Erika + Tyler | Vedauwoo Wedding Photographer

I’m not really even sure where to begin with these two lovely humans. We have so much love for this couple. Perhaps this is why I am about a year late in blogging their wedding; there’s so much to say about them that I kept putting it off to a time I felt I could really give them the words they deserved. But here I am, a year after their wedding, still not finding words adequate enough to describe how much we love them. This post likely still won’t be enough, but I am going to try. I need reminded of couples like this right now, in the thick of a really intense wedding season.

So I’ll give it a shot and start here…..Erika and Tyler hold a spot as one of our favorite couples of all time. We LOVE everything about them. They are our kind of quirky…laid back, fun, up for anything, full of heart and sass and focused on what’s truly important in life.

We photographed their Cheyenne wedding a year ago, and we feel as though their day was a turning point in our approach to couples. The wedding industry is saturated with sameness and with the pretentious pressure for perfection. I feel it every time I pick up a bridal magazine and every time I step into an expensive “built-for-weddings” venue. I feel it when I work with wedding planners who truly only care about how a wedding will show up on their website. There’s a part of the wedding industry that looks right through you and tells you you’re doing it all wrong. Many people in the wedding industry have lost sight of the fact that weddings are about humans, not decor or trends. Erika’s bracelet you’ll see below really says it all for me….”Let that shit go.” Don’t plan a wedding that makes the wedding industry happy; plan a day that makes you happy. Plan a wedding that means something to you.

For us, weddings are about stories and connection. Someone asked me the other day, “What is your absolute favorite place to shoot a wedding?” I stopped for a second and thought back on the weddings that make me choke up with happiness at remembering them. I realized that deep down, I don’t give one iota about location. My favorite weddings are centered around the two people getting married.  They are full of stories, laughter, quirky things that didn’t go quite as planned and loaded with heart. The most beautiful venue means nothing if a couple is afraid to live in the moment of a day where two people and two families are being joined.

We are so lucky to have been able to work with couples who realize that, and Erika and Tyler are perhaps our quintessential ideal couple. Their wedding day was full of truth, authenticity and an abundance of heart. They got married at Archer but somehow wanted to incorporate their love for climbing in the mountains of Wyoming. These two spent an entire day with us for their wedding and then got up super early the next day, got back into their wedding clothes, and climbed mountains for a morning-after shoot at Vedauwoo. That fact alone should tell you how awesome they are.

Erika and Tyler, we can’t thank you enough for allowing us to capture your love. We hope you know how much we love you both and how honored we feel to have been your photographers. Thank you, friends, and Happy Anniversary!

Second Shooting: Liz Putnam Photography