We just spent the last two weeks traveling to the Greater Metropolitan of Minneapolis, a most fabulous city…in August. And in addition to the family farm in Earlham, Iowa, just west of Des Moines. My husband’s grandparents were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary with a weekend of weenie roasts and ice cream socials with 250+ of their closest family + friends. For the entirety of their 70 years together, they’ve lived on and worked the same farm his grandfather grew up on. Pretty remarkable feat considering I’ve changed addresses 9 TIMES since my move to Portland in 1996.

I can’t imagine 70 years of my own company, let alone alongside the company of another.  When Grandma Avis was asked what it takes to keep a love and marriage going, I overheard her response  ”Well, sometimes one person has to give more than 50% and sometimes the other one has to give more.  And that’s just how it goes.”

I hope I don’t have to wait another 65 years to get all the people I love into one room.  I also hope I have the fortune of finding my own answers to life + love in one simple sentiment.

Thank you so much Grandma Avis + Grandpa Beryl for showing us how it’s done.

And now for my very first slideshow featuring a few of my favorites.  Apologies for the load time.

Beryl + Avis

This image gives the impression it was much sunnier than it really was.  But I love this shot nontheless.  And the people in it.  

According to Wikipedia, the word Polterabend comes from the German verb “poltern” (to make a racket) + German noun “abend” (evening). Now having witnessed it, I probably could have told you that without looking it up, and I don’t speak German.

The racket involves a lot of porcelain getting chucked onto the bride’s driveway, meant to bring good luck to the newly married couple. *And if you’re any good at math, you’ll know that the more broken porcelain there is, the more luck you’ll have. So there’s also a lot of sweeping for the couple while their friends and family stand around chucking even more plates, and cups, and vases.

The cleanup symbolizes the effort they must make together when facing adversity in their marriage. This message was really driven home upon the third round.

So if Saturday night was any indication, there will be much luck + love + unity in their future.

Congratulations Livia + Don.  You passed the test.

The evening started civil enough….Where porcelain comes from.  A porcelain garden of course.The first pitch.

I just spent the most fabulous weekend with the most wonderful group of family + friends in town to celebrate with Livia + Don.  Yes, I know every photographer says that about every family they photograph when they blog about them, but I really, truly, deeply mean it. Guests hailed from Germany, Italy, UK, and other exotic places such as The Dalles, Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tualatin, Portland, etc. And they brought with them a collection of traditions + games I hadn’t seen at a wedding before, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to document + share in.

A shower of roses during the first dance. A log sawing exercise meant to further bond their love. A newlywed game meant to challenge their knowledge of said love.

The following are just a few from Friday’s wedding ceremony because the installation of a new OSX (that’s a fancy new word I became very familiar with this weekend) slowed me down a little + prevented me from getting through much of Saturday’s polterabend celebration.  And if you have to ask what a polterabend is, well you just hold onto your britches.  Because, once you’re in the know, you too will want to throw one down at your next wedding celebration.

So in the meantime, enjoy! I’ll be back with more… and thank you so very much to Livia + Don + their guests!

Location: Leach Botanical Gardens Catering: Food In Bloom Cake:  Portland Style Cheesecake Flowers:  Bouquets and Balloons

For the record, every guest received this beautiful glass creation Livia made herself.  Puts my whatever-I-did-for-my-guests-but-can’t-remember to complete shame.They met on a Lufthansa flight coming back to the States so the “groom’s cake” featured  United + Lufthansa airplanes + pastry replicas of their actual boarding passes!

As a documentary photographer, not only do I have the fabulous job of, amongst other things, photographing weddings, but occasionally I also have the *luxury* of being a 2nd shooter for some other incredibly talented, local wedding photographers Brian Lee, Bob Libby, and Heaven McArthur of Green Chair Studio.  Second shooting goes a little like this… Them: Hey Andrea, would you like to come shoot a wedding with me next month?  I need you to spend the day taking pictures of the groom while I’m with the bride, get detail shots while I’m shooting formals, and otherwise take general rockstar candids throughout the night.  And don’t worry about the edits, I’ll handle them.  Me: Why yes, I would love to help you!

But more important than the fact I get to skip out of post-production, I truly enjoy the opportunity to work with such stellar photographers.

A few weeks back, Bob asked me to join him at Portland’s own World Trade Center for the wedding of Michelle + Neil.  Despite MONTHS of rain, the evening was glorious, the bride was glowing, she and the groom were moved to tears on more than one occasion, and the dancing was downright fantastic.

Thanks so much to Bob for allowing me to be a part of the celebration and share a few of candids from their joyous beginning.

I had the most absolute honor of being invited out to Ben’s family farm for a ‘practice’ lamb roast in preparation for their September wedding, which lucky lucky me, I’ll be photographing. Though from the looks + most delicious taste of things, I’d say they have it all under control.  Ben is the brother of a very dear friend, Katherine, a slow food chef extraordinaire and owner of Cook With What You Have… and after Sunday, it became apparent that love of good food very clearly runs in this family.

It’s not often (or ever really) you get to rehearse photographing a wedding, so the opportunity to meet this amazing, beautiful, insanely industrious couple, and their fabulous friends, partake of their mad cooking skills, oh AND take a few photos along the way, was not one I was going to pass up.

I love Oregon.  I love my job.  I can’t wait for September.

Most of my business *happily comes from word of mouth, so one fabulous client usually begets another.   Case in point, Livia and her Don.  I’m photographing their wedding in August and very much look forward to attending my first ever Polterabend, a German wedding tradition that involves a lot of broken porcelain.  In the meantime, we spent some time together getting cozy with the camera.   In the backyard of their beautifully renovated home, the previous owners bequeathed (when was the last time you used that word??) to them the most fantastic rustic sign above the outdoor studio, “Paradise Theater”.  And if you’ll allow me to get schmoopy, it couldn’t be a more fitting sentiment for them.

I love a good carnival.  There.  I said it.  Cranky music.  Cotton candy.  Questionable safety codes…disclaimer: this one being the exception of course, as it was hosted by my son’s elementary school and strictly adhered to all the rules of “safety first”.

And I love it even more when I get to run the photobooth.

Last weekend was a whirlwind of snapping shutters and loaded CF cards and downloading and backing up and snapping shutters and… well, the kind of weekend that makes this photographer very, very happy.  A photobooth at the Rieke Elementary carnival Friday night, an event Saturday, hosted by Circle Triangle Square, celebrating “color, quality, and taste”, and a family portrait Sunday for some dear friends who welcomed into their very unique and fabulously good looking family, baby girl #2.  The common thread for all three jobs being of course that I find myself working for and with some of the most incredible people.  I am so fortunate and genuinely grateful for my clients.  And no, that’s not the wine talking.

SO. Posts to come on days #1 and #3.  (I’m single mom this week, and not doing a very good job of it if you ask my kids, so bear with me…)

Saturday’s affair, “Good For You”, was a collective event featuring local small businesses who were showcasing their products that are, well, good for you and the environment. Bradford Vinson introduced L’Oreal’s new ammonia free hair color line, INOA – and from a girl who doesn’t color unless lemon juice in 8th grade counts, they’re stunning…YOLO Colorhouse had a most fabulous spin art setup, using their own no VOC-non toxic eco paints…and Freshly Wild treated us all with their flavored kale chips and frozen vegan* deserts.  *Things-With-Meat-In-Them is at the top of my favorites list, but I had visions of kale chips and vegan desserts all week. Seriously good.

And now here are some pretty pictures of the aforementioned event.  Enjoy and thanks for stopping by.