Here’s the deal. I literally have the most beautiful couples. I don’t know how I get so lucky, so don’t ask for a tutorial on that. But all of my couples have just been the most amazing and fun and friendly and beautiful. So of course this wedding surpassed every expectation I had.
Samy and Jessy booked me to come to Des Moines for their wedding, and after our first conversation, I knew I was going to be obsessed with these two. I loved their love. I loved their joy. I loved their love story. Long story short: Jessy had every intention of staying in on a night her friends wanted her to come out. Right before bailing, she had a thought pop into her head. “What if tonight changes your life?” So she went out. And she met Samy.
My husband and I happen to love Des Moines as a weekend getaway, so we planned a Taylor Trio getaway and timed it up with Jessy and Samy’s engagement session. We had done a few video calls, but that was my first time meeting them in person. And everything I thought about how much I would love them was more than confirmed. Sure, we had of common interests. Sure, we could all quote The Office. Sure, they were both beautiful and not camera-shy at all. But above all, the way they looked at each other, spoke to each other, interacted with each other – it was SO apparent in the photos how in love they are. Honestly, editing that engagement session, I kept catching myself cheesy smiling like an idiot because their gallery was so full of images that just felt like love. Honestly, I can’t even stand how in love these two are. Can you freakin’ handle these two?? Every photo feels like: JOY. LOVE. HAPPINESS. COMFORT. LAUGHTER. RESPECT. ADORATION. PLAYFULNESS.
I mean. Can you even?? I can’t. If you’re not smiling after looking at those photos, I don’t know if we can be friends.
Fast forward to November when I got to go back to Iowa, with my husband as my second photographer, and we got to document their wedding day. And SURPRISE! Their wedding day was filled with love. joy. happiness. laughter. comfort. adoration. respect. playfulness.
Part of Samy and Jessy’s wedding package was a video of their day. They had sent me an example of what they wanted – they wanted it to be more lighthearted than serious, more funny than sentimental, more The Office than The Notebook. And I was totally on board with that. I took lots of video clips throughout their day, including interviews with their wedding party, funny conversations, silly interactions. I also took video of them getting ready, their vow exchange and first look, their ceremony, their reception entrance, the toasts, their first dance. And as I was editing the video, I went through no fewer than 12 versions of the edits because I knew they wanted something silly, but looking at the footage, the day wasn’t silly. The day was beautiful. It was sentimental. It was full of love. It was romantic. It was perfect as it was. So the resulting video looked a little like this: *sentimental, romantic clip and music…romantic clip…sentimental clip…RANDOM SILLY CLIP…romance, love…sappiness, joy…emotional, special…RANDOM SILLY CLIP. I will not claim this was my best wedding video. But I will claim that this was my most authentic wedding video.
Now onto their wedding photos. Would you be surprised to hear that their wedding photos were full of love, joy, silliness, emotion, romance? At this point, if you’re still reading, I would hope not.
If I shared ALL of my favorite photos from Samy and Jessy’s wedding day, I’m pretty sure my website would crash, or at least deny me the ability to add all those images. So here is a VERY SELECT few of my favorites from this wonderful wedding day.
Look at those and tell me they don’t exude love. Exude joy. Exude happiness, comfort, admiration, adoration. If you don’t know what love looks like, look through these engagement photos and then their wedding photos, and you will know. This. Is. Love.