Christa & Drew | Love at Whistling Straits » Heather Cook Elliott Photography

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Christa & Drew met at a magical place on Wisconsin’s lake coast where it is easy to forget that you aren’t in Ireland. Here dunes meet miniature cliffs that drop to vast blue water below and grasses roll like waves over thousands of yards of land. Black faced sheep roam the hills and valleys munching on the green grass, their curly white horns visible in contrast to their dark eyes and noses. This is Whistling Straits and while it is a golf course of fame in the sport, it is special in this story because its where Drew saw Christa for the time and set his mind to meeting that girl. They both worked at the course and Drew had to pull strings to get in her orbit but once he did he never looked back. Drew has been pulling strings like that for awhile now – from arranging their engagement session at the exclusive and private Riverbend Club in Kohler to being the most active groom I’ve ever encountered in the planning process. Christa has been in med school and I get the sense that Drew has immense respect for her and her profession and everything he does is to make sure that stress is not in the picture, that everything goes as perfectly as it can, that Christa feels the magic of their love the way he does. I can say with certainty that she feels it. In abundance.

After spending a truly gorgeous couple of hours meandering the grounds, feeding the sheep and feeling lucky to be apart of this day, we traveled to the Bull at Pinehurst where Drew and Christa were surrounded by love and friendship and some of the most genuine well-wishes I’ve ever heard. The touch of family and friends was everywhere from the homemade cookies at the cookie bar (brilliant!) to the giant, happy paper poms suspended in mid-air to the sweet wedding photographs of those that had paved their way. Drew and Christa decided to hyphenate their names together (which is a practice I adore and wish were more common because it just puts the truth out there: two people joined together to make a new family, there in writing, all legal and beautiful and celebrated.) This, coupled with their sheer awesomeness as people, inspired really lovely and funny speeches – my favorite was Christa’s dad’s toast that included a poem entitled “The Making of a Pittner-Smith.” Drew surprised his new wife with a live guitar-backed performance and he brought the house down. She was floored and smitten and it couldn’t have been any sweeter.