The Oh Snap Family has an exciting announcement, Becca & Eliot got married this Saturday! Some of you might know Becca from assisting at one of your weddings; she's always so friendly and the perfect wedding day assistant to make everyone feel at ease! One of my favorite things is to photograph weddings for friends. It's so fun to be there for them on one of the most magical days in their lives. I've been blessed with many park weddings this Fall, they are affordable to secure and by far some of the most beautiful sites I've ever worked in.  Becca and Eliot lucked out with a beautiful day. Tears of happiness exploded from my eyes as their gender nonconforming child, Bax, escorted them both down the aisle and I cried even harder when the officiant read Justice Kennedy's majority opinion from the June 26, 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage in the United States. Enjoy the words below as you look at the images.  I leave you with some of Kennedy's words:

The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. 

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The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.

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As all parties agree, many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted. And hundreds of thousands of children are presently being raised by such couples. See Brief for Gary J. Gates as Amicus Curiae 4. Most States have allowed gays and lesbians to adopt, either as individuals or as couples, and many adopted and foster children have same-sex parents, see id., at 5. This provides powerful confirmation from the law itself that gays and lesbians can create loving, supportive families.

Excluding same-sex couples from marriage thus conflicts with a central premise of the right to marry. Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.

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Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives. As the State itself makes marriage all the more precious by the significance it attaches to it, exclusion from that status has the effect of teaching that gays and lesbians are unequal in important respects. It demeans gays and lesbians for the State to lock them out of a central institution of the Nation’s society. Same-sex couples, too, may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage and seek fulfillment in its highest meaning.

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[T]he right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them.

Sunday's wedding at Theater in the Park (Shawnee Mission Park) was a real treat. I had photographed the bride's brother's wedding back in the Spring, so it was really fun for me to interact with their family again. The venue was PERFECT for an early fall wedding, that huge fireplace was such a perfect focal point for their ceremony and first dance. Shooting through the fireplace became one of my favorite things! Congratulations to Paige & Chris! Enjoy these Sneak Peaks!

I enjoyed photographing Rozi & Andrew's wedding so much! Rozi made the cutest bouquets I've ever seen and was the one with the idea to do the first look on the stairs of the Capitol. The two were married in the rose garden at Gage Park, which was the perfect setting for a fall wedding. Much love to these two! I can't wait to edit their full set. Enjoy some sneak peaks from the wedding and the photobooth! <3