Generally speaking, being a wedding photographer means spending half the year gearing up for the busy season and then waiting for the dust to settle in the winter so you can recharge and do it all over again. Last year I sort of kicked all those ideas to the curb by going on tour in Italy with Robin Bacior for the month of January and then I just kind of kept my feet on the ground after that.

In the spring I went on my annual getaway to Humboldt County, frolicked all over the Pacific Northwest and dipped down into California to start off the busy season. I even went to a couple weddings on the rare weekends that I wasn’t working, and learned that it is possible to shoot a 13-hour day two days after recovering from a nasty flu. After it was all said and done I treated myself to more romps around the PNW with a side plate of dog-sitting outside of Banff for my friends Brittany and Sam in Alberta, Canada. Spoiler Alert: They’re wedding photographers, too.

What can I say, except Weddings Rule Everything Around Me. And five years into this ballgame, I’m still damn happy about that. Please enjoy an exorbitantly large quantity of my favorite moments from 2016. <3