Yesterday was Joan and Max’s wedding. They joined about 1300 Chicago area couples by getting married on 7/7/7. We spent the day at The Seville, on Barrington road. The Seville hosted two weddings in the afternoon and three in the evening. I bet the staff at the Seville was exhausted by day’s end.
Purple and Lilacs were the theme of the day
These chocolate covered strawberries were in the bride’s room at the Seville.
The sweet table at The Seville
Megan and Lance had a great wedding today at Starved Rock. Here are some of my favs from the day.
Here’s Megan checking out the dinning room.
Megan in her infamous pose!
Our couple is a tender moment!
The guys!
It was a great sunset. Take a look at the fire in the sky!
This is what happens at the end of the night when a group of dancers gets together.
As some of you folks are aware, I fell way behind. No matter how hard I worked, I just could not seem to catch up. I finally decided to farm all of the kids out and devote a full work week to catching up. As my previous post mentioned I’ve finally had some time to breathe.
I realize that since I did not have a chance to blog while I was catching up (and honestly I didn’t think I should be blogging when there was tons of work to do), there are several recent events and photo sessions which I did not have a chance to feature. So here are some photos from recent events.
From Brad and Catherine’s Reception. Brad and Catherine had a destination wedding with a small local reception at Pheasant Run. It was a nice intimate affair with just close friends and family celebrating with them.
Next was Brad and Kristin’s wedding. We had a great day. It was absolutely beautiful. Kristin wanted some unique photos so we went to the Schaumburg sculpture garden. Here is a composite image I created just for them!
A great big welcome to Brady. The proud parents are Kevin and Kelly!
Another great wedding day. This time it was Amy and Randy. I don’t think I will ever forget the snack stop we made at all places, Home Depot!
But later on after Randy had his snack he did have time for a romantic moment.
Finally, we have Christie and Brian’s wedding from a week or so ago. I guess I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had great weather and great clients this year.
I’m so sore and achy my aches have pains. We’ve spent the last three days furiously packing the basement to get ready for the demolition and renovation project to begin. Well all of that starts this week. It amazes me how much junk we’ve accumulated over the last ten years. We have a big dumpster sitting in our driveway that is more than half filled with our useless junk. There is still some more to go but right now I just can’t move another box! So for the next several months we’re going to be living in half the space we’ve become accustomed to.
Another milestone was reached over the last week. My birthday. Let’s just say that while I’m not quite old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was only sick, I’m getting old enough to remember when people were still mourning. We had a fairly low key celebration for my birthday. We thought we would try to go out for dinner but the kids did not cooperate. So instead we brought Pizzaria Uno in for a treat. Sheryl went to the store and bought a small cake. All in all a pretty quiet day.
Over that weekend, I shot Laura and Brian’s wedding. I’m still working on the photos so when I have a moment, I’ll post a few. In the meantime, I did finish the first draft of Jennifer and John’s wedding album. As always, you can view current and past albums on my website. Jennifer and John’s album can be viewed by clicking the link.
Today I was at the Complete Wedding Expo at the Schaumburg Hyatt Regency. It was great to talk with all of the newly engaged people who are planning weddings for 2007 and 2008. As always, I hold a drawing for various prizes. The prize for this show is $400 of wedding photos should you decide to book with me. And the winner of today’s drawing is Anna Rinaldi who is getting married September 8, 2007 or 9/8/7. Congrats Anna!
January is over. It was supposed to be a quiet month around here but it has been anything but quiet. There is some exciting news. First, I’ve had some more photos published in two bridal magazines. So if you pick up a copy of the “Wedding Guide Chicago” or in “Brides Chicago” be sure to look for my photos. A few of my past clients are having their fifteen minutes of fame!
Next, I have been working on a deal for something new to use with my material. I can’t tell you all about it just yet, but in addition to all of the standard photographer information (ie. sample photos, prices, etc…), it will have part of a book on wedding planning. That’s all I know at this point, there will be more to come in the days ahead.
If that was not enough, I’m unveiling a new ad.
And the winner is…. Samantha Jackson. Ijust thought I would get that out of the way right away. Earlier today, I was at a bridal show at the Elgin Holiday Inn. At most bridal shows, I hold a drawing for some sort of wedding related prize. Congratulations Samantha, I will be personally contacting you to arrange a time for your complimentary engagement session.
While there were not a lot of people at today’s show, I did get more of a chance to speak with the brides as they came through. However, the couple that made the biggest impression on me were already married. As the story unfolded, it seems they got engaged on Tuesday and married on Friday! Talk about no time to plan a wedding. Wow!
I have just completed the initial design for Melissa’s and Dan’s album. I thought I might try something a little different. Rather than show you some my favorite album spreads from their book, I thought I would try a complete album show.
width="400" height="300" id="test" align="middle"> width="400" height="300"
quality="high"
play="true"
bgColor="#FFFFFF"
wmode="transparent"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
Were you able to view the show. Pretty neat, being able to put a slide show into a blog entry.
What a great wedding to end the season! It was just one of those days that even though we had a slight hitch, both Laura and Gene had such a positive outlook the day could not help but be a success and laughed off the problem.
What happened you might ask? I was in the house when one of the bridesmaids told me the trolley limo was broken! Immediately I started thinking about how we could get the bride, bridesmaids and family to the church on time. I knew that with some rearranging of the equipment in my van, I could take 5 people with me.
I went outside to see what was happening and saw this amazing sight! Did I mention that Laura’s dad just retired from Delta Airlines after 30 some odd years as an airplane mechanic and manager.
After a couple of minutes under the trolley, Joe emerged with the problem well in hand and the bridal party was ready to goto the church. If it wasn’t for Joe’s quick repair who knows how late this wedding could have been.
After the ceremony, we went to the reception site, Ruffled Feathers to take photos of Gene and his entourage. Since this was a 12:30 wedding, we did not have time to finish these photos at the church before the wedding. I’m glad we had the chance to get outside for this photo.
Later on, we all took a ride back to the hotel to rest for about an hour. I was invited to join the group and decided to accompany them to take some more photos. Here’s the bride and groom sharing a Wendy’s french fry.
Finally we returned to the reception hall. There Laura surprised Gene with a cake which duplicated his airplane. She had taken a photo of it to the baker who created this edible plane.
Yes, this was quite a memorable wedding which ended the 2006 wedding season. I already have many 2007 dates booked and wonder what next wedding season has in store for me.
Today was Jamie and Justin’s wedding. While all weddings are special, some have just a little more magic than others. This was one of those wedding that had that little extra sparkle. Not only that, but everything went perfectly.
As this wedding was in Madison, Wisconsin, I was a little concerned about the drive. Despite having furnace problems in the morning and need to wait for the repairman to show up, I still managed to get to the church in time to meet Jamie. Next, the Madison area had some pretty severe storms Friday night. The bridal party had to reherse in the dark. Therefore, the church lady wanted the bridal party to have one more rehersal before the wedding. Somehow, we managed to work around it with little disruption of the photo schedule.
The day continued to be full of magic. This was also a chance for me to take some photos which I could try some new techniques.
I also had time to use some poses with Jamie that I normally don’t have the time to do at most weddings. And to end the day, I got some great emotional shots of Jamie during the day. Like her dancing with one of her two dads. Finally take a look at the bouquette toss. I managed to capture the flowers just as they were being caught. The other thing I like is the ladies on the right who are trying to avoid the flowers. All in all, a magical day.
