After being in the photography business for nine years now, there are often faces that start as those of strangers to me that become quite familiar over time. When I’m photographing a wedding, I’ll see someone I recognize as the guy who was breaking it down on the dance floor of another wedding I shot, or as the bride’s college friend I snapped a photo of as she hugged her sorority sister in the receiving line, or as that helpful, attentive bridesmaid from so-and-so’s wedding. Jordan and Austin both became known to me separately as wedding party members from two different weddings I photographed; I remember Jordan’s dance moves and giant smile from her older sister’s wedding years ago, and I remember Austin as a groomsman, kissing his buddy on the cheek as they both cracked up.

Their engagement session was the first time I really had the chance to see these two together, and it totally made sense to me as I watched them laugh and crack jokes and seem so at ease in each other’s presence. And this is one of the coolest things about this gig – that people who started as faces in a crowd at a wedding will now be people who I get to be there with as they nervously put on their wedding day shoes, and cry with their loved ones, and say vows in front of a room full of the people they hold closest. They chose me to be right there with them every step of the way on one of their biggest days ever, and based on that alone, I could not possibly be more fortunate.