Silver Lake Sand Dunes Michigan Photographer | Marisa + Ryan's Wedding
Marisa and Ryan wanted an adventurous wedding with just their closes friends & family at one of their favorite locations and they asked me to come along to capture at all!
In October of 2021, Marisa and Ryan went on a lovely fall color tour of the UP. This story gets me every time and I feel like it foreshadowed their wedding!! After visiting Tahquamenon Falls, they headed to Grand Marais for some rock hounding and northern lights spotting. There just so happened to be a Gale warning and Marisa was trying so hard to convince Ryan to leave, but he planned to propose while Marisa was looking for yooperlites. He said we drove all this way, we might as well just go and try to look! After convincing her, she found her perfect ‘rock’!
Fast forward to October 2022, we all got to the Double JJ resort Friday night. Marisa grew up visiting this resort, so it was so meaningful to them to have their family in a location that holds such precious memories. While we were photographing Marisa’s getting ready portraits and waiting for the groom, we get a call that setting up was taking longer than they expected because the wind kept blowing everything down! How ironic is that?
Since Ryan’s clothes were also in the room we were in, we hid Marisa in the backroom and managed to do an intimate first look on the balcony while the rest of the family headed to their cars. We then headed to the beach for their ceremony. Turns out there was a huge racing event this same weekend and the ORV area was PACKED! The wedding couple and their family loaded everyone up, making a couple trips, and taking us across the dunes to the ceremony location.
It ended up being so cold and windy, that I’m pretty sure the officiant sped up his speech a little! Nonetheless, I thought their ceremony was so intimate and sweet, surrounded by their most precious family. After the ceremony, I hopped into the Jeep with Marisa and Ryan and we took to the dunes for some intimate pictures! This was such a fun and adventurous wedding and I hope they had as much fun as we did.
Bride Tip for a seamless wedding day: Give EVERYONE the detailed timeline. The more you communicate exactly what you want for your day, the better everyone else will be on the same page and the smoother your day will be. If you have a website, include this on the website! Because let’s be real, you don’t want to be receiving texts and calls the day of on where everyone should be.
Vendors | Photographer: Searra Liggett // Dress: Azazie // Venue: Double JJ Resort // Wooden Flowers: Sola Wood Flowers // Ring Box: TeachLikeAPoddle // Earrings and Necklace: SWEETV (Amazon) // Vow Books: Avamie (Amazon)
Searra Liggett is an intimate destination and elopement photographer sharing her love of travel, motherhood, and sustainability based out of Houghton, Michigan. She’s always ready to pack her bags and head out on an adventure, grabbing some sushi and a good book is the way to her heart. She thrives to serve her clients by making each moment an experience over just some pretty photographs.