











See Canyon Fruit Ranch, San Luis Obispo, CA.
See Canyon Fruit Ranch, San Luis Obispo, CA.
Jefferson, Colorado.
Chris and Laura (and Betsy and Mark and Lynn and Phil and all the rest of you), thank you.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. For making me feel right at home. For granting me access to who you are and what you love. For inviting me along to witness this story.
Know that this is why I love this job. People like you. Stories like yours. Experiences like this.
Thank you.
Gallatin Gateway, Montana
Zach and Erica. A pair of rings. Family. Good food. Wine. Love. It was simple and it was beautiful. Honored to be invited along to bear witness.
Then the windiest day after session along the edge of the Marin Headlands to boot. Such good things.
Bay Area, CA
Dave and Sarah celebrated their marriage with friends, family, their dog, good food, good music, and buckets of emotion. That's the real deal.
Bolinas, CA
Shaun and Kelsey. Some of you folks reading this probably know them already, so you know how simply great they are. Believe it or not, but I actually culled down this journal entry quite a bit from the first draft... the whole day was filled with such intentionality that it was difficult to do away any more of those in between moments, even though they may not have been the obvious, portfolio worthy images (whatever "portfolio worthy" might mean). What we're left with here is a glimpse, long winded yet still cursory, into the happenings of that day...
There's a notion of the video that Kelsey made for Shaun as a wedding gift - a surprise remake of the same video he had made to ask her to a dance years before. And you might see in Shaun's reaction, in his smile, the natural warmth that immediately sets the people around him at ease.
You may catch the way Kelsey's mom is so present, so there, with her daughter as they prepare for the day, and if you've read Kelsey's blog, that character of presence might give you a bit of context as to why her own reflections on life are so attendant and insightful.
You see guests unloading and hauling the benches to set up for the ceremony alongside a lake, up against a mountain, which represents so much about who Shaun and Kelsey are and the kind of people they have surrounding them.
A quick frame of a friend, taking it upon himself to clear scrub from the aisle so Kelsey's dress wouldn't snag.
And so on. Just a look.
These are some of the people and relationships that I'm reminded of from that Saturday in June of 2014, and I can only hope that these images will do the same thing for Shaun and Kelsey many years down the way.
[audio:http://hughforte.com/blog/audio/yourhandinmine.mp3]
Also, a huge thank you to David for helping me document this day. He's a real good guy and takes real good pictures.
Audio: Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine
Brainard Lake / Boulder, CO
The Ahwahnee Hotel / The Valley, Yosemite National Park, CA
Palm Springs, CA
Shaun and Kelsey are a pair of those incredibly sincere and intentional people. The kind of people that you want to be around. The kind of people that conjure community and creativity and smiles from those around them. Needless to say, I was thrilled when they asked me to be there to document their wedding. I have a good bit more to share from this day down the line, but for the now, here's a few scenes from their ceremony along the Great Continental Divide.
Brainard Lake, Colorado
[audio:http://hughforte.com/blog/audio/sanfrancisco.mp3] Ahhh, what do you even say? 2013 was pretty neat. Mountains, deserts, oceans, up and down the West Coast, a little Midwest, a stop in the South, a European leg... It's a beautiful world out there.
This sort of journal entry would be entirely incomplete without expressing a huge thank you to my clients for inviting me along and allowing me to photograph these stories. I had a heck of a time, and I can't wait to make some new friends and some more pictures in 2014.
Music: San Francico (Little Daylight Remix) - The Mowgli's
Three days of coverage is entirely too much to load into a single journal entry, so if you're keen on viewing more of this story, you can have a look at slideshows from the days before as well as the wedding day.
Sun Valley, ID
DUMBO + Venues: The NoMad Hotel / Brooklyn Bridge Park / Smack Mellon Design & Coordination: Bespoke Only Catering: Blue Smoke