I always love asking my couple’s where they plan on honeymooning. As an avid traveller I like to get tips and hear of new places that I must go to! A lot of people opt for a Caribbean vacation or some other beachy place, and some end up going on adventure vacations like we did. I keep telling myself it would be nice to do a “relaxing” vacation because after we get back from ours we never feel rested, because we were go go go the entire time. Someday, maybe when I am 80! Because we were already going to be on the west coast for our Oregon wedding, we decided to venture up to Anchorage and cruise down to Vancouver, then hop a plane to Calgary where we would then drive to Banff, and continue on to Jasper. I had heard that the “only way to see Alaska” was on a cruise. There aren’t roads that go from town to town, so your best bet is to boat it, or fly around on a teeny plane. We actually made that first part of our honeymoon open invite, and had 6 other people with us on the cruise! I am really happy we did that, because it was nice to have other people our age to hang out with and it was just perfect to be with family for the week after our wedding. I had never been on a cruise before, and that one will probably be my last. I couldn’t really handle “cruise culture” as we called it while on the boat. All in all, Alaska was amazing, my favorite parts being Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay. It reminded me a lot of Milford Sound in New Zealand which was my favorite place in the world before I went to Glacier Bay. Imagine Milford Sound but with Glaciers and icebergs all around! We went rafting with bald eagles hanging out inches away from us, and kayaking with seals poking their little heads up around our boats – Heaven!

Here are some pictures of our Alaska adventure. I only brought my Mamiya 645 and Kodak Ektar 100 film with me on our honeymoon, and a lot of the time we were too busy watching bears tear salmon apart to carry it around, so there are only a few photos from Alaska.

We spent one night in Vancouver, which is when our real honeymoon began – just the two of us. We *loved* Vancouver, I could definitely live there. Then we were off to Calgary, and ready for our Canadian Rockies adventure! We stayed in Banff for 3 nights at an *awesome* lodge called the Rundlestone, I highly recommend staying there if you make a visit. Banff was cool, and we did a little visit to Lake Louise and Morraine Lake, both gorgeous. There isn’t a lot of good beer in Canada, I found out, but the Banff Ave. Brewing Co. had one yummy IPA. We headed up the Icefields Parkway to stay in Jasper for a few nights – my favorite part. I LOVE JASPER. I can’t even talk about it anymore, it’s too awesome and you must go. Think ski town that is not developed yet. Everything is locally owned, everyone knows everyone, and people take care of each other. We made friends with a waitress at the *best* restaurant in town and ended up going there two nights in a row. Here are some of my favorites from Banff and Jasper:

What would we do without them? You had better believe with my wedding just around the corner (10 days, but who is counting?!) I’ve found my “sentimental” side. I wanted to share some photographs that I took of my friend, Meredith a few weeks ago. Every time I go to Maine, I make sure to fit a visit to Mere, Michael, and Orvis into my schedule, even if it’s just for 10 minutes! I just tried to scroll through pages of emails to find out when we first “met”. Sometime in 2009 is all I have! I remember falling in love with her blog back then and my brother, who is in the pet industry, had met Mere before. I think I asked him if he would “hook us up” or something, I can’t remember exactly. Since then, and especially over the last year and a half, she has become one of my closest friends. She’s one of those people that you could call at 3am crying in need of a major vent-session. A keeper. I am so so so excited that next week she will be shooting our wedding out in Oregon!

As much as she dislikes being in front of the camera, she is always there to let me test out rolls of film on her (so nice!). These are taken with my Mamiya 645 80mm 2.8 on Kodak Ektar 100. Love the greens!

You may have noticed my blog posts slowing a bit right now. I apologize! I have been super crazy lately shooting tons of wicked fun weddings while buttoning up all the last minute details for my own wedding! I am scheduling lots of fun blog posts for when I am away but until then enjoy these black and whites from Miami a couple weeks ago. You are probably thinking, “who brings black and white film to Miami?”. I brought 1 roll because I ran out of color just before I left and had planned on picking some up down there, but didn’t want to be completely empty-handed. Do you know what does not exist on South Beach? A camera store that sells 120 film, that’s what. It’s ok though, I really love these. They are a bit eerie, don’t you think? I shot these on Kodak t-max 100 bringing me back to high school developing days, on my new Mamiya 645 afdII that I convinced myself to buy for our honeymoon in Alaska. As it turns out I’ve been shooting a lot with it at weddings and my couples are loving it!

About a month or so ago, I took a few days off mid-week to visit some family I had not seen in years. It was a gift trip to myself to celebrate going full-time. I hadn’t visited this part of my family since before my mother passed away, and before I left I was actually a little nervous to hang with them without mum and I have no idea why. We had *the best* time! I’ve already booked tickets to see them again in a couple weeks (It’s SO cheap from Boston!) which will be sort of a “shower/bachelorette party/pre-wedding celebration” (we don’t have a wedding party and therefore I planned my own weekend getaway before our wedding!). Miami has some *sick* trees and awesome graffiti walls. Enjoy!

All images are on Kodak Portra 400.