I hope to find such peace within another human as they have found in one another.

Congratulations Ben and Jess. Brantley is so lucky to have you. And so am I.