The wedding industry, Pinterest, and your nosy great-aunt can put a lot of pressure on wedding planning. There’s such crazy pressure to have everything just right. So often, that isn’t reality. Things will go in a different direction than you planned, but why does that have to be a bad thing? Some of my favorite weddings (as a guest and a photographer) are when plans have to be tossed out and couples start to improvise. You can tell so much from a bride and groom based on how they handle the stress of a runaway wedding day. And that’s exactly what Kerry & Patrick had to do.

Kerry & Patrick planned a beautiful, low-key Alaskan wedding surrounded by their children and friends. Kerry told me they only planned it a few weeks in advance, because that’s another thing wedding magazines don’t tell you: life happens all around you when you’re supposed to be planning some grandiose affair. We were to meet at the bottom of the Alyeska Tram at 6 o’clock on a lovely warm March evening. We had scores of Tram Tickets and the kids had their Xtra-Tufs. What more could anyone want for an Alaskan wedding?

Well, as it turns out, a tram that didn’t close half an hour earlier.

But this is what I loved about Kerry & Patrick’s wedding! There were a few moments of “what are we going to do?” looks exchanged, but then the problem solving started. Everyone was dressed for an outdoor Alaskan wedding, so we made use of the stunning Winner Creek Trail nearby. It was a short walk into the woods before we came to a bridge over a little creek, and everyone realized this was more perfect for the beginning of Kerry & Patrick’s marriage than the original plan.

Life isn’t always what you plan for, but as long as you find a partner who is willing to roll with the changes with you, it’s almost always better than what you were originally hoping for. Congratulations Kerry, Patrick, and company!