I
’ve always been drawn to the things that become more valuable with time — photographs, handwritten notes, well-loved books, long conversations, and the people who make a place feel like home.
I was born and raised in Northern California, and for almost two decades, photography has given me a front-row seat to some of life’s most meaningful beginnings. Weddings have taken me from California to celebrations across the country, but what continues to hold my attention isn’t simply where a wedding takes place or how beautifully it is designed. It’s the people.
The hand reaching for yours without thinking. The expression that disappears a second later. The way someone you love looks at you when you aren’t looking back.
I’m endlessly interested in those small, human things — and in making photographs beautiful enough to honor them.
Away from a wedding day, I’m happiest over a long conversation, somewhere in the mountains, lost in a good book, or sharing a table with people I love. I find home in people, and I think that has shaped nearly everything about the way I photograph them.
A glance across a room. The movement of a veil. A hand resting quietly on a shoulder. Light falling somewhere for only a moment.
I’m drawn to beauty, but never at the expense of what is real. My work lives in the balance between creating something artful and leaving enough room for life to unfold naturally in front of me.
As an artist, I find BEAUTY in what might otherwise be missed.
They married in 1950, at nineteen and seventeen. When I made this photograph, they had been husband and wife for sixty-seven years. In their hands is the wedding photograph they had carried with them through all of it — one image from day one.
Growing up, there was an immense amount of time sprent at their home. At the end of a long, narrow hallway, family photographs covered the walls: weddings, babies, birthdays, and ordinary seasons of life. I didn’t have language for it then, but I was walking past our family history every day.
That hallway taught me that photographs don’t stay the same. Their meaning grows as the years pass, as families change, and as the people within them become even more precious.
It is why I photograph weddings the way I do now — not simply for what the day looks like, but for what these photographs may someday become.
this is my granny & poppa
where this belief began
I also believe photographs are meant to become more than files on a screen. Printed, framed, and gathered into albums, they become part of the physical landscape of a family — passed in a hallway, held in your hands, left open on a table, and returned to again and again as the years move forward.
They become tangible reminders that these people were here, that this love was lived, and that this day was the beginning of something larger.
One day, someone you love may hold your wedding photograph in their hands, too.
Artistic and poignant photography made Catie the natural choice for our wedding photos.
For our wedding, she has readily worked within the restrictions placed by our wedding venue with professionalism and aplomb. As I look back over the years at our wedding photos, I know I will marvel at the beauty of the moment captured in Catie’s photography and be thankful she was our wedding photographer.
michele & ramzi
IN THEIR WORDS
FRAME
outside the
the things that feel most like home
1
My favorite person — and my favorite place to come home to.
2
My tiny, four-legged shadows –
Melvin & Sheldon.
3
Well-loved books, preferably with nowhere I need to be.
4
Fresh flowers, always.
5
Mountain air and wide-open places.
THE HEART
A wedding day is filled with moments you know to expect — the ceremony, the portraits, the people gathered around you. But so much of what becomes meaningful later happens quietly in between.
A hand reaching for yours beneath the table. The expression on a parent’s face just before the ceremony begins. A friend laughing from across the room. The way someone who has known you your entire life looks at you for half a second longer than usual.
Those are the moments I’m always watching for.
I believe beautiful photographs can be intentionally created without asking a wedding day to become a performance. There are times I’ll offer direction, refine the light, or make space for a portrait to become something extraordinary. And there are times when the most important thing I can do is notice what is already unfolding and leave it untouched.
My work lives in that balance — artistry and instinct, beauty and humanity, intention and room for the unexpected.
Because eventually, the flowers will be gone, the music will stop, and the people you love will return to their everyday lives. What remains are the photographs: not only of how everything looked, but of who was there, how it felt, and the small things you may not have realized you would miss.
Those are the photographs I want to make for you.
behind the photographs
A well-considered timeline does more than keep the day moving. It creates space to be present, enjoy the people you’ve gathered, and allow meaningful moments to unfold without feeling rushed.
I’ve gathered five of the things I consider when helping my couples shape a wedding-day timeline that supports both the experience and the photographs.
SEND ME THE GUIDE
