Where to begin? Erica and Thom are some awesome humans and it was such a joy to photograph their love during their engagement session in Grand Rapids. As we started off the session they were immediately comfortable; their love for each other is so visible and that always makes my job easy. We started off at New Hotel Mertens which is an amazing new restaurant in downtown Grand Rapids off from Oakes St. It is an old hotel that was vacant that they transformed into a restaurant with so much class and character. The food is great and they have incredible cocktails! The cocktail menus that they use are actually vintage cocktail menus from the old hotel. So as you can tell, it is totally worth checking out! Plus, I heard they eventually want to extend their restaurant to the rooftop. I can only imagine how amazing that would be!
Erica and Thom picked out their engagement locations and did so great at tying them all together. After Hotel New Mertens we stopped at Madcap on Fulton to take advantage of the similar color tones on the street mural. We made a stop at Erica and Thom’s home and I think it is safe to say, after seeing their incredible taste and super homey home, I just know their wedding details are going to be incredible. They had so many meaningful pieces in their home. They looked back through a book that Thom made for Erica after they moved back to the States after living in China. He put together a trip book of all of the places they visited of photos and other paper keepsakes from concerts, restaurants, etc. and they listened to one of their favorite records that Thom got for Erica for her birthday. Everything about the evening was perfect!
And now I am just over here counting down the days until Erica and Thom’s wedding at The Downtown Market!!