Bar Harbor, Acadia, and MDI Weddings and Elopements

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    Chris and Tessa’s Sutton Island Maine Wedding

    Chris and Tessa’s Sutton Island and Bar Harbor, Maine wedding was a bit of an MDI adventure. We started the day in Northeast Harbor, waiting to meet Tessa’s brother-in-law, Mike, who would be our escort. Then, we caught the mail boat that visits the Cranberry Isles. Sutton Island is the smallest of the Cranberry Isles, so we had to make a special request to the captain to include it in the day’s stops. That’s how tiny the island is! Tessa’s family has a home there that’s been in the family for generations. Everyone chooses a week on the calendar to spend there every year. Tessa’s parents love the island so much that they bought another home within walking distance of the main house so that they could spend even more time there. It created the perfect setup for everyone to spread out as they got ready for the wedding.

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    Louisa & Zach’s August Bar Harbor Wedding

    Louisa has spent many years coming to MDI with her family, so she knew an August wedding in Bar Harbor would be perfect for sharing the area with friends and family. After securing the Bar Harbor Club for the ceremony and reception, Louisa’s mom set out to find a spot that would offer us a stunning backdrop for portraits as well as some privacy. She found the perfect location at a rental home not too far away from the wedding venue. I was impressed!

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    Jill & Rob’s Foggy Acadia Elopement

    A foggy elopement in Acadia National Park was a bit of a surprise for everyone. We had initially planned a time in the evening, but after seeing rain in the forecast, we moved things up to earlier in the day. As Joel and I got closer to MDI on their wedding day, we hit a wall of thick fog surrounding the island. I immediately knew that it would be fun to shoot in. We met up with Jill and Rob at the Ivy Manor Inn. One of the first things Jill said to us was, “maybe we should’ve stuck with the original plan.” It was cold and drizzling in downtown Bar Harbor, but the rain had stopped when we arrived at Otter Point for their ceremony. The temperature had warmed up, and the fog was magical! We all felt a bit like we were in dreamland.

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    Mikaela & Patrick’s Intimate Wedding in Acadia National Park

    An intimate wedding in Acadia National Park was only one of a few different options Mikaela and Patrick considered. Like every couple planning a wedding for 2020 or 2021, it was hard to commit to a game plan when there were pandemic guidelines changing constantly. They knew they wanted a destination wedding, but since a big resort wedding was out of the picture, they decided to make it an adventure for them and their families and pick a place none of them had ever visited. West coast, east coast… Anything was possible.

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    The Best Maine and New England Wedding Photos of 2020

    When I started working on the blog post for our best Maine and New England wedding photos of 2020, I was sure it would be much shorter than usual because COVID-19 hit and shrunk our season considerably. Unfortunately, though, one thing Coronavirus could not change was my inability to scale down my favorites! So this blog post isn’t any shorter at all.

    At the end of 2019, we were to have a wedding almost every weekend of the busy season. However, when early spring hit, many of our clients made the tough decision to jump ship and postpone to 2021 or later. Nevertheless, a few couples hung on and worked incredibly hard to keep their weddings safe. They cut guest lists to under 25 people, incorporated hand sanitizer into the decor, quarantined with those who would be attending their wedding, wore masks as much as possible, and made sure everyone tested. We’ve thanked our clients a million times for keeping things as safe for us as possible, but they deserve another one here. Thank you! After all of the postponements, we ended up with only five micro weddings in 2020. However, we could still travel throughout Maine to Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, Linekin Bay Resort in Boothbay Harbor, and we even got to return to the beautiful Cranberry Isles by boat! In addition, we took a small step over the border to the Snowvillage Inn in New Hampshire. Finally, we photographed a delightful backyard wedding at the Watertown, Massachusetts home of one of our couples.

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    The Best Maine Portraits and Engagement Photos of 2020

    It’s time to share our best Maine portraits and engagement photos from 2020! I think we can all agree that 2020 was a very trying year. Our little business saw so many cancellations and postponements due to Covid-19, and while it was a bit stressful, we were so grateful to be able to adapt and photograph as many people as possible from a safe distance. We were incredibly lucky to have clients who were just as cautious as we were staying at home, wearing masks, going through mass amounts of hand sanitizer, and getting tested before our sessions.

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    Otter Point Acadia Engagement Photos

    I can’t say too much about these two for privacy reasons, but I can say that I had so much fun taking their engagement photos in Acadia National Park back in October. They got engaged the morning of our session (YAY!) during a stroll along the Shore Path in Bar Harbor, so there were a lot of very excited, blissful giggles throughout our session.

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    Little Cranberry Island Maine Wedding: Bryn & Brian

    On the first official day of summer, we jumped on a boat to head to Bryn and Brian’s Little Cranberry Island, Maine wedding. The island is actually named Isleford, but many people know it as Great Cranberry Island’s cool little sibling. Bryn and Brian had originally planned a big wedding in Michigan, but Covid-19 had other plans. They joked on the day about how there were two family weddings in 2019, so they decided to hold off a year for theirs. Who knew!? After realizing that a big wedding just wasn’t going to happen this year, they gathered a small group of their nearest and dearest and quarantined at a family home in Maine as they planned a small wedding on very short notice.

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    Our Favorite Wedding Photos from 2019

    Here they are— our favorite wedding photos from 2019! I know I’ve said it before, but this blog post is my FAVORITE one we get to do every single year. It’s so fun looking back through the thousands of images we created throughout the year. I often find new favorites every time I revisit a gallery.
    This post feels a little extra special this year because it’s officially 2020, which means we’re in our tenth year of business. That’s crazy! I started the business in 2010 as Hailey Tash Photography while I was still a student at the University of Maine. Joel and I were together, but not yet married, so I started under my maiden name. He started second shooting for me at my second wedding, so it became a thing —Hailey & Joel. I can’t believe ten years have passed. It feels like we blinked and wound up here with ten years of the absolutely coolest and kindest clients in our archives.

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    Acadia Couple’s Portraits | Melissa & Lucky

    If you think these two look familiar, that’s because we photographed Melissa and Lucky’s wedding on Peaks Island last year. Quite often, our couples live far from Maine, so we only get to see them on the wedding day before they head back home. Melissa and Lucky live in Texas, so we assumed we probably wouldn’t cross paths again anytime soon. However, Melissa reached out at the end of summer to let me know they were coming to Maine in October to enjoy the fall foliage. She was hoping to do some couple portraits in Acadia National Park while they were around. I was so excited! We only had one date that could work with both of our schedules, so we crossed our fingers that the weather would be kind. Well, it was perfect. It was a stunning October day. I’m so excited that we got to catch up with these two. We started at Jordan Pond before heading to Eagle Lake. We also found some pretty spots along the Park Loop Road to grab some photos where the light was wonderful.