Must Be Minnesotan: By Abby Van Ness

We just had to share this great testimonial from one of our brides!  Published online for Mpls St Paul Mag, under "Real Brides" www.mspmag.com Must Be Minnesotan ~By Abby Van Ness For me, choosing a photographer was one of the most important wedding decisions I’ve had to make. I spent several weeks scrolling through Twin Cities photography blogs, sending e-mails, and collecting pricing information. But I ended up finding the best photographers just by asking friends for recommendations. The one we booked, Beau Petersen of BP Photography, came highly recommended,  but one of his biggest selling points was the importance he placed on getting to know a bride and groom before their big day. In fact, he includes an engagement session with every wedding package so he can use it as a time to learn more about the couple (and for the couple to learn more about him). We scheduled our engagement session for mid February—I wanted snow in our pictures, but neglected to think about how cold a Minnesota February can be. With new outfits in tow, Jack and I made the seven-hour drive from Kansas City to Minneapolis and got up early the next morning to meet with Beau. We began our session in my old neighborhood of Northeast Minneapolis. There, we posed in front of Bulldog NE and Surdyk’s (two places I miss!), warmed up with drinks inside Keegan’s, and kissed under the awning at Nye’s Polonaise. We moved downtown and snapped photos on Nicollet Mall, which is where I began to wonder if I’d lived in Missouri too long and forgotten how to block out the Minnesota chill. (If you’ve ever stood in the middle of Nicollet on a cold day, you know it can start to feel like a frigid wind tunnel.) All I could think was, Maybe I should have scheduled this for April? Our last location was downtown Stillwater, and even though we were having fun and feeling more comfortable in front of the camera, I was getting more and more cold.  At that point, the temperature had dropped to about 15 degrees but since we were determined to get some photos without our winter coats, we crazily stripped a layer of clothing. As I stepped over patches of ice, shivering in a sleeveless black-and-white dress, thinking that I’d lost all my ability to handle the cold, a random passerby looked at me and mumbled, “She must be Minnesotan.” Hey, at least I’ve got that guy fooled! My favorite quote of the day. We recently got our photos back from Beau. It’s no surprise that my favorite ones are those that capture little moments that made us laugh and those that show our true personalities. I’m so glad we got to spend the day getting to know Beau (after all, he’s going to be with us for the most important day of our lives) and learning what worked and what didn’t in front of the camera. I couldn’t be happier with the photos; I can’t wait to see them on our save-the-dates and in our guest book. Yet, this Minnesotan would do one thing differently—schedule our session in warmer weather.