Family Pictures

I don't think I have ever gone into the issues we had with our photographer after the wedding. Long story short somehow he lost all of the pictures that were taken at the church right after the ceremony. He probably took about a hundred formal shots from the end of the ceremony to the time we left the church and we have none of them. None of Jason and I. None of us with our families or Jason's Grandparents, two of who have since passed. None of Millie giving me kisses on the steps of the altar. Our photographer's explanation of what happened? One minute the file was on his computer and the next minute they were gone. Now, I understand that shit happens and he didn't lose them on purpose, but the way he handled the whole thing was unprofessional and really just made Jason and I hate this guy. He basically tried to hide the fact until we called him out on it and then could never give us an explanation and barely mustered an apology. I could go on on and about this - it still makes me mad! - but I won't. In the end he did compensate us, but we will never get those pictures back or ever have the opportunity to capture those moments right after we were married again. Those family pictures were some of the most important of the day and they just vanished.

I had the idea of having a family portrait taken to try and make up for the lost pictures. Lauren was in my sorority in college and through the blogosphere I discovered that her husband was starting up his own photography business. I checked out his pictures and discovered that he is super talented! I emailed Lauren to get in touch with Mike and he agreed to do the pictures for us. We gave Jason's parents a gift certificate for Christmas and decided to wait until warmer weather to schedule our session. Turns out the weather was much warmer in the middle of July!! But we braved the heat and headed to Frontier Park in St. Charles, a great location for pictures. Mike also knew of some cool urban looking areas so we took pictures there too. Jason made the point that we had similar locations for our wedding pictures so it all tied together well. Mike did an awesome job and now we have some great pictures of the immediate Griesenauer family. I'm hoping I can talk my family into doing something similar the next time we are all together. Check us out on Mike's blog - and take some time to check out his other amazing pictures!