Michael and Sanya, I wish you guys the best, and thank you again for having me out to document your fun wedding!

While the ladies got ready for the wedding…

The  men met outside their room, protected by Sanya’s Serbian brother and his friend. Their job was simple: get Michael, and the guys representing him, to pay as high of a fee for their sister as possible.

…trade ensued, with tickets, gold (chocolate) coins, cash money, and many other things passing hands. Finally, after many laughs and a good amount of shenanigans, an agreement was struck and the two parties embraced.

Meanwhile, inside, the women peeked out trying to keep up with what was going on just outside their door.

…yet, when the time came for them to bring out Sanya, they brought out her maid of honor… and then her and her friend… and then the maid of honor, her friend, and her other friend! It was great!!

I just loved this tradition, because it really put everyone in a good mood. People were laughing and joking around, so we took a few quick shots before the bridal party made their way over to Baleen for the ceremony. But, not before the guys tried on some of the exchanged goods (the hats were AWESOME!)…

Once all the guests and party were at the ceremony, Sanya made her grand entrance escorted by Michael’s brother with the Serbian flags flying proudly on the windows. 

And then the ceremony flowed onward as smoothly as anyone could of wanted. I’ll stop the commentary, as I think the pictures tell the story from here.

Hope everyone’s doing well and leave a comment if you enjoyed the pictures. I’ll upload more from after the ceremony later this week after I’ve had a chance to whittle them down to be post-able.

Ok, onto the shoot. We started off by driving downtown to the Kansas City Public Library, a cool location that they had picked out beforehand. Once we got there, we figured out it was closed, but it was actually a blessing in disguise, because the building had TONS of really fun details all around it.

Here’s one of my favorite finds:These golden doors were a great place to start out the photoshoot. Eric and Anna, although they had said they were nervous about the posing, were complete naturals and looked great.

We made our way over to the parking garge for the Library, which has two story books all down the side. Someone was taking a cat-nap by Eric’s favorite book “Catch 22″ so we moved onto the classic Missouri author Mark Twain. (Another shot of this location by Garret later)

I love this little series of Anna cracking up over Eric’s pose.

We jumped in the car, with the sun setting behind us, and made our way toward the Plaza for some skyline shots. After a quick change of the clothes we grabbed a few shots together and seperatly. I loved how soft the light was!

I split off with Eric to grab a coupla’ shots, while Garret photographed Anna. Look at this Abercrombie Model

It started getting dark, so we snapped off just a few more and called it. Thanks Eric & Anna – you guys rock!

Here are just a few shots of many that my brother took (more on his Flickr site). It was cool teaming up with him because it allowed me to pull back and get some of composition shots while he stayed in close and got the more intimate moments. Thanks bro!

Here’s a shot of the President Hotel, where Eric & Anna are having their wedding reception. It’s a classicly cool hotel, with strong ties to music through the swanky “Drum Room”.

And, to end things, my favorite shot by Garret of Anna (we split up to shoot individual portraits). Classic and confident, just like Anna – great job G!