Vail Mountain Wedding Proposal - Eagle's Nest

Another winter season if officially over and done with! With all of the warm weather this winter, there were plenty of gorgeous wedding proposals up on the hill. This one was one for the books though. The poor chap accidentally hopped on the wrong gondola! With lots of stealthy text messages, some creative story telling to keep it credible and a few deep breaths, he made up to Eagle's Nest. To top it all off, an unsuspecting tourist nearly walked into the shot, but with a few hand gestures and loud whispers, he got the message and I got the shots! Now bring on the sunshine and wedding season.

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Vail Wedding Proposal - Vail Mountain Observation Deck

I hope everybody had a 'lovely' Valentine's Day last weekend. In honor of those that are lucky in love, I'm going to catch up on posting photos from some recent wedding proposals and engagement sessions. I'll start off with this very special wedding proposal on top of Vail Mountain. After a few unexpected and nail biting delays, these lovebirds made it to the top of the mountain with about 1 minute of light left in the day. Thankfully she said yes and everything worked out perfectly!  

Although we only had short amount of time left with the light, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  We captured some great photos in the gondola on our way back to Lionshead, including the last one in this series.  This is one of my favorite pics and I think I'm going to need to put it on the slideshow on the website :)

They arrived and were taking selfies on the Observation Deck.  I was pretending to be a tourist, taking in the views.

She said yes!

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Beaver Creek Chapel Wedding - Jennifer and Scott

I was so excited to shoot Jennifer and Scott's wedding at Beaver Creek this fall. It was nice to get out and do a wedding after a busy fall season of family photos. The architecture of the Beaver Creek Chapel is beautiful, with an intricate wood ceiling that adds interesting lines to low angle photos, and amazing stone work on the exterior.

Jennifer and Scott had a morning ceremony followed by a reception later that evening at The Pines Lodge.  We had bright blue skies that morning, so we spent a lot of time shooting in the shade.  The afternoon was a completely different story and we were lucky to grab some photos of the happy couple before the rain really set in.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from their special day.

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Beaver Creek Wedding Proposal - Blake and Kacy

I'm a few weeks behind on posts, so I'm going to start with a great shoot I had recently for a wedding proposal at Beaver Creek.  Blake had contacted me a few weeks in advance and we had decided that a small bridge outside the Beaver Creek Chapel would make an ideal spot for him to pop the big question.

The date was set for just after the ski season had finished, so I knew there wouldn't be too many people around.  I went up a couple of times before to check out the area and to see how things were looking.  If you've ever spent time at a ski resort after it's closed for the winter, you'll know how quickly things can change.  The environment can morph drastically every day with mud and runoff, areas will suddenly close for Elk migration and snow melt can lead to flash floods, so you have to be prepared.

The bridge was snowy and there were old leaves under the snow from the fall, so I went up a little earlier than planned with my handy broom and shovel to clean the bridge up a little for the photos.  Then I secretly feared that Kacy might notice how clean it looked and realize something was up, so I had to make it look somewhat natural.  I tend to over think these things because I always get so nervous for the guys!

They arrived a few minutes later and after a small detour to look at the church, they made their way down to the bridge, where I was waiting and trying to look like a random tourist taking photos of the stream.  I found out afterwards that Kacy had told Blake to watch out, because they might accidentally get in my photos!!

Thankfully she said yes and the proposal was a great success!  Here are some photos from the big moment.

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Vail Engagement Photos - Ashley and Chad in Vail, Colorado

I feel like I've said this in a lot of posts lately, so surely winter must be nearly over, but you really can't tell from these photos just how cold it was while we were out taking Ashley and Chad's Engagement photos.

We decided to head out the Vail Golf Course to get some of the mountains and the Gore Range in the scenery.  With no cloud coverage, the lighting was a little tricky even though it was late afternoon sun.  We managed to get some fun shots though, by shooting into the sun (breaking the first rule of photography) and playing with the shadows.

Here are a few shots from our session.

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Beaver Creek Wedding Anniversary - Mike and Kim's 25th Wedding Anniversary

I had a great time capturing Mike and Kim's 25th Wedding Anniversary during their recent trip to Colorado.  We had a great snowfall the day before the shoot, so there was fresh snow everywhere and I loved the contrast of Kim's red jacket against the new snow.  Because the weather was freezing cold, we chose 3 locations in Beaver Creek.  This way we could hop into warm cars between each location and warm up for 5 minutes or so.  I told them they had to go home and tell their children how 'hard core' the photo shoot was.  You can't tell from these images, but at the last location I chose, they were wading through at least 24 inches of snow.  But you'd never be able to tell from their smiling faces!

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Vail Wedding Proposal-Vail Engagement Photos - Lisa and Katlin in East Vail.

Up until the recent cold snap that swept the nation, we were having a pretty mild winter here in Vail.  This meant that my recent photo session with Lisa and Katlin could be done in the snow at the Vail Golf Course, without worrying about gloves, hats or any of that other winter clutter.  The frozen stream, mountains and bridges made for a gorgeous backdrop for their 'couples' photo session.

We had been walking around for about 20 minutes and we came across a backdrop against the mountains that I knew would look great with a wide angle lens.  We set up the shot and Lisa asked if they should put their jackets on or take them off.  I said to keep them off, so she put hers on my camera bag, safely out of the shot.  Katlin dropped his on the ground at his feet instead.  I thought it was a bit strange because it was obviously going to be right in the middle of the shot.  Lisa looked at him confused and told him to get it out of the way.  I had just finished putting a new lens on my camera and then it all became clear why he wanted to keep the jacket in the shot.  As I turned around, I noticed he was down on one knee.  Arrrrhh!!

I took several frantic shots and luckily they all came out nicely!  Of course she said yes, so our little photo session turned into an engagement session.  Here are a few shots from our little escapade around the Vail Golf Course.