Almost 11 years ago, Nathanial Root told me on our first date that while he loved photography, he would never become a portrait photographer because photographing people was “too awkward.”

Not even a year later, Brian Adams hired Nate right out of college for some help with his web design, which in turn led to Nate coming along to assist at some of Brian’s weddings, which then led to Nate’s roommate asking him to be his wedding photographer. Got it? Good. :)

It was nine years ago today that Nathanial photographed his first wedding. 

Oh, the lessons we learned from this wedding, from needing to bring double the memory cards and batteries he’d budgeted for to the hard lesson of not ever, ever, ever following a member of the bridal party to the reception and navigating yourself. (Of course, this was before our phones could navigate and we owned a GPS!) Nate was so glad I was there to be able to help when he was stressed, and I came along to his next wedding as an assistant, and the next, and the next… :)

I was so thankful Nate had put so many hours in assisting Brian and can’t imagine the mistakes we would have made those first few weddings without seeing how Brian worked first. He was the best mentor we could have asked for, and I know so many things we still do today stem from his example.

While I’ll forever cringe at photos from our first weddings (not the photos, but the editing. Ohhhhh, the editing!), I’m still so proud that Nate, who never ever wanted to photograph people, took a chance and photographed Bethany and Mike’s wedding. I can’t even begin to imagine where our life would be now otherwise!

Bethany and Michael, thank you for taking a chance on my sweet husband. And HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! <3