Tennesseans from a suburb of Nashville Malyssa & Dakota are MARRIED! These two (originally from different cities in Northern Indiana) were just wed this past week on September 12th, 2019 at Four Corners Winery in Valparaiso, Indiana! We’re currently in California writing this having just gone to a Santa Barbara wedding on Saturday, but we’re so excited to share Malyssa & Dakota’s wedding with you! You may remember these two from the Engagement Session that we captured of them (and one of their dogs!!) at Lake Michigan after they headed up to us from their new-ish home in Tennessee for their Session this summer. These two are extremely humble, hard working, honest, kind, fun, and funny and we were honored to get to photograph their wedding this past week. They chose their wedding date for a Thursday because their grandparents’ wedding anniversary is on that date and they wanted to honor them on their wedding day as well (how sweet is that?!). Anywho, on with the wedding teaser photos!
These two started their day getting ready at 2 different locations in Valparaiso, Indiana. Malyssa got ready at a bridal suite located at Four Corner Winery while Dakota got ready at his Grandmother’s house about 15 minutes away. For the first couple of hours we photographed these two getting ready separately, Jenny capturing the ladies getting ready with Malyssa getting into her dress and having bridesmaid and family portraits, then Jason taking portraits of Dakota and his groomsmen at a nearby field.
We fortunately had enough time prior to the ceremony to take quite a few formal photos with the bride and groom individually and the rain even held off!
Once everyone was at the winery, the ceremony took place beneath a wooden trellis nestled up against the vineyards grape vines. This spring & summer have been the rainiest in our past 10 years of wedding photography, so we were THRILLED that the rain held off (that the forecast of rain all afternoon/ evening was incorrect) and that these two were able to have their outdoor ceremony next to the grape vines at the vineyard! (We also lucked out since only a few days later the vines were all torn down with the grapes harvested)!
The sky and clouds looked amazing for their short outdoor ceremony as a thunderstorm approached on the horizon. Their ceremony was a traditional exchanging of vows and rings with the addition of a sand ceremony.
After just a few short minutes these two were able to call each other husband and wife before sharing a kiss to return down the aisle!
After the ceremony was over we made the most of our time by trying to take many formal family photos before an approaching storm had a chance to ruin any later photos.
We were successfully able to make it through the final 25 full family photos before moving on to capture the bridal party photos!
We managed to get through the formal family photos in good time and were left with plenty of time pre-thunderstorm to photograph the bridal party before everyone was announced into the reception!
Malyssa & Dakota had a few special extra group photos that they were interested in us capturing before their reception, so we got those in just as a few raindrops fell!
The bridal party and newlyweds were announced into their reception right there inside the rounded barn!
Once announced in right on time about an hour before sunset, everyone enjoyed homemade dinner in a buffet style! These two mingled with their guests, got a few drinks, and were able to relax for a minute before their final formal photos just before sunset. Dinner began immediately as everyone was hungry after getting ready throughout the day. The dinner was a buffet of traditional southern style food including BBQ pulled pork, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese among a few other things
Since sunset an hour away from us was an hour earlier than ours, sunset was around 7 p.m., so we took these two out after dinner for some portraits of them as newlyweds!
It had barely drizzled for one minute after the bridal party photos before the reception, but the sky was looking darker again, so we grabbed 4 of our wedding umbrellas out of the car to bring along for their newlywed portraits just in case even though we were steps from the reception hall.
We immediately went into the vineyards to capture these two amidst the wine grapes there at their venue! Sunset was really showing off with nice oranges and pinks during sunset which surrounded them with gorgeous light.
We then headed out to the street for some final portraits, though the drizzle started up again. These two were actually thrilled to be able to cool off after a humid 85 degree outdoor wedding ceremony day and were able to get some portraits out there in the countryside!
Since it started to drizzle more, we took these two over to the little covered outdoor winery tasting area for them to sit for a second as the sun set on their wedding day.
The rain pretty much stopped right during dusk, so we captured these two under one of the umbrellas as they headed back into their reception to enjoy their guests’ speeches/ toasts!
After we were finished with their final portraits, guests had just finished dinner, so back inside the reception the Best Man and Maid of Honor both gave heartfelt speeches and toasts to Malyssa & Dakota bringing them both to tears.
Soon after it was time for Malyssa & Dakota to cut their cake. Their wedding cake had a cute cake topper that included a silhouette of they and their 2 dogs! They kindly fed each other their wedding cake and others got to work cutting the cake and the additional sheet cake up for guests to enjoy!
After cutting their cake Malyssa and Dakota moved on to take part in their First Dance together and husband and wife. It was extremely beautiful amidst over 100 guests looking on with the twinkle lights lighting their entire venue with the wood and metal twinkling around them.
After this they moved directly on to the other traditional Father/Daughter and Mother/Son dances. Malyssa and her dad hugged and shed some tears as they had their Father-Daughter dance as did Dakota’s mom while she & Dakota enjoyed their mother-son dance.
After these three formal dances, they had another dance for their parents all together before opening up the floor to everyone for Open Dance! In addition to these dances Dakota also later shared a solo dance with his Grandmother whose 55th wedding anniversary it was on this day (and was the reason they chose their wedding date to be this day on Thursday)!
There were glowsticks for guests to enjoy as well as a shadow box where people could sign their name and a message on a wooden heart, then fill the beautiful framed wall shadow box for Malyssa & Dakota to take back down to their home near Nashville, Tennessee and enjoy with their little family down there!
Guests really enjoyed open dance especially the Macarena!
The details around their reception were lit up throughout the night and glowed beautifully!
Folks who weren’t dancing, looking at the family photos, enjoying their wedding treats, eating dessert, or signing the little hearts for the shadow box often made their way into the bar area or outside to enjoy the beautiful end-of-the-day weather!
Malyssa also enjoyed a traditional square dance that she and her friend partook in together in front of the crowd! It didn’t look like the type of square dance that we’d ever seen and was much more cool and complicated than we’d expected!
Once closer to the end of the evening when we were to leave, it was time for the bouquet and garter toss! First Malyssa tossed her bouquet, then Dakota threw the garter (accidentally throwing both, but we recovered the one they were to keep for them)!
Before heading out for the night (and heading to California ourselves for a Saturday wedding), we captured some final photos of their reception venue at Four Corners Winery!
Jason had captured beautiful detail shots of their rings together during Open Dance as well outside with one of their Shadow Box hearts on a beautiful wood table outside, so we felt like it was a great last couple photos to share (along with one last bridal party photo with one of the 2 chickens that live on the property (named Rue who decided to jump in the foreground of the photo)!
Congratulations on you beautiful wedding and marriage that started this week, Malyssa & Dakota! We had a blast seeing all of your family members again and truly loved photographing your lifelong memories from your big day! We hope that you two love these Wedding Teasers as we edit your wedding photos over the next month (before choosing your hundreds of printed photos and other photo products with your Print Credit)!!
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Since they’re an hour away on Central Time (just as they also are at home in Nashville- an hour earlier) we wrapped up capturing their big day around 10 p.m. their time/ 11 p.m. our time, had to run an errand, drove home an hour, and got home a bit before 1 a.m. on Friday to head out to California at 5:30 a.m. the next day for a wedding on Saturday! We just got to see our niece tonight for a few hours who was born out here about 48 hours earlier (which is why we made the wedding trip to California an extended week stay wherein we’d work via a campground) and we head home in about a day and a half in order to capture 10 hours of Mollie & Bobby’s South Bend wedding day at the Morris Inn at Notre Dame, Holy Cross Church, and The Brick coming up in a few days on Saturday! You may remember these two from their Engagement Session at Notre Dame, with their dogs, and with their cop cars this summer (as they’re both local police) and we’re so excited to capture these two in what is the 3rd wedding for us within a little over a week! After that we get our 2 furry pets back on Sunday, edit 3 weddings worth of photos, capture Family Portrait Sessions for our clients, and edit those as well within next week’s 7 days before heading out to ITALY for Kyla & Walt’s Siena, Italy Villa Catignano WEDDING!!! It’s a very busy season (the busiest of the past 10 years of our career as wedding photographers), but every single week is full of joy and chaos, so we’re ready to continue on with another 3 full weeks of Weddings, Wedding Photography, and speed editing keeping all things running on time!! Catch you next week with Wedding Teasers from Mollie & Bobby’s WEDDING!!