WED // matt + emilee's winter wonderland alaskan wedding

At the beginning of January I flew up to my hometown of Anchorage to shoot Emilee and Matt's snowy winter wedding!  With the daylight hours super short this time of year, they got ready early in the day and we headed out in the afternoon to do their bride + groom portraits.  Their ceremony wasn't until 6pm, but by that time the sun would be down for two hours!  The week before the wedding the weather was so warm and gross that it melted most of the snow, but I scouted around a bit the day before their wedding to find some snow, and all I had to do was drive up the hillside a bit and once I got to a high enough elevation it became a snowy wonderland!  Unfortunately, the temperatures dropped as soon as I got to Anchorage and it was about 8 degrees for our shoot!  I grabbed a cute sweater from  my mom's closet, my own mittens, and Emilee brought a scarf her sister made to keep a bit warm, though after a few minutes of shooting we still needed to run back to the car and blast the heat to thaw out before heading outside for more photos!


This fence photo is one of the last ones we shot, at 2:30pm, and you can see we're catching the last of our light!  I love that Emilee wore snow boots for our shoot.  Since she had a long gown it didn't matter what shoes she wore because we weren't going to see them anyway.  She switched into her heels for the actual wedding, but I loved seeing this peek of boots in this photo.  Another tip for winter brides: wear thermal leggings under your gown!  I use this trick all the time when styling maxi dresses during winter months.  You don't see them and they really don't add any bulk at all, but keep your legs toasty warm! We took most of these photos on the road where my old horse barn is located and it was so crazy to step out of the car and smell that old familiar scent of horses again!  Although, I don't think I miss bundling up to ride when it's 8 degrees.  I used to train all year long, regardless of the weather, and while the barn where the horses lived was heated, the arena was not.  Brr!





I know everyone's super into outdoor/barn summer weddings right now, but after doing a winter wedding, I'm so into winter weddings!  I've always loved shooting photos in the snow and snowy wedding photos are my new favorite thing!  My mom and dad had their wedding mid-December and it snowed on their wedding day and I still love those photos of them outside the log cabin chapel where they got married, with snow falling around them.  So magical!