Our Love Story: AC + Joe Madden

In the early days of AC Madden Studios, I wasn’t sure which photography niche I’d like to pursue. I started throwing myself in to every opportunity and idea - head shots, surprise engagements, family mini sessions, pet photography, birthday parties, christenings… you name it, I shot it! And while all of these things fueled my creative fire and confirmed in my heart that photography was and is my passion, there were two areas of the business that gave me butterflies whenever I saw an inquiry come across my inbox: weddings + families. And I quickly realized what I loved most about being behind the camera lens for these sessions: I was getting the privilege of seeing a couple’s or a family’s love story unfold. Right before my eyes + my lens. How special is that?!

So, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day and a holiday dedicated to love stories, I thought I’d share a little bit about my own through a Q&A with my amazing husband, Joe! PS - if you book a session with me, be prepared to be peppered with some of these questions. I LOVE getting to know my couples + families. I feel like it makes for that much more of an authentic, relaxed, and beautiful session when I know more about my clients.

AC: First things first - how did you meet?

Joe: AC and I met in 2013 at our first big-kid job out of college. I think the exact moment was on the elevator on one of my first days of work. AC, the forever trickster and die-hard UGA fan, decided to play a prank on poor, unsuspecting me. I was wearing a Georgia Tech shirt, so AC decided to ask me “hey looks like you have a smudge or something on your shirt?” to which I, rationally, freaked out (re: it was my first day, of course). But she was just pointing to the logo on my shirt!

Joe: Who made the first move?

AC: Joe made the first move! My best friend Kelly was in town and we had plans to go out to the bars in Edgewood with friends. It had been pouring all day and one by one, our friends started to flake on us. I turned to her and said, “I have this coworker friend of mine who is single and would absolutely be down to go out with us… let’s invite him and a friend!” (Yes - I was totally trying to set up my now HUSBAND with my best friend). Not surprisingly, my extroverted and down for anything coworker/friend instantly texted back, asked a little more about my friend (LOL), and said he’d bring a friend too. Fast forward a few hours and we were jumping out of an Uber on to a very rainy Edgewood Ave to begin our night of bar hopping, drinking, and dancing. We ended up at Mother (now permanently closed - RIP), where they had a fantastic atmosphere upstairs perfect for dancing the night away. I was immediately not in to Joe’s friend, and I could sort of tell maybe Joe was interested in… me? The next thing I knew, we were all dancing together and Joe stopped me and asked, “Is it okay if I kiss you?” (we stan a consensual first kiss!) And the rest, as they say, was history.

AC: What’s your favorite memory from when we first started dating?

Joe: We knew each other for a long time before we started dating, so we totally got to skip over a lot of that boring, “get-to-know-you” stuff and hop right on in. I think our first few dates revolved around us going to cool ethnic restaurants that AC hadn’t adventured out to try.

Joe: Who “defined the relationship”?

AC: If Joe made the first move then I guess it’s only fair I be the one to DTR, right?! I was in Athens visiting my friend Dana for the Tennessee game. It was a 3:30 game if I recall correctly, and afterwards, we decided to walk back to her downtown apartment and take a small nap. We ended up waking up around 10pm and neither of us was feeling like going out. I gave her the download on the new guy I was dating - it’d been about 2-3 months at this point - and how I weirdly was… missing him?? She encouraged me to go back to Atlanta and tell him how I felt. And so, at 10:30pm I texted Joe to see what he was doing, and 10 minutes later I was in my car driving back to Atlanta to see him. I don’t remember the specific conversation but I know that by the end of the night we were officially boyfriend + girlfriend. Dawwww. Then the next morning, he got up early to meet up with some friends at brunch. I joined them later that day and when I walked in to the restaurant, they all threw up their hands and clapped for us, telling me congratulations on officially becoming a couple. I was slightly embarrassed but also found it super cute that Joe had clearly told them the news earlier that day.

AC: And who said I love you first?

Joe: Not that AC holds “grudges”, but she does in this specific moment – she said it first! I was the first (and last!) of her boyfriends in which she said it first. I suppose that was a sign of the times to come!

Joe: Can you recall our first big trip together?

AC: We’ve always been a very spontaneous trip-taking couple (admittedly getting more and more into a structured vacay as we get older!), and we decided about one month in to dating that we should go somewhere for Joe’s 25th birthday, which is February 1st. So here we are, one month in to dating, planning a trip 4 months out - to California. We’d be together (along with another couple) for 5 whole days. I’d been to LA but never to San Francisco, so that is where we decided to go. We stayed with Joe’s family friends’, where we slept on an air mattress (with the exception of one night in Healdsburg, a town just outside of Sonoma wine country) and woke up every morning, jumped in our rental car, and headed out to explore the city + surrounding areas. We spent a good bit of time downtown, but we also took a tour of Alcatraz, and spent time in the Muir Woods and along the beaches - including one of our favorite spots, Half Moon Bay. It was the perfect trip and really solidified in my mind that if I could spend 5 days spending 24/7 with this guy, then it just might be the real deal!

AC: What’s been your favorite trip we’ve taken together?

Joe: I think Morocco and Portugal hold a special place, because it was the first international trip where we both were going somewhere the other had never been. Morocco was amazing, Portugal was amazing – though very different and for different reasons – so we ultimately had just an absolute wonderful time!

Joe: When did you know I was “the one”?

AC: I can’t remember exactly when this happened, but I remember being stranded somewhere in Atlanta with a flat tire and calling Joe - absolutely panicked - at 3pm on a work day to please come help me change this tire. He picked up immediately, responded calmly, and was there in less than 20 minutes. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but I should’ve prefaced by saying: this was not my first flat tire in our dating relationship, and probably not the second… or the third, for that matter. And very likely these incidents were all a result of me doing something reckless and/or not changing my tires as often as I should (sorry, dad - you did try to tell me!). As I was driving off on my newly finagled donut wheel, the realization that Joe was the one just completely overwhelmed me - and in the best way. Here was this guy who checked all of the boxes, but most importantly, he was dependable and kind. He is the first person to lend a hand to anyone who needs help - friends, family, neighbors, and total strangers.

AC: When, where, and how did you pop the question?

Joe: We were originally supposed to get engaged on a Saturday, the day after we arrived in Beijing, China for a two week long Asia adventure! We got about halfway from my brother and SIL’s apartment to the Great Wall and realized the smog and dust was really bad (and ultimately would not make for the perfect backdrop and photo opportunity I’d envisioned). For AC, it wasn’t a big deal to push back our Great Wall trip one day (then again, she probably suspected the proposal was forthcoming!). We turned the car around and decided we’d try again tomorrow - which ended up being the best game time decision ever. I popped the question on a Sunday on the Great Wall of China by getting down on one knee and asking, “AC, will you marry me?” It wasn’t much of a question, if we are being honest – I was too nervous to put the inflection in the right place! Funny story – we had been taking photos on the Wall and I went to move the ring from my bag to my shorts but had to hide it in the waist band so it wouldn’t show. It was at that moment that AC decided she wanted to do “cool” jumping photos… So there are quite a few photos of me jumping like a salmon to make sure that ring stayed where it was supposed to be!

Joe: What did you love most about being engaged?

AC: Knowing that I was that much closer to locking down Joe for life - as my mom (still) likes to say to Joe, “I tried my best with her, Joe. She’s all yours now.” Ha! But seriously, I loved all of the support and genuine love that we received from our friends and family. Also, I LOVED planning the wedding - almost so much so that I considered changing careers! We paid for the majority of the wedding ourselves, so one thing we decided to cut early on was a wedding planner. Enter me: the most type-A control freak when it comes to making plans. I think my mom and MIL still have nightmares to this day when I bring up the “Wedding Google Doc” - that thing was like 20 pages long! But you know what, it helped me (and everyone else) stay on track with timelines and budgets - and we had the absolute BEST wedding day, ever.

AC: What’s your favorite memory from our wedding day?

Joe: Split decision between 1) seeing AC walking down the aisle (we did not do a “sneak peek/first look” as we wanted to keep it traditional - or as AC likes to say, she wanted to try to make it as emotional of a moment as possible in an attempt to get me to cry - ha!) and 2) hearing my good friend Danny, the officiant, say “I now pronounce you husband and wife!” It would be impossible for me to choose!

photographer credit…

Joe: What challenges have we faced together as a couple?

AC: We have been very blessed to have a relatively smooth first 2.5 years of marriage. Of course we have things day to day that may come up, but in terms of big life events, the majority so far have been very positive. I will say, it was tough when Joe accepted a job in San Francisco right when the pandemic hit (and us being newlywed for only 4 months). We didn’t really know how long he’d be away, which I think was the hardest part of it all. Thankfully he was only gone for two months and I did get to visit him once while he was away. TRIGGER WARNING - PREGNANCY LOSS: The second and probably toughest challenge we’ve faced would be this past July when we lost our first baby. We were so ecstatic to have gotten pregnant on our first try, only to find out a few days later that it wasn’t viable. We decided early on that we wanted to be transparent and vocal about our loss because 1. we wanted the support from our friends and family, and 2. we wanted to be a source of comfort and a safe space to anyone else who may have also experienced or may one day experience this tragedy. We truly had no idea how many people (and friends of ours!) have gone through exactly what we have! The percentage of pregnancies ending in miscarriage is mind-blowing; it’s likely even higher than the estimated 25% due to the stigma in general, and also undetected pregnancy loss that happens very early on like ours did. We were very lucky to get pregnant again pretty quickly after that, but also couldn’t help but feel anxious and slightly pessimistic that it wouldn’t “stick” - the last thing we wanted was to get our hopes up again. There was for sure a lot of bitterness in the beginning and we felt “robbed” from experiencing the joys of a couple’s first pregnancy, but we got through it together and supported each other throughout a very emotional first trimester.

AC: What at are some of the proudest accomplishments we’ve achieved together in our marriage?

Joe: That today is a new PR for number of days married! This is applicable every single day! But seriously, we’ve been able to navigate so many things together – buying a house, getting a cat and a dog, making a baby, surviving a pandemic semi-sane. The biggest milestones and grand gestures are great, but it’s the everyday constants that shouldn’t be overlooked!

What do we love most about being married?

AC: I’ve loved having someone you know with 100% certainty you can rely on at all times, and vice versa. Doing life alone would be incredibly hard, but it’s a lot easier (and more fun!) when you have someone there by your side. I love how you can be your true authentic self around that person and they know you better than probably anyone else in the world. And also, yes, I do enjoy having a built-in second shooter/ (self-proclaimed) “Instagram Husband” by my side to help me create content for AC Madden Studios. He really is the best!

Joe: The tax benefits. (Is that still a thing??) But really, I think just waking up every single day knowing that I’m in a stable, loving relationship with an all-around badass is a hard feeling to describe. It just makes sense when you are in the thick of it and I am enjoying it to the fullest. I am sure AC’s answer will include “permanently having a photographer at my beck and call”.

What do we most look forward to as a couple this year?

Joe: Birth of the baby, obviously. I think there is nothing else that can really compare to that, so this one is a real no-brainer.

AC: I would have to agree. I’m so proud of the life we’ve built just the two of us, but I can’t wait to meet our baby boy and become a family of three!