Denver Botanic Gardens Engagement & Denver Highlands Wedding

I’ve known Josie since we were both little: her grandparents were my first babysitter!

She grew up in Indiana though, so we hadn’t seen each other much since childhood. When I heard she had moved to Colorado, I was excited to reconnect. At a dinner with our families was when I had the pleasure of meeting Sam. I told them about my passion for photography, showed them some of my work, and a few weeks later they asked me to be their wedding photographer! I could not have been more thrilled, because they are one of the cutest, most head-over-heels in love couples I’ve ever met.

Engagement Session

I have always wanted to do and engagement session at the Denver Botanic Gardens, so I suggested that to them, and it turns out that is where Sam proposed to Josie! What an incredible spot for an engagement session! Even on a somewhat crowded Sunday, there was plenty of privacy lots of great spots for portrait opportunities!

I loved the way these engagement photos turned out. One technique I played around with during the session was the Brenizer Panorama. This technique creates the illusion of impossibly low aperture by stitching together many images in Photoshop. I created two of these panoramas during their session and they came out great!

This first image was created with my Sigma 85mm lens, wide-open at f/1.4, but the composite has an effective focal length of 53mm and aperture of 0.87 (no lens has ever had this low an aperture, that I know of). This was 12 images stitched together.

This second image was also done with my Sigma 85mm, at f/3.2, and the composite ended up with an effective focal length of 34mm and aperture of f/1.3. This is 30 images stitched together and is over 14,000 pixels wide!

For those of you looking to try out the Brenizer method on your own, here is a handy video tutorial that I like, and here is a calculator that helped me come up with those effective focal length and aperture measurements.

Getting Ready

Josie and Sam’s special day was at The Lumber Baron Inn in Denver, CO. This is a cute Victorian building in the Highlands with a very interesting and quirky history! This place has such a unique character and wonderful staff, I can’t wait to photograph another wedding there!

First Look

The unique wall papers, mirrors, and other features of the two suites made getting ready photos a joy to take and edit.

One unique thing I loved about Josie and Sam’s wedding was that we didn’t do a private first look just for Sam, we also did one for Josie’s father, Larry. Loved capturing their honest, emotional reactions to gorgeous Josie.

Ceremony

Their ceremony was outside, and their officiant was one of my favorite people in the world: Josie’s grandpa! He did a great job.

This photo says all you need to know about what a perfect couple Josie and Sam are!

Reception

Probably my favorite part of the wedding to shoot and edit was the reception. The ballroom at Lumber Baron is on the top floor and it’s a great setup.