We’re proud to announce that we will be joining Dream Gay Weddings along with several celebrity guest officiants on June 2nd when the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act takes effect for a history making wedding event. Sixty-two couples will have the opportunity to wed during the first day of the law’s enactment. The day’s ceremonies will be followed by an evening wedding reception at the Bolingbrook Golf Club . You can read more about the all inclusive wedding event here and make reservations with Dream Gay Weddings . We’ll be photographing the civil union event with fellow Michigan photographers Jen Lynne Photography and Shutter Sam Photography just to name a few. It should be an exciting celebration!
The 2011 wedding season is off to a great start. We had the privilege of photographing Flynne and David’s wedding at the South Bend Marriott last Saturday evening followed by a fantastic reception at Palais Royale just a block away.
In keeping with Jewish tradition, the ceremony began after sundown on Saturday at 8pm in the atrium of the South Bend Marriott. Earlier in the evening, however, we did have the opportunity to take some photos inside the historic Morris Performing Arts Center.
The evening of the 12th, Larry the Cable Guy was performing at the Morris… I’m not going to lie, I was secretly hoping Larry would come out to the Lobby of the theatre to pose for a picture with our happy couple. We ended up having to settle for one of his promotional posters instead.
Floral design was provided by the always fabulous Polly McCarthy of Poppies.
The Chicago based Dan Hayes Orchestra kicked off the evening and kept the party going, I’m sure, well after we departed. The event was coordinated by Lou Behre of Niles, Michigan.
Mazal tov to Flynne and David as well as their families for designing an incredible wedding. It was a great event to start the wedding season.
The morning of October 2 was gloomy and rainy. I packed up all of our cute umbrellas and started my drive to South Bend for Caitlin and Ryan’s wedding and began going over a creative rain plan for the day in my head. The weather wasn’t looking promising, but anyone who knows me, knows I’m a huge fan of clouds. I even stopped along the highway to take some shots of interesting cloudscapes.
Upon arrival at the South Bend Marriott, I proceeded to set up while the girls finished getting ready. Just as the bride finished putting on her dress, the clouds disappeared and sunshine filled the hotel suite. It was almost like a scene out of a movie.
It turned out to be one of the nicest fall days of 2010 on Notre Dame’s campus and we couldn’t have wished it for a nicer couple. Caitlin and Ryan are the models of what we hope for all of our wedding couples. They had a wonderful wedding, but the celebration was really secondary to their marriage and how in love they are as they start out their new life together.
Ceremony: Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame
Reception: South Bend Marriott‘s Grand Ballroom
Wedding Coordinator: Merry me Events
Floral Design: Michaelangelo’s, The Event Company
DJ: Pro Show
There is absolutely nothing like a beautiful fall day on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. As an alumnus of Notre Dame’s art program, visiting campus to photograph weddings is a great privilege that living in the area affords me. November, in particular, can be a little hit or miss… that is, the weather in our neck of the woods can frequently be cool and rainy this late in the fall. November 6, however, turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of the year. Fall weddings, when the weather is cooperative, tend to have beautiful mid-day light when the sun is lower in the sky. Colleen and Brian could not have ordered more beautiful weather for their Basilica wedding.
Check back soon, we’ll be posting another fall 2010 Notre Dame wedding in the next week. We’re looking forward to another great wedding season in 2011 including a number of Basilica weddings. Give us a call or send us an email if you’re planning a wedding on Notre Dame’s campus.
Weddings tend to slow down a bit here in the Midwest in the middle of the winter… something to do with lack of sunshine and unpredictable weather, but we can often count on a couple wanting to define New Year’s Eve as their own special holiday that they’ll have an excuse to celebrate and embark on another new year, every year. This year (or last, I guess), Jacqueline and Jon, asked us to be part of their New Year’s Eve wedding celebration at the Aberdeen Manor in Valparaiso, Indiana. For those of you who may not be familiar with the time zone situation in Indiana, they have this whole bizarre time zone thing where parts of the state are on Eastern Time and other parts are on Central Time. Valpo, being relatively close to Chicago, follows Central Time. This means that Jami and I got to have our own toast to 2011 a full hour before the rest of the wedding guests, being that we’re both from Michigan which, of course, observes Eastern Time.
Photographing winter weddings can be a bit more challenging due to the weather and lack of daylight at our latitude. You can read some tips for winter wedding photography in my November article at Shore Bride Magazine Online. For Jacqueline and Jon, we knew ahead of time that there probably would not be an opportunity to visit outdoor locations outside of the venue, so the photos really had to be about immersing the newlyweds in the event itself. The couple selected a fantastic hotel close to the ceremony and reception site to get ready. Upon arrival, I was pleasantly surprised by the chic, urban decor and we reorganized the photo itinerary a bit in order to take full advantage of the hotel’s aesthetics.
The reception was fantastic, and the layered lighting offered by the reception room itself as well as supplemental event lighting made for some great photo opportunities. It was a New Year’s Eve in Northwest Indiana not to be forgotten.
It’s probably worth mentioning that the happy couple concluded their celebration by returning to their home in Hawaii where I’m sure they will stay toasty warm and sun-kissed for the remainder of the winter.
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