ELDORADO CANYON STATE PARK | EXPLORING COLORADO

Earlier this year we had the chance to do a little exploring around Denver, Colorado, and we JUST realized that we hadn't shared our adventure with you yet! This particular day was spent falling in love with a charming coffee shop/cafe, heading West to hike the Eldorado Canyon Trail at Eldorado Canyon State Park (with camera in hand of course), trying out a brewery downtown where Butch tasted his most tasty IPA of all time (big deal, folks!), and finally freshening up for a dinner at our favorite restaurant in Denver. SUCH a fun day – especially since it was a beautiful 60 degrees around Denver and Wisconsin was still buried in snow. ;) The mountains were absolutely beautiful and they left us wanting to come back for more!! Until next time, Colorado :)

Love | Kelsy & Butch

Quite possibly my new favorite picture of all time of Butch!! :)

All images captured on film with Contax 645 on Portra 400. 

BRIDAL CELEBRATING!

With the help of my amazing Mom (thanks MOM!!!), we started planning a special day to get all of the ladies in our family together to celebrate with Susan before her & Eric's wedding day. The day came in a hurry and it was SO wonderful having everyone over to our home to chat, cheers, enjoy delicious bites, and love on Susan!! A giant thank you to Eric for letting us steal Susan for the weekend, and of course to everyone that came and made this sunny day so sweet :)

Just over a month & a half and we'll all be together again, celebrating the real thing!

xoxo, Kelsy

With stunning flowers by Evolutions, a deeeelicious lemon poppy seed cake from Blue Dot Bakeshop and a few fun other elements, we had fun transforming our dining room into the "party room". We also enjoyed operating like a small army while baking, slicing and dicing to prepare a little sweet & a little savory for everyone to enjoy!

PS – Doesn't Susan look particularly stunning!! Absolutely love the makeup that Vanexa Yang dolled her up with :)

5 YEARS FULL-TIME

WOW, you guys!!! Today marks the end of our FIFTH year as two full-time photographers at The McCartneys Photography. Sure, there were years "on the side" before that. But, we're counting our days and celebrating our anniversaries based on the number of years we've been relying on our photography to support our morning coffee and to fill Parker's puppy bowl & provide him with more than enough toys :) Starting tomorrow, we will officially be in our sixth year of business as a full-time husband-wife photography team and, if we're being honest, that sort of blows our mind. We eat, live, and breathe moments together in this world of entrepreneurship and marriage and life with one source of income and share a passion so strong for capturing love & moments in the lives of others. And the best part? The moments we're invited to photograph fill us with JOY!! They fuel us up. They light us on fire. They make us stop and feel so grateful, all at the same time.

We can't help but feel especially grateful today. Without YOU, none of this would be possible. Without your support, your love, and your passion for creating a legacy for your family through photos, we wouldn't be able to do what we love every single day. And that is so powerful, it completely warms our hearts!! Here we sit this morning, in our at-home office, enjoying our second cup of coffee, listening to our most recent happy tunes playlist with a cute fluffy puppy curled up behind us, and we're sending you the biggest digital hug on the planet!!! THANK YOU for your love and support over the last five years!

Want to know the funny part? This September we'll be toasting to our 5th wedding anniversary. SO, we've actually been taking pictures together for a living longer than we've been married!! Sometimes you just know and that can definitely be said about the two of us, in both love and in business ;)

We'll be spending today celebrating, writing in our dream books, and cheersing with family at "taco night" this evening!! Here's to five more years!  :D

xoxo, Kelsy & Butch

photo of us by the lovely laura ivanova

A DOOR COUNTY WISCONSIN WINTER DAY

It was a perfect snowy morning in Door County, just two days after Christmas. We had driven our sleigh from Northern WI back to Wausau and then all the way to Egg Harbor to visit with as many family faces as possible, and we couldn't wait to just slow down for a few days in our favorite County!! Thankfully, Mother Nature brought us the most beautiful fresh snow and a couple of balmy 20-degree days to play outside with our little Parker puppy. We quickly slid into a vacation-like routine of coffee accompanied by a game of rummy, followed by a snowshoe adventure and a trip up North to one of our favorite coffee shops – Leroy's. The Hasselblad even made an appearance for one of our morning and evening snowshoes with Mike (Butch's Dad), Stevi (Butch's sister) & her boyfriend Charles, and we wanted to share our silly little Wintery Door County adventure with you!

Hope you're enjoying beautiful Wisconsin's winter as much as we are!!

Love, Kelsy & Butch

All images captured on film with Hasselblad 500cm on Fuji 400H. 

View more of our Door County photography HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE! :)

2013 YEAR IN REVIEW | WEDDINGS

Wow!! Can you believe it’s already 2014? We most definitely can’t and it will probably be June before we get used to writing the date correctly, but in the meantime we want to look back at everything that 2013 brought our way. This might have been the fastest year of our lives but, speedy or not, 2013 was filled with genuine laughter, moments of growth & learning, and fulfilling relationship-building with our clients. We truly feel so lucky to do what we love and to have the support of our wonderful clients, friends & family!! Without all of you we wouldn't be able to live our passion, and that is something that we are endlessly thankful for. THANK YOU!!! :) As we look back through the beautiful moments and celebrations of love that we had the giant honor of photographing, we can't help but smile at all of the fun, sweet & thoughtful faces on our computer screen! We've had this problem over the last few days as we attempted to pull together a collection of images that represented our 2013, so you can only imagine how much our cheeks hurt! ;) We are blown away by the planning and thought that you all put into your wedding day and sessions with us, and cannot thank you enough for choosing us to be a part of your lives!! Creating heirlooms for families to pass on for generations is something that fills our hearts to the brim!

We cannot wait to see what 2014 holds - personalized wedding celebrations across the Midwest, new faces & couples who we can't wait to connect with & get to know, and continuing to capture sweet families as they grow!! Cheers to a wonderful 2014!

Love | Kelsy & Butch

Stay tuned for two more 2013 posts as we share some of our favorite engagement & portrait sessions soon!