Another amazing Boulder engagement photography session at Wonderland lake (and downtown briefly) with another wonderful couple. I am well aware that I do shoots at the lake often but in my opinion, that place is one of the most beautiful spots in all of Boulder, Colorado. Plus, each season and each session brings me different colors and different ideas. Congrats on your engagement Lisa & Eric!
Rachael & Chris were joined on a beautiful day by a small group of family and friends for their Estes Park, Colorado wedding held at the Black Canyon Inn and Twin Owls Steakhouse. After a fantastic engagement session with the happy couple last year, I knew their wedding was going to be a joy to document. Their energy and love for each other is palpable, and they did such a good job with all the little details of their wedding making it such a fun and memorable day for not only their guests but for me as well. Here are a few of my favorite moments from their Estes Park, Colorado wedding.
A few words from the awesome couple…
“Kira is an incredible photographer. She truly tells a story with her photos and we couldn’t have asked for anything more to remember our special day. Kira continued to exceed our dreams and expectations on our wedding day and beyond. Thank you, Kira, for making our day even more memorable and special to us!”
Recently I had the pleasure to work alongside the very talented Kara Pearson Photography to photograph Molly and Eric’s Vail mountain wedding. I worked with the men, capturing them going through all of their pre-wedding rituals before we all met up on top of Vail mountain for a stunning first-look. The day was incredibly beautiful and their outside ceremony and reception at the Donovan Pavilion was a joy to document. Here are some of my favorite Vail mountain wedding photos from their day.
I had been eagerly awaiting Jenny & Dan’s Custer State Park wedding for over a year. The well traveled couple are writers who live in China and managed to wrangle up friends and family from around the globe to watch them wed in a spot Jenny had visited as a child and dreamt of getting married at one day. The Black Hills of South Dakota and Custer State Park are known for their sweeping vistas, glorious lakes and green prairies where wild buffalo still roam.
Jenny & Dan began their fun-packed wedding weekend with a Chuckwagon rehearsal dinner where guests were loaded into cloth covered wagons equipped with straw cowboy hats and personalized bandanas. We all rode through the state park sitting on bails of hay and singing along to old country songs until we reached a remote clearing where we feasted on steaks and buffalo burgers.
Their wedding was another picture perfect day and the ceremony site had an almost surreal backdrop with enormous boulders jutting straight out of Sylvan Lake. The happy couple put so much thought into the readings, music, and their beautiful personal vows, and three tutu wearing flower girls entertained guests with random hugging and high kicks.
The reception was held at the Sylvan Lake lodge where their tables were named after the numerous cities where they had lived from all over the world. Jenny & Dan also chose some of their favorite books as their centerpieces and guests were invited to take them home with them. Emotional speeches, tequila shots, streamers thrown around everyone (a Bolivian wedding tradition), their party was an unforgettable one and so was my time with them.
Sweet words from the gracious bride…
“Kira is wildly talented. She has an amazing eye and frames her shots perfectly. We loved her photojournalistic style from the get-go, and we hired her because we wanted to have clear, beautiful images of our friends and family, and – sure enough – we now have all of these excellent portraits of the people we love. Somehow Kira managed to be completely unobtrusive while capturing everything. We had many great people who helped us to create a wonderful wedding weekend, but Kira was one of the absolute best.”
Piney River Ranch is one of my favorite wedding venues in Colorado. It is not the easiest place to get to and I imagine guests making the hour drive up the treacherous dirt road wonder where the heck they are being taken but when they pull up and see the breathtaking views all of their questions should be answered.
I had the pleasure to get to know Beth & Robbie last fall during their engagement session and knew they were going to be wonderful to work with. A kind, generous and playful couple, I loved capturing them making each other smile throughout the picture perfect day (no pun intended). After we exhausted all the beautiful locations at Piney River the couple joined their guests for a night filled with wonderful food and dancing at the Donovan Pavilion.
Thanks so much to Cori with Cori Cook Floral Designs, Erica at Colorado Occasions, Lisa with L Raymond Styles and Neil with 303 Motion for all your hard work at making this stunning Vail Mountain Wedding a total success.
When it rains in Hawaii they say it’s a blessing and these Hawaiian locals were blessed with a few raindrops, some brilliant sunshine and an all around beautiful day as they promised their lives to each other.
I’m sort of an old-fashioned type of girl when it comes to pre-wedding rituals and think if I ever get married I wouldn’t want to see my groom before the wedding but this couple has me second guessing that. There was something so special, so intimate, so private and honest about documenting Blair & Dave getting ready together at the Hotel Boulderado. Dave gently zipped up her dress and everything was really quiet, really calm and just felt really romantic.
This set the tone for the rest the day thanks in part to the well planned and kept schedule by Spice Jones of Calluna Events. Pale yellow umbrellas were on hand when it started storming before their ceremony at Harlow Platts Park and they came in handy again when the hot sun came out 20 minutes later and provided their guests with some much needed shade.
Blair & Dave recited their vows inside a labyrinth they created out of lemons. They entered separately but walked out together and all those lemons meant fresh squeezed lemonade at their Rembrandt Yard reception where the Bruce Hayes Band serenaded their guests.
Thanks so much Blair & Dave for being so kind, so easy-going and just simply wonderful to be around. Your Boulder Colorado wedding was simply wonderful to document and you have made the start of my season very memorable.
