I don’t typically do a ton of far travel during wedding season, especially not in the fall when we are so super swamped, but when Tara and Mike asked us to photograph their wedding, I was honored. So we booked it, packed our bags and drove up for three days of shenanigans.
Dave and I met them a few years ago at Pennsic (that medieval reenactment thing we do) when we switched from our old camp to Settmour swamp (our now home). Settmour swamp is a North Jersey based group, but we get people from all over. We made friends with a group from Albany, New York area. I couldn’t imagine a year not hanging out with these guys at Pennsic now.
Tara and Mike met in Los Angeles through mutual friends. Tara had an unshakable crush on Michael many years later and played Star Wars the Old Republic at the time together (this was their mmo of choice for a few years). Tara finally gave in and planned a sneaky visit to Indiana where Mike lived.
Michael proposed on his birthday after dinner and a photoshoot to take a really awesome tintype (you will see them posing with it in their wedding photos). It was also the same day Tara had confessed her feelings years prior. They picked the fall season for their ceremony because it is also the fall equinox which is the opposite of the year from when they first started their relationship. It was also really important to have a small wedding with immediate family and local friends only. So the ‘guys’ (a-la-pennsic friends), their parents/siblings and their kids. They didn’t want to be married in a barn so they decided to do something more industrial. They also brewed large batches of mead (Tara makes the most incredible mead ever) for their wedding and anniversaries to come.
Dave and I started the day before their wedding photographing their rehearsal dinner, something we don’t always do, but it was so much fun to see awesome people we knew and watch the magic unfold as their Officiant and friend, Christian, baked epic cakes the night before. The day of the wedding was just incredible. (And a SUPER long day). From smoke bombs, to dinosaurs, to haunted hay paint ball fields, to drinking horns (gotta have ’em), to an epic groom’s cake of cuthullu rising from the abyss with miniatures of them (like cake toppers for Dnd). It was all epic.
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