Erin & Tyler are some of the kindest, sweetest people you’ll ever meet. It has been so much fun getting to know them and work with them throughout their engagement and wedding-planning season of life. Their original wedding date was set for February, but they are both pilates in the U.S. Navy and when they relocated to the Virginia base, they bumped their wedding date to January to make it work better for their side-by-side careers. Erin dreamed of having a snowy winter wedding so the bump to January actually worked out perfectly in her favor. 

The weekend before their wedding, we got a huge snowfall and then throughout the week leading up to Saturday, we had consistently negative degree days, with highs of -7 degrees. Schools were cancelled because the buses couldn’t run because the diesel fuel had gelled; that’s how cold it was. All this was not looking great for outdoor photos for obvious (frostbite) reasons. However, we had a 35-degree change from Friday to Saturday, which meant that Saturday arrived, bringing 30-degrees!! While that’s still cold, for those of us who endured those negative temperatures, it felt like a heatwave! All of that snowfall the weekend before followed by extreme cold also mean that the snow out at Rapid Creek Cidery still appeared completely fresh and clean! It could not have worked out more perfectly if we had planned it ourselves.

Erin & Tyler are both pilots in the U.S. Navy and I love that they were able to incorporate pieces of their careers (and how they met!) in their wedding, including this sword (that they used to cut the cake–scroll to the reception photos!) and her white heels that are part of her ceremonial U.S. Navy uniform that she wore for part of their engagement session. 

This picture is a favorite. It’s so happy and “I can’t believe it’s finally our wedding day!”

Snowy winter photos are tricky in that you want people to appear warm and cozy, even if it’s, in fact, really cold. A few behind-the-scenes tricks are 1) to have the bride wear winter boots (you can’t see them under her gown) and 2) to have coats and mittens along to warm up between “takes,” a film-trick. 3) Putting hand warmers inside coat pockets and shoes are also wonderful ways to warm up those fingers and toes. Mostly though, the best way to get dreamy snowy photos is 4) to have a good attitude!

I moved quickly to minimize the time we’d be outside, made time for indoor warm-up breaks, and gave prep instructions inside (especially for larger groups like the wedding party) of how I wanted them to line up and stand once they got outside. But all of my quick moving and prep work doesn’t do a lot if the people in front of the camera don’t bring their best attitudes. You can SEE how happy and overjoyed Erin & Tyler are in these photos and that translates to sheer beauty and warmth in images. You’d never look at these and think that they look uncomfortable. And that is testament to how much one’s mindset can affect the outcome of weather-uncomfortable photos.

Look at these beautiful people who were so gracious with taking cold, outdoor photos. It was Erin’s dream to have a snowy wedding and I love that it worked out with the weather that we were able to capture all of that! 

They did a perfect job making their decor warm and cozy and wintery without being Christmasy. I loved the undecorated evergreens inside and the cozy pine touches!