Samantha & David’s Wedding at The Longacre House in Farmington Hills MI

Dave and Samantha’s wedding was held at the Longacre House in Farmington Hills Michigan on a beautiful summer day. The sun was out but nicely shaded by scattered clouds which made for a pretty comfortable outdoor wedding. Longacre House is on the MI Historic Registry for the state of Michigan and has been hosting weddings for many years. They have a gorgeous outdoor gazebo on the lawn and a beautiful piece of property to photograph at. I remember the first wedding I ever photographed here several years back and was for Mary Beth who was a reporter for the Detroit News. It has long been one of my favorites spots in the area for smaller weddings. 

We photographed David’s sister’s wedding a couple of years ago at their home in a lovely backyard wedding. I remember meeting the siblings and hitting it off with Dave at the time. It was really neat to have him call me for his wedding photos. He and Samantha had met sometime back and we’re going to make things official and wanted a more documentary style to his pictures than he had seen with some of his friends’ weddings. I was happy to accommodate him. 

The Longacre house has some dressing rooms upstairs that the couples are free to use. We met up for some getting ready photos before their first look in the west gardens of the home. They planned this out so that they could get some really pretty pictures of themselves before guests arrived. Oftentimes couples that don’t want to see each other before the service but then end up missing their cocktail hour. They wanted to be a part of cocktail hour so this worked out perfectly! We spent about a half an hour before getting them tucked away as the guests started to arrive. I remember some guy during the first look shots sticking his head through the window of the house and it looked awful. I guess he wanted that camera angle and it kind of messed up the privacy of the first look. We  edited him out.

The groom’s twin brother perform their wedding service. He was awesome and I loved to hear his heartfelt commentary as they went through the service. Many times it’s a stranger that performs the service but this was not the case today! It was wonderful! The service lasted about 20 minutes and they briefly went upstairs to sign their license before coming down and taking their family photos. Guests mingled in the garden and on the patio during cocktails before the couple joined them. We chose not to show a lot of family photos in the blog but generally we will spend about 10 or 15 minutes getting the immediate family, the aunts and uncles and any special friends shots during this period. A well organized group can work their way through family photos and we generally estimate 2 minutes per grouping. If the couple can roll out their wishes to the guests they want pictures with it goes much smoother than if they are making it up on the fly.

This was a micro wedding with about 20 or 30 guests I would estimate. They had their first dance, father daughter and mother son dances as well. It was really a lot of fun to be with the family and see the love in the room. It is always what we try to capture along with the fun of the day.  That makes for the best photojournalism. We hope you enjoy these photos and let us know if we can be of help to you and capture your wedding memories!