Behind the Lens

Hey Homie, I'm Aireal!

West Virginia Wedding Photographer & Professional Third Wheel

Professional overthinker. Foster parent. Neurospicy human. Occasional bad influence.

If you're going to trust me to follow you around for one of the most emotional, chaotic, expensive and deeply personal days of your life, I think you deserve to know who the hell you're inviting.

So... hi.

Let's get uncomfortably acquainted.

MEET YOUR POTENTIAL THIRD WHEEL ↓

Well Fuck. Alright, since you are still here... let's get into it.

To start, I’ve been on this planet for 28 rotations around the sun, although people who don’t know that when they meet me tend to assume I’m somewhere in my mid-30s.

Apparently, it’s “the way I carry myself.”

Which is a very polite way of saying I have the personality of someone who has already lived approximately three lifetimes.

I grew up early. Like, way too fucking early.

I come from a broken, complicated, pretty fucked-up family, and I was parenting parents and helping raise a sibling before I was even out of middle school. So while other kids were figuring out normal kid shit, I was learning how to read a room, anticipate someone else’s needs, keep the peace, solve problems that weren’t mine to solve, and be the responsible one when the actual adults weren’t being particularly responsible.

Would I recommend it?

Absolutely the fuck not.

Did it accidentally turn me into a hyper-independent, deeply empathetic, weirdly observant adult who can remain calm while everything around me is going to shit?

... Fortunately for you, yes, yes it did.

Pre-wedding bathroom selfie

Post-wedding car selfie

If you're still here... Wow. You must be traumatized, too.

I guess I will continue, then.

SOMEHOW, I GOT INCREDIBLY LUCKY IN THE LOVE DEPARTMENT.

I’ve been with my partner for 14 years, which means we’ve been together since we were children with bad haircuts and questionable decision-making skills. We’re high school sweethearts, survived growing up together, and still somehow genuinely like each other. So I’m not exactly a hopeless romantic.

I’m more of a love-is-beautiful-but-also-weird-and-hard-and-sometimes-you-want-to-strangle-each-other-over-how-the-dishwasher-was-loaded romantic.

A photo from our first date

Prom - his senior, my junior

Our hike up Seneca Rocks

Somewhere along the way, I became a foster parent.

I'm currently a foster parent to my five-year-old little brother, which has been simultaneously one of the hardest, weirdest, most exhausting, and most meaningful chapters of my life.

It has also confirmed two things I already suspected:

I would fight a bear for the people I love.

And five-year-olds have absolutely no respect for personal space.

Proud owner of a brain that is running approximately 37 browser tabs at any given moment.

(And honestly, that's definitely an underestimate.)

I have diagnosed ADHD and self-diagnosed, peer-reviewed autism. Together, they make a delightful little AuDHD cocktail that means I can simultaneously forget why I walked into a room and notice that someone three tables away at your reception looks uncomfortable. Honestly, it comes in handy.

Because I notice people.

I notice when someone is overwhelmed, when Grandma is quietly watching you from across the room, when your dad is trying very hard not to cry, when your best friend is about to do something incredibly stupid, when you need someone to tell you what the hell to do with your hands... And when you just need five minutes away from everyone else to breathe.

I will say that the broken, complicated, fucked-up family I grew up with taught me something pretty important:

Families are messy.

Relationships are messy.

People are messy.

You don't have to pretend otherwise around me.

Your parents can be divorced and unable to stand beside each other. Your family tree can require diagrams and a small investigative team. Someone can be estranged. Someone important can be missing. You can adore your family and still need boundaries with them.

None of that has to make your wedding day feel less.

And I am never going to ask you to perform some picture-perfect version of your life for my camera.

Maybe that's also why, after all these years and all these weddings, I still get anxious before every single one.

Every. Damn. One.

There's usually a moment on the drive there when my brain goes, “What if today is the day you suddenly forget how cameras work?”

It hasn't happened yet. And the anxiety isn't because I don't know what I'm doing. It's because I know this matters.

You don't get another first look. Your grandparents won't always be here. Your loved ones may never all be in the same room like this again.

I take that responsibility seriously.

Myself?

Taken considerably less seriously.

I swear. I laugh loudly. My sense of humor occasionally belongs in the gutter & could make a sailor blush. At some point, I'm probably going to hype you up, fix something that's falling apart, help solve a problem nobody warned me was my problem, and make at least one wildly inappropriate joke when everyone desperately needs the tension broken.

I will be the very first to admit - I'm not everybody's photographer.

And I genuinely don't want to be.

But if you're a little weird, a little complicated, deeply in love, occasionally inappropriate, carrying some baggage, and trying your best to build a beautiful life anyway?

Yeah, I have a feeling we're going to get along just fucking fine.

I want you to know exactly where I stand.

This is a safe space for the gals, gays, theys, straights, queers, weirdos, black sheep, complicated families, chosen families, neurospicy humans, and anybody else who has ever wondered whether they were going to be judged for showing up exactly as they are.

You won't be.

Love is love. Queer couples are valid as fuck. Your pronouns matter. Your chosen family is family. And I'm never going to assume what your relationship, wedding party, family structure, or wedding is “supposed” to look like.

You don't have to make yourself more palatable here.

Remember?

You don't have to pretend around me.

THE AIREAL STARTER PACK

🎧 Currently blasting:

All Time Low / Halsey / ADTR / Ashnikko / Magnolia Park

🎮 Probably playing:

Skyrim / Fallout / Pokémon / Fortnite

📺 Comfort rewatches:

Shrek / Twilight / Pitch Perfect / Bob's Burgers

🌲 Happy place:

Middle of the woods, beside a waterfall, under the stars... or my own damn couch.

🍴 Food hierarchy:

Mac & cheese / PB pie / Chili's Southwest eggrolls

💜 General aesthetic:

Purple / fall / cats / rose vanilla / questionable humor

WHAT HIRING ME ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE:

When i go to take my first shot of the day

when no one ELSE knows how to pin a boutonnière Correctly

WHEN AUNT LINDA PULLS HER PHONE OUT DURING YOUR UNPLUGGED CEREMONY

during your vow exchange

immediately after your ceremony

WHEN IT'S TIME For COuples PORTRAITS

REMINDING YOU TO SHOW OFF YOUR RINGS IN YOUR PORTRAITS

WHEN EVERYONE HITS THE DANCE FLOOR

AS SOON AS I GET HOME at the end of the day

Am I sounding interesting, yet?

So, you're getting married. Hell yeah.

And somewhere between choosing a venue, figuring out who the hell is sitting where, and wondering why flowers cost that much, you've found yourself looking for a West Virginia wedding photographer.

I'm not particularly interested in making your wedding look like somebody else's.

I want yours.

The belly laughs. The ugly crying. The weird inside jokes. The way your person looks at you when you're not paying attention. Your grandma absolutely tearing up the dance floor. Your best friend giving a speech that starts heartfelt and somehow ends with information nobody's mother needed to know.

The quiet stuff, too.

A hand squeezed under the table. Your dad standing off to the side trying very hard to keep it together. Five minutes alone together after the ceremony when you finally get to look at each other and think, holy shit, we actually did it.

That's the good stuff.

Your wedding doesn't have to look like Pinterest. You don't have to follow traditions you don't give a shit about. You don't need matching bridesmaids, a perfectly curated color palette, or 150 people watching you exchange vows if that sounds like your personal version of hell.

Want to get married barefoot on top of a mountain?

Let's go.

Want 200 people, a packed dance floor, and Grandma doing shots at the bar?

I'm there.

Want to sneak away into the West Virginia mountains with ten of your favorite humans, exchange vows beside a waterfall, eat pizza afterward, and call it a wedding?

Please fucking invite me.

Because the best weddings I've photographed aren't the ones where everything was perfect.

They're the ones where people stopped worrying about what a wedding was supposed to look like and made choices that actually felt like them.

That's what I want for you.

I'll give you direction when you need it, disappear into the background when you don't, keep an eye out for the moments happening when nobody thinks I'm watching, and help keep things moving when wedding-day chaos inevitably decides to make an appearance.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we'll make some damn good photographs.

Not photographs of who Pinterest thinks you should be.

Photographs of you.

Bride and groom celebrate their new marriage with a sparkler exit from the White Barn at Lucas Farms in Oakland, MD

Your photographer should feel like one of the easiest “hell yes” decisions you make.

I'm not trying to photograph every couple getting married in West Virginia.

I'm looking for my people.

The couples who...

1.) Are unapologetically themselves.

Weird? Nerdy? Loud? Tattooed? Quiet? Neurospicy? Queer? Have a mildly concerning sense of humor? Excellent. I don't need you to be cool. I need you to be you.

2.) Actually really fucking like each other.

Obviously I want you to be in love. But I also want the kind of love where you're best friends. You make each other laugh. You annoy the shit out of each other. You have ridiculous inside jokes. You still choose each other anyway.

3.) Care more about having a good time than having a “perfect” wedding.

Something will probably run late. Someone will forget something. The weather may decide to choose violence. That's okay. I want you present for your wedding instead of spending the whole day worrying whether everything looks exactly like the Pinterest board.

4.) Trust me enough to occasionally say, “Okay, this sounds weird, but hear me out...”

Maybe that means running into the rain. Sneaking away at sunset. Standing somewhere unexpected. Or abandoning the original plan because I just spotted ridiculously good light.

You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

But a little “fuck it, let's try it” energy goes a long way.

5.) Understand that photographs become more valuable with time.

You're not just paying for pretty pictures to post after the wedding.

You're creating a record of people you love exactly as they are right now.

Someday, the photograph you care about most might not be the epic sunset portrait.

It might be the one of someone you would give absolutely anything to sit beside again.

6.) Are feeding me dessert.

Okay, fine. This one isn't technically required.

But if there's cheesecake, tiramisu, or some ridiculously good local bakery involved, I feel like that's information your photographer deserves to have in advance.

Take a look around. Read about how I work. Look through the weird, beautiful humans I've already had the privilege of photographing. Check out my pricing. Stalk me a little. And if you get to the end and think, "Yep. She's our kind of weird."... I think we should probably talk.