Bavaria Downs Wedding

If you’ve spent any time on the Cameron & Tia blog before, you’ve definitely seen Mariah & Ben make a few appearances. We met them in 2017 when we photographed Nikita and Josh’s wedding. Ben was the best man and Mariah was a bridesmaid at the wedding. The next year, when we were organizing a styled shoot at The Capitol Room, we asked Mariah & Ben to model for us! They agreed and we got to know these two cuties so much more during that time and found out that we were into so many of the same things – Mumford & Sons (specifically, Spotify’s Happy Folk playlist), traveling, hiking, Yosemite, dogs, and so much more!!

So when Mariah & Ben got engaged, we crossed our fingers, and then when they reached out for us to photograph their wedding, we just about fainted. When sitting down for coffee with them, we then found out that we had SO many more things in common. Their vision for their wedding: prioritizing the guest experience, a unique ceremony focused on the celebration of their love, and dismissing rules and creating a day that felt like them identically aligned with our wedding philosophy. Gosh dang, these guys are the best, right?!

The Wedding Day

All that, and we haven’t even talked about their wedding day yet! So photographing weddings is our job. But we’ll be honest, rarely does a wedding day ever feel like a job. Our couples are amazing and treat us like friends and guests all wrapped into one. They appreciate our work to the extreme! So it’s likely no surprise that this day felt just that way. We felt like we were hanging out with old friends, getting to know their best friends, and celebrating an extraordinary, complimentary love!

So while the details of the day were incredible (aka you’ve got to see what a STUNNING bride Mariah is, thanks in part to many of our absolute favorite vendors – shout out to Brooke, Anna, and Abbi) and our first time exploring Bavaria Downs was unreal, when you compare that to this love story, it all feels secondary. Which once you see this blog post and pick your jaw off the ground from all the beauty, you’ll think we’re crazy. But seriously, these guys’ love trumps all!

As referenced many times during the day, Mariah and Ben are perfect balance of each other, something that Cam and I strive for on the daily. They are such an inspiration and work so well together. So we’ll leave it at this: congratulations to a couple that we look up to so much! Cheers to many more years of National Park road trips with Mumford blasting 🙂