Steele Hill Resort Wedding Photos | Carissa + Paul | Rock & Roll Wedding Photographer

It takes a lot of balls to book your wedding near Laconia, NH during Laconia Motorcycle Week, but no one would ever accuse Carissa and Paul of lacking in testicular fortitude. I met the couple while shooting Paul’s brother’s wedding in Brooklyn a few years back and I immediately knew they were something special. At that wedding, the two spent the entire evening tearing up the dance floor, pounding back shots and never taking their hands off of each other. When Paul explained to me that they were going to have a New Hampshire wedding at a resort overlooking the mountains during bike week, I knew their wedding was going to be insane.

Let’s start off with the niceties. Carissa and her bridal party were the most laid back group of women I’ve ever worked with. They were willing to jump in a tub to fire off a wet champagne toast and pretty much said yes to every silly idea I had. Carissa was not only fearless about walking around the grass in her gown before the ceremony, she paired her dress with a badass set of Timberlands. The ceremony was as gorgeous as you can imagine. Fields and mountains went on forever in the distance as the two shared tear-filled vows in front of 150 or so guests that made the journey North. The day was cool and inviting and everyone was happy just to be outdoors watching these two pledge their love forever.

So getting back to bike week. Paul and Carissa are not motorcycle riders, nor did they realize what week it was when they booked their wedding. Even crazier, everyone else that booked the resort (that wasn’t there for the wedding) arrived on two wheels. Needless to say, we had a fabulous leather-clad audience for a good portion of the day. All of the bikers were super cool and it was fun to see the contrast between guests as they milled around the massive Steele Mill property.

When it was time for portraits, I did what you do when you overlook a mountain, and tried to capture an epic image of the couple embracing in front of the gorgeous landscape. As I’m on the ground, a few bikers from the Rat Bastards MC come up and tell me that they need to put the bride on a bike because he can fire flames out the back. I told him that might be a bad idea, especially if the bride catches on fire. He said not to worry and minutes later rode out onto the field on a big-ass Harley. Rather than put the bride on the fiery bike, I put them just in front of the flames and tried to get them to embrace. That’s about when the beers started flying, the bride and groom started chugging and I got the image you see at the top, which pretty much sums up the rest of the evening. The Rat Bastards came to the reception, everyone partied like there was no tomorrow and Carissa and Paul had one of the most original weddings I’ve ever shot.

Here’s Carissa and Pauls Steele Hill Resort wedding photos: