Janice and Ben are getting married at Estes Park Resort in the fall of 2023. How I met them is a story of kismet! I volunteered to photograph the Marshall Fire Benefit at Boulder Theater on February 4, 2022. While I was photographing a man asked me for my business card and when I brought it back to him, we had a great conversation about the fire and his losses in it. I had a really difficult night besides that, some crazy guy honed in on me and was accusing me of making money off of people’s tragedy, photographers are leeches, etc. He was crazy, and I had to call Security to get him off of me. I came home and just focused on the nice conversation I’d had with Ben instead.

Fast forward two days and I was at the Estes Park Wedding Association‘s annual Wedding Show. It was so much fun talking with people at that show, and near the end of the day the guy from the Boulder Theater show walks up to me… I said, “Ben! You’re Ben from the show at Boulder Theater Friday night!” he was. He got his fiancé Janice over and we had a laugh at the probability of him asking me for a card two days previous. I was so thankful when they hired me. Not only because I felt like it was fate, but because I love them, and their wedding at Estes Park Resort is going to be an INSANE party. I can’t wait.

In the meanwhile for their engagement photos, we headed up to Lake Isabelle on the last day that the parking lots were open at the trailheads in the Brainard Lake area. We all fought for parking spots, even though we’d paid for them and then headed up the mountain to Lake Isabelle with their two dogs. The hike is an easy one and when we got to the top we had the place mostly to ourselves. We hiked down at night hearing some large game near us, but we were all Coloradans ready for the adventure!