Last week I shared our photos from our ceremony, and while I said I would share our formal photos next, they aren't exactly "formal".  We have all the family photos as well as our bridal party, but we wanted something a little different for a majority of the formals.

We started out by asking all the guests at the ceremony to join us across the field for a group photo.


Then we got silly.


The light was working for us, so we stayed in this area for the family and bridal party shots.










We also got some of just Mike and I.



The one above ended up being perfect for our Christmas cards.


After we finished all the different family combinations and bridal party photo ops here, we headed downtown Peninsula.  We had discussed possible sites for photos since there are a lot of cool and interesting sites in the area, but one that I couldn't get out of my head was a place we found by a happy accident one day.

Mike and I were in the area for dinner one night and since it was awesome weather, so was everyone else, so we had to find parking a bit of a ways from the restaurant, (actually the same place we held our rehearsal dinner).  We walked along the railroad tracks and I knew it would be one of the places we stopped to take some photos.  Right next to the tracks was a lumber yard and Mike and I thought, while a little unconventional, it would be an great place to have some photos taken.  It had such great textures, as well as being a fitting spot for two DIY's like us.  Thankfully our photographer was just as onboard as we were!

We ended up getting some awesome photos that are some of my favorites from the whole day!


The barn siding was an awesome background and our photographer was able to play around with the extra space to turn a photo like this:


Into something even more personalized.


We also played around on the actual lumber.  





Everyone thought I was crazy for suggesting to stand on top of the pile, but I didn't wear flats for nothing!




We walked around and got some more group shots.



 


Sara, our photographer, told us to be serious, and we all look a little pissed.  It even kinda looks like we're trying to reenact the infamous Bridesmaid movie poster!  I swear we're not, we're just all badasses in our own right, ha!


We walked over to the railroad tracks and took some more photos that looked seriously amazing.  To reinforce our badass status, it's technically illegal to take photos on railroad tracks, (even though everyone does it), and a cop car drove by but never stopped.  It must have been the white dress.





We also took some more photos at the trails nearby.





I didn't go in with too many staged photos in mind since I knew our photographer would do an amazing job, and I wasn't disappointed!  It was great sharing these photos with everyone because, while everyone was able to watch the family photos being taken, no one but the bridal party knew what we had done off site.

Next time I'll share all the reception details!

All photos taken by the amazing Studio SPC.