Kari & Chase [A Ballroom Wedding at the Tundra Lodge in Green Bay, Wisconsin]

I have been formulating this blog post in my head for weeks. In honesty, it started almost the day I was booked to photograph Kari and Chases wedding…it might have even started back in high school and college when I would babysit for Kari and her sister Sarah. This isn’t a story about how I watched a cute little girl grow into a beautiful woman, although that is exactly what happened, but rather the impact that Kari’s parents, Eddie and Klarice had on me as a young adult.

When I was an impressionable teenager, I had the pleasure of being in Eddie and Klarice’s home, watching the way they loved each other. Their communication was evident everywhere you looked (seriously the sweetest notes were to be found on a sticky when you went to grab a water glass or pour a cup a milk), tender endearments that struck me deep. I began watching them closely. I was fascinated by the way Eddie served Klarice; sometimes having me come watch the girls so he could complete a piece of woodworking as a surprise for Klarice. I loved when Klarice would have me stay the night so she could take Eddie out for an evening away. They were committed to their marriage and it was clear in their everyday actions. I was raised in a home with amazing parents that embodied many of these same characteristics, but this was the first that I had seen it displayed in someone sort of closer to my own age. I think I thought of marriage as something that you enjoyed after your kids were older, but here I saw them living out a partnership with small kids and it was unlike what I witnessed in other homes where I babysat. It was with these two that I began to formulate the idea of saying “I do” in the every day. While a true understanding of that didn’t really come to me until Jon and I were married with small children, I knew that I wanted my marriage to reflect those same tangible ideals that I had witnessed with Eddie and Klarice.

When I began talking to them about covering Kari and Chase’s I was flooded with such a thankfulness to God for allowing me to see a glimpse into a marriage that so embodied what I longed for my own marriage to look like. What  blessing to come into a marriage knowing what service and sacrifice looked like. I am so happy for Kari and Chase, because I know that with the example before them, they will have a long marriage that is based on severing one another. It was clear from our time together, they they knew what pleased the other, what made the other laugh. Chase, who knew when a joke was going to ease Kari’s nerves, and for Kari, who knew Chase needed a moment to enjoy the day palling around with his friends. They clearly understood each other on a deeper level and it was beautiful to see that come full circle.

I am so honored to have shared in this day- seeing the start of their legacy, was in away, a reflection of the start of my own and I am so thankful.

xoxo,

Amber Lea