Wedgewood Boulder Creek Wedding Photographer
Apollo Fields | Wedgewood Weddings at Boulder Creek | Intimate Wedding Photos | Candid Wedding Photography
The modernization of traditions keeps our jobs as wedding photographers fresh and inventive. From DIY ceremonies and weddings in the woods to more conventional rituals in churches; each wedding reveals each couple’s unique relationship to their respective belief systems. Kelly and Alec’s catholic wedding at Sacred Heart of Mary and reception at Wedgewood-Boulder Creek in Boulder, Colorado, showed us that you can both honor your past and embrace the new.
Before Kelly and Alec’s wedding, I never knew the significance of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment. But when we went to photograph Kelly and Alec’s first touch (a version of a “first look” where a couple doesn’t see each other) right near a fountain with a golden statue of St. Francis, Alec filled me in after they shared a few moments of beautiful tension. Alec spoke about St. Francis the same way that an environmentalist speaks about Jane Goodall, worshipping the person for what they mean to the natural world rather than elevating them as an idol outside the realm of natural phenomena. It was incredibly refreshing to see someone who holds a monotheistic belief system so close to their heart also share a deep love for Mother Nature.
Following the ceremony inside the church, the caravan climbed Boulder Creek Canyon Road to the reception hall a few minutes into the foothills of the Rockies. Wedgewood-Boulder Creek is an immaculately designed, accessible, and romantic setting to host one of life’s most precious gatherings. Upon entering the space you can hear the trickle of Boulder Creek, just as the friendly staff of the venue greet you with your favorite refreshments and libations. The flow of the property mimics the way the creek carves its way through the mountains, allowing for family and friends to naturally convene on patios and berms of fresh green grass. There is no doubt in my mind that St. Francis helped Kelly and Alec choose this venue to celebrate their love.
On a day where clouds were kept at bay, golden hour floated in the early evening air like lightning bugs on a summer night. We borrowed Kelly and Alec from their celebration for a few romantics down by the creek and thanks to their genuine chemistry we didn’t keep them for long. They spun and smiled and danced and frolicked. They kissed. They unabashedly enjoyed themselves, wrapping their arms around one another like vines around a tree. Undeniably in love, we laughed, snapped pictures, and danced with them. When love is as natural as the trees, the breeze, or the trickle of the creek, you better believe that you’re doing something right. If Kelly and Alec wouldn’t take credit themselves, I’m sure they’ll be thanking St. Francis for a long time to come.
AS SEEN IN COUTURE COLORADO MAGAZINE
Vendors:
Venue | Wedgewood - Boulder Creek
Dress | Madison James
Floral | Painted Primrose, Sabia Magrun
DJ/Band | Diamond Empire Band
Suit | Generation Tux
Rings | Shane Co.
Hair & Makeup | Serenity Salon- Arvada
Cake | Kelly Leigh Cakes
Oh Hey!
It’s us at the end of the night having the best time with Kelly & Alec.
Rollins Pass Nederland Colorado Engagement Session
Mercie & Dan’s Engagement Session | Rollins Pass Nederland, Colorado | Mountain Engagements | Apollo Fields
As night gave way to day, rays of sunshine swept away the shadows on the trees, lifting golden purples and greens to contrast with the muted blue sky. The morning chill still lingering in the air brought our breaths and bodies closer together as our reflections shivered upon the reservoir’s still surface. Movements warm our bodies just as emotions stir our souls; and there’s always that one look during these engagement sessions that reveals this inward dance in the eyes of our couples—a sort of intimate revelation—that leaps from their irises like the first light over a dark horizon.
Mercie and Dan were first set up in high school and their relationship still shines with an optimistic and exuberant young energy. Bolstered by their strong and confident characters, it’s hard not to be enamored by the story of how Mercie asked Dan to prom by spelling it out in sushi at Dan’s first experience with the Japanese culinary tradition. Cuter still is how Mercie doubled down on this romantic gesture when asking Dan to marry her! (If that doesn’t immediately make you think of a scene in a romantic comedy I don’t know what does.) Their happiness during their engagement shoot in Nederland was as palpable as the smiles on their faces. Kind of like what Dan said about the first time she told Mercie she loved her (at prom), “[the words] just sort of fell out of my face.”
Bearing witness and documenting relationships like Mercie and Dan’s is just one of the many reasons why Heather and I love running Apollo Fields. Whether it’s the privilege of connecting with such loving people, or appreciating a love in an idyllic yin-and-yang, conditional-meeting-unconditional balance that serves as a reminder for Heather and I’s own symbiotic relationship, or perhaps the most practical and paramount point— what these photos mean to them. Around every corner of every moment of these engagement sessions are parts of life to be appreciated. We promise to never to forget that. For our sake—and for Apollo Fields’ sake.
Mercie and Dan aren’t sure where or when they are going to get married, but we hope to be there. They’re moving to California in a couple months and we’d follow them coast-to-coast, hell maybe even continent-to-continent if they asked us. We’re so excited for them to start this next journey together and know that they have all of the support they will ever need.
Sometimes in life you take leaps and sometimes you take bruises. “You learn to figure things out,” Mercie said, “I am who I am through trial and error.” I believe that the freedom to explore the world inside and outside ourselves is the key to finding enduring happiness and supportive partners. By staying close to home, or refusing to acknowledge the movements of the emotions inside our bodies and minds, our worldviews become myopic and close-minded. Learning to take risks and choosing to be brave opens an entire world of experiences, so if you’re looking for that little push—just remember—that first light is just on the other side of the dark horizon.
Here’s to you Mercie and Dan!
Colorado Engagement Photography:
Colorado Wedding Photography | Apollo Fields
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 5
Apollo Fields Photojournalism | Wedding Writer | Destination Wedding Photographer | Jamaica Honeymoon | Farm Wedding Photographer
Jamaica Honeymoon – Day 5 ~9:40 am, local time
Day five of the honeymoon felt like the first step back towards the Montego Bay airport and our beloved animals that wait for us back in New Jersey. As the trip comes to a close, I sink just a little deeper into my lounge chair, holding onto the sunshine and the view of the sea for just a little longer. Six days is a healthy length for a trip where lounging is the default, any longer and you might get a little too used to it.
We’ve taken a dip off the cliffs every morning we’ve been here, partly because it’s available, but mostly because it takes the edge off the heat. You kind of form this relationship with the water in tropical climates, using it as a sort of reset button for your body to reach a more comfortable operating temperature for the next few hours. The residual salt in your hair clings to your follicles like a natural hair product, maintaining its shape while the wind blows through it bringing salt crystals back to the sea from whence it came.
One of our hosts, Tom, recommended a local lobster joint, Sips n Dips, for the freshest catch in town for lunch. We strolled up around opening time and were greeted by an elderly man who’d informed us it’d be about 40 minutes. He spoke with the familiar island intonation, carrying a nonchalance as relaxed as the wind and waves. In Jamaica, you either embrace the speed or hurriedly wait, because the beach doesn’t differentiate between footprints in the sand. Heather and I welcomed the idle time, knowing the service industry well and the importance of proper food preparation. When our cook/server came by with our tray of fresh lobster, we started by prying the tails out with our forks, eventually resorting to our fingertips to finish the job. At one point I looked down at my hands and wondered how people keep this operation clean in white tablecloth restaurants and thought that beneath the shade of a tree is the better place to be.
Climbing back onto the Vespa and pulling out onto the main road, we coincidentally caught Pam, Rick, and Steve cruising by. We decided to take a ride up the coast a bit to see some more of the island but it didn’t last long as every hundred feet past the last Americanized resort the road turned into a minefield of potholes. Driving a Vespa with Heather on the back was like having a computer update you with every potential danger in the area: “You’re going too fast, but don’t hit that pothole, wait, watch out for that sand patch!” All the while the wind moves past us keeping us cool and comfortable.
We stopped at Rick’s Café on the way back, the tourist trap of tourist traps in Negril. Large, fake stone patios, a big stage, one of those rectangular picture frames that you can stand in and more overweight white people than a Red Lobster in Texas. Institutions like these undermine the culture in which they operate when people travel hundreds of miles to have a chicken club on the cliffs of Negril.
Of course it’s a choice and risking your hunger on unfamiliar cuisine creates a risk for a rumbling stomach, but I can’t help but think when I visit these places that this is what’s wrong with our culture. Heather and I have already made the mistake twice: once in the Dominican Republic shooting a wedding and the other time in Cancun, where you experience such an Americanized version of a country that it’s offensive to even say that you visited it. I guess places like Rick’s are inevitable in highly trafficked vacation spots, but it does both of our cultures a disservice with their sheer existence.
Everyday of my life I want to make a connection. Whether its person-to-person or person-to-culture, connections are bridges of understanding that can conquer ignorance one experience at a time. A relationship with the water and the wind will sweep us into a more united future much quicker than any resort or tourist trap ever could.
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 4
Jamaican Honeymoon in Negril | Travel Couple | Adventurous Honeymooning | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
Jamaica – Day 4 ~ 8:00 am, local time
We woke again at sunrise, as the dark turned to light. The breeze from the fans and the sea swirled all around us, stirring us awake. We’ve adapted to a different sleeping schedule here, one that is dictated by the rising and setting of the sun rather than binge watching and rolling over in bed. You get more out of the day living this way.
We started the morning with breakfast at a local restaurant called Sips n’ Bites. It was one of the many colorful open places that lined West End Road with a chalkboard out front that listed their offerings. As Heather and I looked over the menu, a woman came outside to tell us that they only had a couple of the items. It was refreshing to know that they wouldn’t just serve us any old stuff laying around. I stayed within the familiar, ordering curried chicken while Heather tried to order something vegetarian. When our plates came they were heavy with Jamaican staples: festival, their version of a zeppoli; an unripe banana; sautéed greens reminiscent of kale; fried plantains; and rice and beans drizzled with coconut oil. My curried chicken was authentic and succulent while Heather was served something that looked like scrambled eggs. Tougher in consistency, we asked the waitress what it was and she responded that it was either cod, cat, or conk fish and it left our palates puzzled. We later found out it was ackee and salted fish, an acquired taste that we had not yet acquired. It was no problem as we washed it down with the freshest squeezed orange juice that I’ve ever tasted.
We saddled back onto the Vespa and headed towards Pam, Rick, and Steve to do some snorkeling. Right before we boarded the yellow and black boat, a storm passed through, throwing rain sideways beneath all the thatched roofs. After the sky cleared and the sun poked back through the clouds, we were well on our way to the coral reefs with our local guides. Gently coasting on the Caribbean, we peered through the six fiberglass windows on the bottom of the boat, watching sea urchins and starfish live beneath the sea. Once we dropped into the water, I rotated my head to the left and right like a security camera, trying to spot the exotic fish in their natural habitat. I’d been snorkeling in the Caribbean before and didn’t really see anything I haven’t seen before, when a sort of omniscient peace washed over me. It wasn’t about spotting the Moby Dick of the Caribbean anymore, it was just about swimming along, undisturbed, watching life as it unfolded whether I was there or not. I could’ve stayed there all day.
Instead, we coasted back to Rick, Pam, and Steve’s resort, the treehouse, before we made our way to Rick’s Café. Heather and I stopped at another local jerk chicken joint and I had my first favorite food item - jerk sauce - its sweet at the front like mole but packs a much bigger punch after a few seconds. When I’m at a new restaurant, I always sample the sauces on the table before the food arrives. We ordered a light pineapple cole slaw that made the ¼ pound containers from delis back home feel like a heavy glob of old cabbage and mayonnaise. The service was slow but warm-hearted, and I will take a delicious slow meal over a fast fake one anytime. By the time we got to Rick’s the sun had set and the cliff jumping suspended for the day. I wasn’t going to jump anyway, as I had far too many red stripes and pulls from joints to desire to plunge into the water from a fifty foot cliff.
We ended the night at a patio bar called LTC with a bartender called Jason, AKA Big Red AKA Porn Star. He’d gotten that last nickname working at another resort where he’d dance and eventually take his clothes off. He said it was just in his nature, then cackled to himself as if he was a schoolgirl revealing an embarrassing secret. In the comfort of a warm bartender, the company of family, and the cool of a Jamaican night, our minds had no other choice but to enjoy ourselves. It truly is the Jamaican way.
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 3
Apollo Fields Destination Wedding Photographers | Negril, Jamaica | Honeymoon Adventures
Jamaica – Day 3
Sunday, November 4th, 2018 ~7:35 am, local time
Another morning waking to the ebbs and flows of the Caribbean Sea. There’s something about the sound of waves crashing that lures your mind into the rhythm of nature, reminding you that everything that comes will also go. The whitewater that sprays into the air, jettisoning from the sharp rock face, shows no concern for my presence, or for any of the other creatures that cling to their cratered homes on this violently-formed beautiful façade. Yet it’s these wall-dwelling sea creatures — these Jamaican mussels and crabs — that taught me that we need to carve a small niche for ourselves, where we can brave the onslaught of life’s elements, if we want to survive in this otherwise unforgiving world.
We took a right out of Sundown Villa this morning for the first time on our Vespa, passing Rick’s Café among the other horribly named Americanized resorts like ‘The Palms’ and ‘Lover’s Paradise” as the wind whipped around our bodies on our way to a place called “Barney’s Hummingbird and Flower Sanctuary.” Heather clung to my back like a baby koala as we veered off the pavement onto a dirt road, her lips stammering through the worried words of her mind like mental pot holes. We passed a man walking down the road, sharpening a machete and were reminded of our cab driver who told us that all the goats that roam the island are owned by someone — and if you were to say, pick one up — you will find yourself on the wrong end of one of those blades. We swerved around the man and slowed as we approached two large, faded green doors that hung on rusted hinges.
“Hello!” Said a thin pale-skinned old man donning a worn trousers-and-suspenders outfit as he swung the gates open. “Welcome to my hummingbird and flower sanctuary. I am Barney, the proud German-Jamaican-English owner of this place,” he added. As he led us through the narrow walkways of his garden, the flutter of hummingbirds moved all around us, kind of like the sound of tiny handheld toy fans. Palms and large leaves hung down as geckos and other insects fed from the vibrant pink, red, and yellow flowers that boomed in contrast to the blue sky. Barney gave us all tiny bottles with punctured red caps that dripped with sugar water to lure the hummingbirds in. We held our outstretched arms in the air, mimicking the branches that reached over the garden’s pathways, hoping that the birds would come feed from our “flowers.” Patiently walking around, the birds began to trust us one at a time, holding fast in midair right in front of our faces, mother nature’s natural helicopters, hovering in place, wings effortlessly flapping seventy times a second. Barney grinned a grin that only a hummingbird expert could grin, or maybe it was because of the six-pack of Red Stripe.
Eager for local cuisine we stopped just up the road at a place called Just Natural Veggies. Simple enough, I thought. From there we ordered rum punch, a vegetable plate, lobster salad, sweet potato and plantain, and a bean and rice burrito. As we walked to the side of the restaurant we followed a path into the jungle, tables and chairs scattered about like a diner inside the woods. There were checker board tables that used plastic bottle caps and Red Stripe caps as checkers and each table had an orange bottle of locally made hot habanero hot sauce. We ate our freshly made dishes in the middle of the jungle, no one around but the smiling faces of the restaurant, who laughed and joked as they set down our plates. They could’ve been feeding us fried gecko for all we knew as we sat mesmerized in this restaurant that made rustic concepts back home look like four-star hotels. In the jungle and of the jungle, we walked out of there happy and full.
There are niches to be carved, if only we are wise enough to see them. These experiences will stick to my heart like the geckos on the flowers and the mussels on the rock wall. As the trip continues, I can only hope to unearth more things that I can learn from and grow closer to carving out my own crater I can call home.
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 2
Jamaican Honeymoon | Negril, Jamaica | Apollo Fields Destination Wedding Photographers
Jamaica – Day 2
8:00 am, local time
Another welcoming morning on the Caribbean Sea. The birds fluttering overhead, searching for scraps and seeds while Heather sits up in bed scratching at her mosquito bites. The waves crashing with a regular familiarity that’s impossible to forget, kind of like your mother calling you home for dinner from the front porch. Who knows what the world has in store for us today, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The first two nights Heather and I cooked and stayed in after dark. A combination of the mysterious foreign streets and a travel-induced fatigue, we drew a bath and enjoyed each other’s company in a tub of lukewarm water. There is a definite fear of the unknown, of sitting on a wooden stool in a straw shack on any of the thousands of dark streets in Jamaica. Horror stories from the United States embedded in me creating a hesitance like that of a lost child. I am ashamed for it. It makes me think of the role that caution plays when a person finds themselves in a different culture and how trust is linked to the environments that we know.
Heather’s uncle, Rick. is a great example of this. Conservative through-and-through, he comes down to Jamaica to shake hands and bask in the safety of nostalgia, eating dishes that he knows in bar stools that he’s warmed. Surrounding himself with other light-skinned tourists, there isn’t much difference than home, other than everything that exists outside of the Treehouse’s gated walls. When does caution or comfortability take too much control of one’s assimilation into another’s culture?
As of this morning, I’m as stifled as Rick. I want to stop at an authentic Jamaican restaurant tucked onto the side of the road like a beach shanty, but because I’ve seen none of them populated by tourists, deep down I consider them unsafe. It feels like a hard-wiring that pulls back on the reigns as I ride through a culture I do not know. Today, I will make a better effort at launching myself into the Jamaican culture and trusting those that I my ignorant instincts tell me not to trust. It’s funny how trusting people is usually my strongest attribute, yet when put to the real-world test, I’m as cautious as anyone.
Yet yesterday I jumped from cliffs at heights I’ve never leaped from before and snorkeled in rough waters close to dangerously sharp rocks. There’s an adventurous spirit in me that needs to be nudged into action, but once the opportunity arises, I tend to bypass the safety valve and dive head first. Even riding a scooter for the first time on the opposite side of the road was pretty daunting. In these moments, it’s either you do what you are afraid to do, or you live with your cowardice. The many times in life my that I’ve approached this dilemma, I’ve found that great relief lies just beyond the other side of fear, hiding behind the louder voices in your head, waiting to see if you will do it. Today I will silence those voices and immerse myself in a culture I do not know.
