RYAN + REBECCA SPRUCE MOUNTAIN RANCH WEDDING

LARKSPUR, COLORADO

COLORADO MOUNTAIN WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

I wish I had some extra time right now to go over to my parents' house and dig through old photos right now. I have talked about this a bit on social media, but for those of you who haven't seen those posts, I will the story here. After 10 years of doing weddings, most of my clients aren't people I knew before I started photographing them. Most of the time I show up to weddings and I don't know a single person and usually I have only known the bride and groom since their original inquiry. When I first started out, most of my clients were long time friends as I was building my network. The funny thing is, Ryan was one of my first paying customers. He was one of the first people who saw my potential as something worthy of his earnings. But lets go further back than that... about 20 years ago when I first met Ryan. We were about 7 years old and our little brothers were assigned to the same mini mite team at World Arena. Ryan and I remained good friends over the years. As some of you many know - being a part of the travel hockey world means you are stuck with the same people for years. Several weekly practices, weekend games and traveling in and out of state to tournaments means that you spend a LOT of time with these people. Honestly more time than you spend with anyone else. These people become a strange extended family of sorts. The siblings end up running around rinks all over the country together, playing football in hotel ballrooms and spending Thanksgiving dinners together in hotel meeting rooms. And since Ryan has 3 brothers and he also played hockey... even if our brothers weren't on the same team that year, Ryan was always at the rink and we often ended up at the same tournaments. In elementary school we would all sneak into the World Arena Main, in middle school we went sledding in Aspen and in High School we ended up throwing some friends into the pool in Dallas. Ryan is like one of my cousins. I met all of his girlfriends and he met all of my boyfriends. He even met my husband when we first started dating and they became friends too. After high school, Ryan joined the Air Force and I started my business. I got married and a few years later, he met Becca. I started hearing all about this amazing, gorgeous girl. Down the road a bit, Ryan got orders for Hawaii and Becca went with him. And then Ryan texted me something along the lines of "hey what do you charge for weddings?" I am SO extremely thankful that Becca liked my work and that they decided I was the one they wanted to be a part of their wedding day. I mean she could've totally veto'ed haha. But I am so glad I was able to spend this day with them. Seriously it was such an amazing celebration of their love and so wonderful to spend it will all of the people who love them the most. I am so thankful I was able to see who Becca truly is. She is the perfect partner for Ryan in life. Together they are two of the most kind, loyal, genuine and joyful people I know. Thanks for having me guys, I hope you love your photos!