Madeline and Sam got married on the last night of the year, and they didn't waste a minute of it. A candlelit Mass at St. Joseph's in Crosby, a kiss in a snow-covered clearing, and a midnight that found them already married, champagne raised, gold confetti coming down around their "Just Married" crowns — the whole day felt like two people who couldn't wait for the new year to make it official, so they didn't.
I photographed their New Year's Eve from the first quiet hour to the loud stroke of midnight, and what stays with me isn't the itinerary — it's how sure they were. Every time the day handed them a moment alone, they leaned into it; every time it handed them a room full of people, they lit it up. The Brainerd Lakes in late December gives you snow, candlelight, and long nights. Madeline and Sam gave it the rest.
A First Look at the High Wheel Confectionery
They chose to see each other early, and they chose the right room for it: the High Wheel Confectionery, the old brick candy shop and coffee house on Ironton's main street, with its tall industrial windows and a penny-farthing on the wall. There's something honest about a first look in a place like that — no staged staircase, just warm brick, the smell of sugar and coffee, and Sam turning around. Madeline couldn't stop laughing, the kind of laugh you can't produce on cue, and when it settled they stood at the window holding hands like the day had already slowed down for them. The little still lifes came first — the invitation with its gold-foil envelope, the rings tucked in velvet — but the photographs that matter from that hour are the two of them, close together, before anyone else got to have them.
Portraits That Didn't Sit Still
The next hour moved the way the two of them move — easily, and always toward each other. Madeline sat across Sam's lap on the black-railed stairwell with her veil spilling down the steps. They kissed under the confectionery's starburst lights with a wall of candy jars glowing behind them. The wedding party, all in black, walked the cold sidewalk laughing at things I never heard. None of it needed much from me. When a couple is that comfortable — with each other, with a little cold, with not knowing exactly what comes next — you mostly keep up and keep shooting.
A candy shop, a snowbank, a candlelit Mass, a gymnasium her mother rebuilt by hand — the rooms kept changing all day. The way they looked at each other didn't.
The Quietest Ten Minutes of the Day
Before dark we stole them away to a snow-covered clearing in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area, ringed by tall pines — Madeline in a fur stole, her long veil let down into the snow, Sam holding her like the cold was somebody else's problem. A wedding day is loud almost by definition, and this was the one stretch that belonged entirely to them: no music, no guest list, just wind in the pines and the two of them close enough to whisper. Some couples fidget in that kind of quiet. These two settled into it. The kiss at the treeline wasn't for the camera — I just happened to be there.
A New Year's Eve Mass at St. Joseph's
The Mass at St. Joseph's was the still center of the day. The church was dressed for the season — poinsettias banked at the altar, candlelight everywhere — but what I watched was the people. A groomsman carried a sleeping child down the aisle. Madeline's mother pressed a hand to her face when Sam lifted the veil, the kind of small, involuntary gesture that says more than any toast will. They knelt together beneath the statue of Mary with the train spread across the floor, two people being completely serious about each other in front of everyone they love. And then — because they are also completely themselves — the recessional broke open: Sam dipped Madeline for a kiss in the middle of the aisle, and the whole church came to its feet. The least solemn moment of the night, in the most solemn room, and nobody loved it more than the people in the pews.
A Gymnasium Transformed — The Deerwood Auditorium
Here is the thing to know about the reception: Madeline's mother built it. The Deerwood Auditorium is a 1930s fieldstone gymnasium — basketball hoop still over the floor — and she transformed it by hand, wall to wall: draped fabric, a low canopy of string lights, a lit Christmas tree, candlelit tables, a handwritten party popper at every single place. That's not decor; that's a mother's love with a staple gun and a long December. The room she made carried the night — the grand entrance with hands raised, the best man toasting beer-in-hand, Sam pouring a champagne tower while Madeline laughed at his elbow, a first dance that ended in a long dip under the lights, a little boy in a vest striking a pose of his own on the dance floor. Late, from outside, the whole hall glowed through the windows like something out of a snow globe — and then it was midnight, and they were already married, and the confetti came down.
Planning a Winter Wedding in the Brainerd Lakes?
A New Year's Eve wedding gives you things no other date can — snow, candlelight, and a built-in reason for everyone you love to stay up celebrating you until midnight. What Madeline and Sam understood, and what I'd tell any couple planning a winter wedding in the Brainerd Lakes, is that the day works best when the places sound like you: their first look happened in a candy shop because that's who they are, and their reception happened in a gymnasium because her mother could see what it would become. I photograph days like this 60/40 documentary and editorial — most of it observed as it happens, with a short directed window when the light lines up — because the goal isn't proof you were somewhere beautiful. It's proof of how it felt.
This was the first time I photographed this family, but not the last — this past summer I shot Madeline's uncle Anthony's engagement session with his fiancée Abby. If you're planning a wedding anywhere in the Brainerd Lakes, reach out — winter dates are some of my favorites to shoot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Snow makes winter portraits, it doesn't ruin them. For Madeline and Sam's New Year's Eve wedding we stepped into a snow-covered clearing in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area near Crosby — her long cathedral veil trailing across the snow, a fur stole over the gown, Sam in a dark suit — and the quiet, bare landscape did the work. A few minutes of direction and a willingness to be a little cold gets you portraits you can't take any other time of year.
Yes, within each parish's rules — which vary, so I confirm the photography policy with the church and the officiant ahead of time. At St. Joseph's in Crosby I worked discreetly, mostly without flash, and caught the beats that matter in a full nuptial Mass: the processional, the lifting of the veil at the altar, the kneeling before the statue of Mary, the vows, the first kiss, and the recessional. Theirs was a Christmas-season Mass, with poinsettias banked around the altar and candlelight throughout.
Yes. The Deerwood Auditorium is a historic community building in Deerwood, Minnesota — a fieldstone auditorium and gymnasium built as a New Deal project in the 1930s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places — and the city rents it for weddings and receptions. It's essentially a blank-slate gymnasium, which is exactly what makes it work: it takes decor beautifully and gives you room to build the room you want.
Draping and light. For the Deerwood Auditorium reception, the bride's mother softened the gym with fabric along the walls, a low canopy of string lights across the ceiling, a lit Christmas tree, candlelit tables with gold chargers, and a champagne tower. The basketball hoop was still overhead, but by dark, with everything glowing, you'd hardly know it. Photographed at night, a transformed hall like that reads warm and intimate rather than cavernous.
