Maureen and Gary are great people and great clients. Not only did they indulge me by going outside on a VERY cold day in April, they threw a great party and they were completely relaxed and themselves! When I had emailed Maureen earlier in the week, we had talked about rain locations and decided that if we needed to we’d just go to their favorite bar in Downers Grove, well it turned out to be REALLY cold, so we ended up at Emmett’s anyway! And I do love the photos from there! Maureen is also best friends with Lindsay Vito of Bella Flora (who has done the flowers for a few weddings I’ve shot!) and they’re always fabulous!

Mo and Gary were the perfect clients, they were themselves, they were in love and they trusted any of the crazy ideas that I had (and let me tell you, I have some crazy ideas). So without further ado, their slideshow!

Kara
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Church: Knox Presbyterian Church Naperville, IL
Reception: Central Park West Oak Brook IL
Floral: Bella Flora

Are you thinking about a first look for your wedding day? This new trend has become more and more popular among couples and the photographers always love it! It helps have less time in between your ceremony and reception as all of your pictures are done beforehand so you get to enjoy cocktail hour! There’s no rush on getting to places or anything!

I actually decided on a first look for my own wedding day! And as a photographer, it makes my life a bit easier because there’s very little stress in between the ceremony and reception!

If you haven’t heard of a first look, let me tell you what it is, it’s a moment when the bride and groom get to see each other for the first time, alone, usually with just the photographer and videographer present for that moment. They let the couple have a few moments alone (or as much time as they would like!) and then we move on to portraits with the bride and groom! This is nice because it gives the couple some moments alone on their wedding day which is in high demand! And if you peruse some photography blogs and wonder how they did all of that within the time frame, it’s because of a first look!

Brides have moved towards this more and more because they want the wedding pictures and still want to enjoy cocktail hour with their guests but don’t want a long gap in between or if they’re having their ceremony and reception at the same place. Also, with doing the photos beforehand we don’t get the paparazzi of family and friends vying for your time!

Today on Weddingistas blog, I was featured for some of the photos of Lauren and Brian’s first look! Along with some other great photographers like Rad Photographer out of Ohio made up of a husband and wife team (wish I could get the hubby more on board for this!) and Kristin Byrum who has the cutest pineapple logo! And Robert and Kathleen Photographers in Connecticut who also have a new blog/site combo like me! And lastly but not least some from Raw Photo Design who showed some from Florida and Katie Ardner Photography who we all had first looks from!

The trend is happening all over the nation!

The Weddingista’s also go over the pros and cons of doing a first look on your wedding day! Check them out! Even though they’re in Connecticut, I have camera, will travel

Here’s my one favorite that wasn’t up:

More soon after a nap and hopefully feeling better!!

Kar

Shannon and Matt were the first couple to book me for their wedding last year! Can you believe how time flies? I was just a lowly wedding photographer who didn’t have much on the books but Shannon and Matt took a risk on me and thought that I could definitely photograph their wedding. Their engagement session is still one of my favorites and I believe the first time I ever went to Cantigny in Wheaton!

Any way, we started out the day at Shannon’s parents house in Oswego and then headed to do wedding party pictures in Phillips Park in Oswego. Even though it was so hot out I got everyone through the pictures pretty fast!

Phillips Park Aurora
901 Ray Moses Dr
Aurora, IL

The ceremony was held at St. Anne’s Church in Oswego which had a lot of natural light for me to use!
St. Anne’s Church
551 Boulder Hill Pass
Oswego, IL

The night was finished up at Riverview Banquets in Batavia and we had just a great time with the wonderful wedding party!
Riverview Banquets
1117 N Washington Ave
Batavia, IL 60510

Enough about the day, more will come later but you get the idea, you want the pictures right?

the wedding party was seriously a ton of fun!

I love that when I asked Shannon to go into this field she didn’t even care about her wedding dress! It was all about the photos!

Shannon and Matt it was such a blast to be the photographer for your wedding! Don’t worry, there’s more for you coming!
Kara

Andrea and Adam now live in the sunny state of Florida but still had plans to get married in good old Illinois! We had a lot of fun and Andrea was probably the most relaxed bride I’ve had to that point! She didn’t stress about any part of the day and just laughed things off. I would also like Adam to note that I did include his self portrait in the slideshow when I asked him to hold my camera while I bustled Andrea, Adam decided a self portrait was in order! How funny!

Music generously provided by Andrew Belle Love his stuff!!

Kar

So Kim and Mike were my 2nd engagement session for Saturday!  They were a bunch of fun and I have too many pictures especially because they wanted some more edgy type feel ones.  Done and done.  Oh and they wanted to be on the blog, so here they are

We started in Grant Park and Millennium Park downtown located at 201 E. Randolph Street Chicago IL

And there you have some   I’m seriously burning through these sessions now, and the last 2 of those are my favs!

Ok, back to the grind,

Kar

So this was a fun wedding, little did I know it was going to be a HUGE wedding until a few weeks before!  So I called upon some of my friends and luckily Morgan was available to come along and learn and second shoot for me!

I’ve known the grooms family for 3 years now, watched the youngest place first in jr. high state in wrestling a few years ago as my husband coached him!  And well, there’s 5 boys.  So enough is said    Both families were very sweet even though things didn’t go 100% according to plan!  (weddings tend to run not on schedule all the time…including if your groom forgets the ring…wait, Lauren, did he not tell you that??  But the look on his face was priceless!  Luckily it made it on time to the ceremony!)

Ok, you want to see the pictures right?  I suppose this IS a photo blog at the end of the day…

We’ll start with the boys!

So both the groom and this groomsmen are both wrestling officials so this shot was kind of necessary

All the brothers and dad:

And some of Lauren, isn’t she just glowing?

And some of the groom!

And then it was time for the ceremony to begin!

So the plan was to do a butterfly release…but…it was raining…and the butterflies hadn’t woken up yet…so it was a kind of release!

Isn’t this one just too sweet?

So when I ask you for your rings, do you ever wonder what I do with them?  Don’t worry, I’ll give them back but I’m off to do some fun ring shots!!

And onto the reception!  Lauren’s little girl loved her veil!

One of Kevin’s brothers gave a very lovely speech to which he ended that any single women were to give back their keys to his house, unbeknown to everyone, his brother had given them to several much older women than Kevin!

They were nice to each other when it came to the cake!

The bride with one of her new brother in laws (the youngest) isn’t this light awesome!?

Kevin arranged for a song to be sung for Lauren that they both loved, it was very sweet of him to have the serenade

WHEW, that was a big post!  I think I need to get some slideshows going from now on!  (and I have pictures of all the girls, just didn’t get to them yet!)

Until next time!

Kar

Whew, finally getting this post up!  It’s been a tough week for me regarding being ill but luckily Tracey and Brian were patient!  Because of that, they get a super long blog post!  Wahoo!

Let’s start with flowers, everybody loves flowers

There was some rice krispie treats

The boys were definitely a handful!  But they were a fun group that’s for sure!

Trying to sneak a peek!

Immediately following their first dance, they had a surprise dance mix!  Even had back up dancers!

There was a very fun and upbeat mother/son dance!  This was a family that definitely LOVED to dance!

The reception was at Lino’s in Rockford and they had a great upstairs that towards the end of the night we took some pictures!

Hope you enjoyed!

Kar

1.  Can you believe I’ve actually kept up with this!?  Good job huh?

2.  I got 2 new lenses: fisheye and macro, some macro shots to follow at the end of this post!  I’m so excited about them!!

3.  I have that nasty cold that’s going around, it totally SUCKS.

4.  I have puppy fever BAD.  Can I have a puppy while I’m gone for 11 hours a day?   No?  That’s what I thought…hopefully we can work that out soon

5.  Any kind of tissue you blow your nose with will make it sore, that’s inevitable, instead, use some neosporin to help heal it faster/help prevent!

6. I have TWO weddings this week!  Wahoo!!  I’m so excited!!

7.  I have to halfway run a regional on Saturday for my husband, and go directly to the wedding halfway through it!

8.  I’m calling the next pictures 9 and 10 as well!

9, 10.

Hope you liked those!!  They were my valentine’s day bouquet

Until next time, weddings!  YAY!

Kar

1.  Can you believe how fast a week goes?  It’s already time for 10 on Tuesday again!!

2.  My wedding album finally came in!!  And yes, this is why I include one in my packages, because it took me 9 months to do my own!!

3.  This weekend is the boudoir marathon!!  I have so much interest for a session in June/July so I’ll keep you posted!!

4.  I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory over the weekend.

5.  See the picture of flowers I took?  I need to do some more to it to get it where I want it, but you get the idea

6.  I love sunflare!

7, 8, 9  GUESS THAT BELLY!

10.  I love Giordano’s stuffed pizza with mushrooms and sausage!  My other love is Malnati’s

And, I’m out!

Kar

I know what you’re thinking…who wants engagement pictures outdoors this time of year?!  Well, guess what?  People do and they’re actually pretty fun!!  Well Lori and Daniel braved the elements and we had some fun and didn’t get too cold…at least until the end!   If you go outside a lot in the cold, invest in some under armour cold gear!!

Lori and Dan met here, they wanted a picture, I obliged

New favorite ring shot:

and someone didn’t really  understand the tree photo…..but it was funny….boys usually don’t understand!

Then there was the snowball fight:

and making snow angels…

Dan had to put a face on his…

Ok, that’s all for today!!

Kar