Saja: How did you meet?Lydia: We met in the summer of 2012. Chad had organized and was playing on sand volleyball team, and a friend-of-a-friend get me connected with the team. We played together for a whole summer before Chad asked me out. A month later we were an official couple!
Saja: How did he propose?
Lydia: Chad proposed right after my 29th birthday on a Memorial Day camping trip to a lake in the mountains about 30 minutes from our house. We enjoy geocaching with our dogs, Baylor and Emory (it’s like treasure hunting using GPS coordinates to find the hidden caches). On our way home from the camping trip, Chad suggested we find one of the caches at the lake. We arrived at the coordinates, which lead us to a beautiful dock on the lake surrounded by waterlilies. I found the cache, an ammo-box, under the dock and pulled it up on to the dock. I opened it and it had a sign that read “Turn Around.” When I turned around, Chad was on one knee with the dogs’ leashes in one hand and a gorgeous ring in the other. Chad asked me to marry him and I said: “Are you serious?” He assured me yes (a few times) and I said: “Of course!”
Saja: Where did the wedding take place? What made you choose there?
Lydia: We were married at the Full Moon Resort in the Catskill Mountains in Big Indian, NY. We both love the mountains and the outdoors and knew we wanted to have our reception in a barn. Full Moon offered all that, and on top of everything else, the site had enough rooms that all our wedding guests could stay overnight onsite. It was an amazing getaway weekend for us and our guests and the scenery was incredibly beautiful.
Saja: Is there anything you can point out about your pictures that we might not have noticed?
Lydia: Our wedding was on May 1, and especially in the Catskills in early Spring the weather can be unpredictable. I watched the weather with dread the week leading up to the wedding and the forecast was for cold (mid-40s) and rain. We had to move our ceremony and cocktail hour indoors. I was initially upset about it but it worked out for the best! The nice thing about the cold weather is that it brought everyone in together instead of being all spread out so we got to really celebrate with all our guests. And, incredibly, from like 3 minutes before our first look until we were packing up the next day, the rain completely stopped! And even though I was very cold during our photos (the temperature never got above 45*), the cloudy skies made for amazing shots!
Saja: Which of the photos is your favorite and why?
Lydia: Oh my, it’s tough to pick a favorite. One that I really love is a moment shortly after we saw each other for the first time on our big day and we both look really happy and really comfortable. We’d been apart most of the day and at that moment we got to be with each other to start celebrating the day together. I think it captures how at home I felt when I got to see him and how excited we both were to be getting married.
Lydia said, "My mom and grandma made my veil. My grandma did the cutting and sewing and my mom hand-beaded it to compliment the beading on my dress. And we went in the empty swimming pool. We thought this would be fun because on our engagement shoot, we went in a river. I think the shots in the pool turned out really amazingly—it almost looks like we are in the snow."
Saja: What was your favorite part of the day?
Lydia: I really don’t think I could choose a favorite part… Our reception was so fun—it was wonderful getting to celebrate with all our friends and family. After the reception, we moved the party to this really cool bar and performance space onsite. The second party had a more relaxed feel and we were able to mingle with our guests. It really was such a blast!
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