Lillian and I overlapped in high school, so when she founded Gold Wing Photography, I started following her on Facebook as way to support a local artist. I am so glad I did, because she quickly became one of my favorite Vermont photographers. W...hen I proposed to my wife, Ellie, in 2018, Lillian was the first person I contacted about photographing the moment (even before I knew exactly what the moment would look like). Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Lillian/Gold Wing Photography two more times over the past couple of years: elopement ceremony two days later, and then again this past year, Ellie and I had a more formal wedding celebration with friends and family, and we hired Lillian as our photographer again.
THE PROPOSAL:
I reach out to Lillian in January and told her I was hoping to propose at the end of February. We set up a time at a Cafe and make plans. After making some initial plans Lillian remained flexible and easy to work with. My initial plans for a proposal were foiled when we had back-to-back 60 degrees days which melted my ice-rink. The day of I called Lillian and we decided to wait for another day. The following Saturday, I took a walk with Ellie around the Trail around Middlebury. Lillian followed from a distance posing as another walker. I proposed to Ellie at Sunset and Lillian took some beautiful photos.
THE ELOPEMENT:
When I proposed to Ellie, I asked her “will you marry me on Monday,” and so two days after the proposal Lillian joined us in Middlebury again. Because it was an informal ceremony, we didn’t have a precise schedule for the day, but Lillian did a great job of going with the flow, and taking pictures of us both getting ready, the two of us in a the chapel, and then the small celebration after.
THE WEDDING:
When Ellie and I eloped, we weren’t sure if we would have a traditional wedding ceremony, however a year later, we gathered our family and friends together to celebrate with us. We had such great time working with Lillian, and we loved her photos from our engagement and elopement so much, that we decided we wanted Gold Wing Photography back to document our traditional wedding celebration as well. And of course, she was amazing again. Lillian took all the specific photos we asked for, and did a wonderful job of unobtrusively documenting our wedding (they were so stealthy, at one point I remember looking around to see if they were still there...they were).
I love how Lillian captures light, color, and movement. She doesn’t rely on cliche poses and props to document her subjects. She captures moments with her own beautiful and unique artistic vision. Each photograph is a work of art. We’ve gotten so many compliments on all our photos.