On Thursday, we headed out to The Secret Garden, a beautiful venue in Phoenix, to shoot the wedding of Nicole & Earl.  We’ve been looking forward to this wedding for a while!  We had the opportunity to do engagement portraits for this couple in Sedona a few months back and had such a great time with them.  They are such a fun, loving couple – it was such a joy to see their special day come to fruition :-)  Here are some of our favorites from their day:

The bouquet:

The rings:

Nicole’s dress was so classic and elegant.  I love how this shot of it turned out!  It has a kind of a moody, antique feel to it.

Nicole was such a gorgeous bride!

A few shots of Earl getting ready to go meet his bride . . .

Love the lighting in this one:

Earl and Nicole decided to see each other before the ceremony.

Earl checking out some of the bridesmaid’s handy work.

A few portraits of the couple:

Love this one!  So Nicole & Earl – laughing and having a great time together!

Doesn’t look like we’re in Arizona, does it?

Earl rides a motorcycle so they wanted to have some shots taken with the bike :-)  So fun!  We love it when couples add something a little different to their portraits!

Love this shot of Earl and his guys waiting for the ceremony to begin :-)  It totally looks like we posed this, but Ryan said he just happened to walk around the corner and this is how they were standing!

Nicole and her Dad descended this big staircase to the ceremony.  Check out the view of the mountains behind them!  Beautiful!

It was a lovely ceremony, complete with a very happy bride and groom!

The kiss!

And now they’re man and wife :-)

From there we headed off to their reception at The Estrella Vista Reception Center in Avondale.  Their first dance was so sweet :-)

What a great night – full of dancing, laughter and love.  Ryan caught the perfect moment with this shot of the garter toss.  Hilarious!

And of course we have to throw in at least one silly dance shot, courtesy of the Matron of Honor and her hubby :-)

One last shot of the newlyweds :-)

A big thanks to Nicole & Earl for letting us be a part of your big day!  We’ve really enjoyed getting to know you and wish you guys the very best of luck!

**** CLICK HERE to view a slide show with lots more images from Nicole & Earl’s wedding!