The Best Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos in 2017
For something different, I decided to write a blog post about some of our favorite wedding photos that Joannie and I created in 2017. I decided to call it “The Best Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos in 2017”. A very catchy title isn’t it. 🙂
EDIT: Because this blog post simply got too long (we just had too many great weddings last year), I am splitting the post it up into smaller pieces. At the same time, I am added many more great wedding photos to each of the smaller posts. Please click on the links below to take you to some of The Best Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos in 2017.
Winter Wedding Photography
Spring Wedding Photography
Summer Wedding Photography
Fall Wedding Photography
The fall wedding season is always my favorite time of year for all types of photography. With the cooler weather, less heat and humidity (and bugs), and the short-lived, but very pretty fall colors.
We started the fall 2017 wedding season off with a bang; with Friday and Saturday back-to-back weddings.
The Pavilion at Lake Elmo in Lake Elmo, MN was the site of Bryan & Emily’s wedding ceremony and reception. It’s also where we created yet another awesome light painted wedding photograph of our newlyweds with the cool exterior of The Pavilion at Lake Elmo under the Milky Way!
A pretty light painting of Bryan & Emily at The Pavilion at Lake Elmo.
The very next day, we were at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis, MN for Chris and Chris’ truly wonderful wedding!
A pretty good looking wedding party!
It had to be one of the most emotional (and fun) weddings we’ve ever photographed. And I mean that totally in a good way. That’s saying a lot since we’ve been at this wedding photography thing for well over 30 years!
Destination Wedding Photographers
Ok, I know the title of this blog post is The Best 2017 Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos, but we really have to put this wedding in there too. In fact, I’ll even post two wedding images since we were up north on Lake Superior for two days, and we stayed even longer to celebrate Joannie’s birthday too!
We love destination wedding photography and Brycen & Aleksandra’s Grand Superior Lodge destination wedding was really fantastic! It was a bit on the crazy side from a weather forecast standpoint (which they thankfully got mostly wrong), but it sure made for some pretty outdoor wedding photography!
Their first wedding photo is taken at our favorite destination wedding location in all of Minnesota, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Heck, it’s our favorite high school senior portrait and family photo spots too! What’s not to love about Split Rock?
A classic wedding portrait of Brycen and Aleksandra with the famous Split Rock Lighthouse in the distance.
We created another stunning wedding photography light painting with Brycen and Aleks right outside the back door during their wedding dance. Even though it was raining at the time, with a little Photoshop pixie dust from Uncle Mike, magically the Aurora Borealis made an appearance to take care of a pretty boring sky. We were up north after all, so why not have the Northern Lights?
Aleksandra and Brycen’s fantasy light painting under the northern lights!
More Beautiful Fall Wedding Photos
Kevin and Stephanie’s September wedding had multiple locations to choose from for our favorite wedding photo. On one hand, we’ve got pretty wedding photos at The Japanese Garden at Normandale Community College.
A really pretty wedding photograph of Kevin and Stephanie at The Japanese Garden.
On the other hand, we have a lot of fun wedding pictures taken at the Hilton/Minneapolis Bloomington, including our very first indoor light painted wedding photograph.
Kevin and Stephanie’s completed light painting.
Notice how I managed to use an image from both wedding locations. 🙂
Wedding Photography Can Be A Zoo!
Next up is Steve and Sarah’s Minnesota Zoo wedding in Apple Valley, MN. They win the award for the wettest wedding photographs of 2017. I’m certain it’s an award that they’d rather not have won.
Despite the lousy weather that day, we really captured a lot of great wedding photos for them, including a really cool wedding photography light painting that we managed to sneak in during a brief pause in the rain. It started pouring about 10 minutes after we completed it, and continued to rain until the next morning.
Below is the image before we began their light painting. A very short video follows that gives you a good feel as to why it’s called light painting. About 60 to 70 separate images went into creating the final light painted wedding photograph for Steve and Sarah.
The “before” light painting photograph of Steve and Sarah.
Steve and Sarah reserved us as their wedding photographers almost two years before their wedding. We even became members at the Minnesota Zoo in part to scout it out for their wedding and in part because our granddaughter loves animals. We go to Como Zoo in St. Paul and the Minnesota Zoo frequently with our Riley girl.
Our last fall wedding, at least with any leaves left on the trees, was Eric and Amanda’s pretty wedding in Prior Lake, MN. I literally have hundreds of beautiful Minnesota Horse & Hunt Club wedding photos to select from.
I’m going to go with the wedding image below as one my favs. It’s captured with our Tamron SP 150-600MM F/5-6.3 Di VC USD lens at almost 600mm. I just love the look on their eight-year-old son Keaton’s face as he’s handed the wedding rings to pass on to the minister! There are so many fun captions that could go with this image.
The priceless expression on Keaton’s face when he was handed the wedding rings.
Wedding Photography Up In The Clouds
The Best Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos continues with wedding photography up in the clouds. Literally. Matt and Jennifer’s Windows On Minnesota wedding photos from the 50th floor of the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, MN.
I say “up in the clouds” because the cloud deck was pretty low all day long, at times you could barely see the buildings a couple of blocks away. It was at Matt and Jennifer’s wedding that we took on our largest wedding light painting yet, the IDS Crystal Court. The before and after wedding light painting photos and their “how to” video are below.
Matt and Jennifer’s pre-light painting image.
Matt and Jennifer’s completed wedding photography light painting!
Our picks for The Best Minneapolis Saint Paul MN Wedding Photos in 2017 concludes with the cutest couple you’ll ever meet. Jerry and Gladys were married at the Crown Plaza Plymouth in Plymouth, MN in a sweet wedding with their closest family and friends in attendance.
A classic bridal portrait of Jerry and Gladys.