Daysi & Andrew’s Family-Centered Wedding at Crystal Gardens
Some weddings are built around a huge production.
Daysi and Andrew’s wasn’t.
Their August 8, 2026 wedding at Crystal Gardens Event Center in Howell, Michigan was beautiful, but what I remember most isn’t one particular decoration or perfectly planned moment.
I remember their people.
Two families, two cultures, two languages—and one room full of people who absolutely adored the same couple.
Daysi and Andrew met while serving in the military together, and their relationship eventually brought together two families with very different backgrounds. Daysi’s family primarily speaks Spanish, while Andrew’s family primarily speaks English.
But watching everyone together on their wedding day, the language difference almost felt secondary.
They celebrated together. They laughed together. They danced together. And they showed up for Daysi and Andrew in such a genuine way.
It made the entire wedding feel incredibly family-centered—and incredibly them.
Starting the Day at Andrew’s Family Home
Before heading to Crystal Gardens, we started the morning at Andrew’s family home.
Both sides of the wedding party were getting ready under the same roof, with the guys upstairs and the girls downstairs, which gave us plenty to photograph before anyone headed to the venue.
We started with detail photos and then moved into some photos or Andrew and the family members who were around him.
There’s something I love about beginning a wedding day in a family home.
Wedding venues are beautiful, but a home has a history that you simply can’t manufacture. It gave the beginning of their gallery a completely different feeling from the photographs we would create later in the day.
And once everyone was ready, we headed to Howell for the wedding.
A Crystal Gardens Wedding Ceremony in Howell
Daysi and Andrew held both their ceremony and reception at Crystal Gardens Event Center.
Their ceremony took place beneath Crystal Gardens’ beautiful covered outdoor space, surrounded by white surfaces and large arches.
And from a photography perspective, I loved it.
Covered ceremony spaces can sometimes create difficult lighting, especially on bright summer days. But with so much white surrounding Daysi and Andrew, the light bounced beautifully throughout the space. We were able to keep that bright, airy outdoor feeling without the harsh shadows that direct August sunlight can create.
They also had a violinist playing, which added such an elegant touch as everyone gathered for the ceremony.
One of the seats was reserved in honor of Andrew’s dad, a quiet and meaningful way to make sure he was represented in the day.
Most importantly, though, Daysi and Andrew made their faith central to their ceremony.
Their relationship with Jesus is an important part of who they are, and their Christian ceremony reflected that naturally. It wasn’t about putting on a performance. It was about the commitment they were making to one another and the faith at the center of it.
One of My Favorite Photographs of the Day
There are photographs I know I’m going to love while I’m taking them.
And then there are photographs that happen in about two seconds and somehow become some of my favorites.
For me, one of those happened when Daysi reached the end of the aisle.
Her dad had just walked her down, and before handing her off, he hugged her.
I caught the moment in black and white.
There’s nothing elaborate about the photograph. Nobody needed to create it or pose it.
It was simply a dad hugging his daughter on her wedding day.
And it ended up being one of my favorite photographs from their entire gallery.
Those are the moments I’m always watching for during a wedding—the things happening between the things everyone already knows will happen.
A Wedding That Brought Two Families Together
One of my favorite things about Daysi and Andrew’s wedding was watching their families together.
Because Daysi’s family primarily speaks Spanish and Andrew’s primarily speaks English, there were moments when everyone couldn’t necessarily communicate with each other easily through words.
And yet, it never felt like there were two separate celebrations happening.
It felt like one.
You don’t need to speak the same language to cheer during a wedding ceremony.
You don’t need it to hug someone.
And you definitely don’t need it once the dance floor opens.
The entire day felt like two families genuinely excited to become connected through these two people they love.
The Reception at Crystal Gardens
Once the ceremony was over, the celebration moved into the reception at Crystal Gardens.
There were speeches from the people closest to Daysi and Andrew, including Andrew’s brother, who gave an incredibly heartfelt toast to the newlyweds.
And then there was the cake.
Except this wasn’t exactly the traditional tiered wedding cake moment.
The Tiramisu Wedding Cake
Daysi and Andrew had a tiramisu cake, and I absolutely loved this detail.
Tiramisu-style wedding cakes have become such a fun alternative to a traditional wedding cake, and theirs gave us one of the most memorable little moments of the reception.
Instead of simply cutting into a finished cake, Daysi and Andrew got to participate in finishing it together, shaking cocoa powder over the top.
It was interactive, a little different and made the cake cutting feel like an actual moment rather than something they were doing simply because it was on the wedding timeline.
And, obviously, it photographed really well.
Finding Golden Hour in a Parking Lot
At some point during the reception, we slipped outside for golden-hour portraits.
And this is where I will forever make the argument that you do not need an enormous field, a mountaintop or some impossibly perfect location to create beautiful wedding portraits.
Sometimes you need approximately twelve feet of grass next to a parking lot.
That was basically what we had.
But the light was gorgeous.
So we used it.
By choosing our angles carefully and working with that tiny patch of greenery, we created some of my favorite portraits of Daysi and Andrew from the entire day.
You would never look at the finished photographs and think, Oh, they must be standing next to a parking lot.
And that’s one of the reasons I love golden hour so much.
The right light can completely transform an otherwise ordinary location.
It also gave Daysi and Andrew a few minutes to step away from everything happening inside, be together, and create some beautiful portraits before heading back into their party.
And Then Everyone Danced
Once we were back inside, this wedding became a celebration.
And the dance floor was one of my favorite parts.
There was so much energy, and it was another place where that blending of families and cultures became especially fun to photograph.
By that point, nobody needed an introduction or explanation.
Everyone was simply celebrating Daysi and Andrew.
Those are some of my favorite reception photographs to deliver because they show something the couple can’t fully experience themselves on their wedding day: what all of their favorite people looked like while celebrating them.
A Wedding Centered on What Mattered
There were so many beautiful pieces of Daysi and Andrew’s Crystal Gardens wedding.
The violinist.
The ceremony under the white arches.
The tiramisu cake.
The summer golden-hour portraits.
The dancing.
But I don’t think any of those things individually explain why I enjoyed photographing this wedding so much.
It was the way the entire day felt.
Daysi and Andrew’s wedding was centered on their faith, their marriage and the people who had come to celebrate alongside them.
It was two families with different cultures and different first languages becoming one family.
And underneath all the beautiful wedding details, that was the story worth documenting.
If you’re planning a wedding at Crystal Gardens Event Center in Howell, Michigan, or anywhere throughout Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan, and you want photographs that preserve not only what your wedding looked like but what it felt like to have all of your people together, let’s chat.