CAMP WANDAWEGA WEDDING: MELISSA MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY: TYLER + ASHLEY

Little known fact…I was a camping major in college. True story. It was art school or soccer scholarship. As my dad says: “It was the longest soccer camp I ever went to.” (: I didn’t set out to be a camping major but the little rustic camp I grew up going to had a big impact on me.

I remember as a kid laying in the rickety bunkbed where through the torn screen I could see the shadows of the pine trees, and hear the sound of the night time train echoing off the starry lake. It was upon that lake under the moonlight light my now husband first told me he loved me. It was in that moment that I knew I wanted to stand upon that same pier and marry that guy someday. Well, unknown to us, that was the camp's farewell season. I'm sure it didn't take much to demolish it. The wooden cabins sitting upon the cinderblock stilts would shake if you hopped out of your bunk bed.

I lost that camp. But it took all of two steps for me to enter the wooden cabin at Camp Wandawega for me to stop and breath the un-airconditioned air that's been conditioning the wood for nearly 100 years. I stood there taking deep nostalgic breaths of that past that. I thought I had lost.

That’s honestly my goal when it comes to taking photos. It’s about capturing moments that will be lost, and the ability to find (and more importantly feel) them again & again through an image is such a gift. I never did get to have my wedding at the camp that has my heart. But so glad I got to do it for Tyler & Ashley. They took over camp for the week and had the time of their lives with their friends & family. And like any good camp, if you weren't family when you arrived, you sure as heck feel like it when you leave.