You may remember Amanda and Matt from their San Francisco engagement session blog post a few months ago.  Steve Koo captured those amazing images and also photographed their beautiful wedding at the Kenilworth Club in Chicago.

Amanda’s Amy Kuschel gown is just to-die-for (it’s officially my new favorite wedding gown ever) and a vibrant orange and purple bouquet completes her look.

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Bryce and Coady’s engagement session is special to me for a few reasons. First, I know the groom-to-be Bryce. He is such a smart and fun guy and these photos express his personality so well. Second, Amy from Angela Anderson Photography is just SO talented. And lastly, I just adore how my city is shown off in the places that Bryce and Coady chose for their session.

I do believe I have a new favorite photo. The lighting, the cars… just everything! Michigan Avenue photos are usually so cliche, but not this one.

The train tracks make such an awesome backdrop for photos. These few, at the Quincy stop, are fabulous.

{Just look at this one - the hair blowing in the breeze. You can’t buy perfection like that.}

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I love love love today’s Chicago wedding, photographed by Laurie Peacock. Yes, I’m biased, since I think my city is just phenomenal, but Caroline and Edward’s wedding is too wonderful not to love.  There was an elegant simplicity to the entire event, held at the 63rd Street Beach House, and the ocean-inspired floral designs by Allison Denny at Stems are so unique!

Caroline’s navy blue and green bouquet is exquisite.  I spy cabbage, succulents, and all sorts of treasures in there!

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I have been so busy with wedding season that I have fallen behind a bit on sharing lovely weddings with all the fabulous EAD readers. But I am so happy to be able to share a truly stunning and inspirational wedding from Labor Day weekend with all of you.

Crista and Bill were married at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) here in Chicago. I was so excited about this wedding, as it was one of the last before a wonderful exhibit by Olaffur Eliasson was taken down (if he ever exhibits in your city, please go!). This was my favourite exhibit I’ve seen in a long while, and I couldn’t wait to shoot in such a colourful and inspiring environment.

Bill and Crista are both creatives, and Crista did a beautiful job pulling together a gorgeous event that felt relaxed and artistic.  It was also an incredibly emotional day, with Crista and her sister crying throughout the day–it was really lovely and sweet, and I was so happy to be able to share in the day along with my second photographer, Frank. Also, a big thanks to the amazing team at Kehoe Designs for designing the stunning florals that perfectly played off the rainbow of colours in the exhibit, while not being overkill. Really wonderful job; highly recommend them for very creative and unique displays and bouquets (we were all swooning over the succulents)!

Opening a present from Bill…

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After being rained out during one of the apocalyptic rainstorms we’ve had recently here in Chicago, Jill, Mike and I rescheduled and thankfully had a lovely day to work with, although we did get a taste of true summer temperatures. Jill and Mike love nature, so we planned a session a bit outside of the normal urban sessions I tend to shoot. We had a delightful time wandering through beautiful fields, talking about running and the merits of city vs. country, while trying to avoid fish and snakes.

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Dan and Mary, Dan and Mary….where to begin? During sessions, a couple’s willingness to be open really impacts the photographs. I feel very lucky to have a close relationship, more of a friendship, with most of my clients, which leads to more natural photographs that help to showcase the relationship between the couple. That said, I can think of three couples I’ve shot who were just staggeringly open, and really willing to let me document how they really, truly are, and Dan and Mary were one of them. When this happens it is incredibly humbling for me and makes me feel so lucky to do what I do. I told Dan and Mary they need to start giving consultations to other couples on how to be uninhibited; maybe I’ll ask them to write some tips… They are getting married this September in a lovely wedding at Volo filled with great food and their closest friends.

With that said, thank you so much, Dan and Mary, for spending some time shooting with me. I hope you love these as much as I do.

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My parents are generously paying for most of our wedding. The amount they are donating seems so great to us (albeit reasonable for Chicago) that we truly are grateful and don’t feel comfortable with them paying a cent more, despite their offers - we are employed after all. So when no fairy godmother showed up to save the day, we decided it was up to us to pay the rest. Needless to say, we scrutinize every expense.

So when I brought up my desire to hire a Day of Coordinator (DOC), my fiance seemed skeptical, smirking, “Do we really need a manager for a party?” A party! A party! As if. THE party, get it right beau. :)

Of course, I knew it was necessary. Our venue is a loft where one must hire rentals, buy your own liquor, decorate our own tables - on top of that all, it is on two floors which makes the party a little more complicated. There was no question in my mind that needed a DOC, it was just up to convincing the beau as well. As the mother said in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.

I didn’t have to do much. I got him to meet with Katie, from Detaggli Weddings, in Chicago, and she did the rest just by being herself.  Originally I found Katie by reading other Chicago wedding bloggers who insisted she was better than gold.  But I knew she was the One when I asked our venue manager with whom he worked with best and recognized her name as soon as he said it.   The next day I called her up to set up a meeting.

We met Katie at Starbucks, who despite being pregnant and ridiculously busy, was totally on top of her game (and looking adorable too).  After 30 minutes of talking with her, Dave pulled me aside anxiously saying “We can’t do this without her. Kasia, we really need her.” I was like, “Uh yeah, you don’t need to convince me!”  She brought up issues we hadn’t yet thought of including calculating the amount of liquor we need to buy, lighting our candles before the reception, setting a schedule for the two floor party, etc.   But what sealed the deal was when she said, “I may look sweet, but I’ll say what I need to say and do what I need to do to make sure the day runs smoothly for you.” She can be a biatch - and that’s all I needed to hear.  Better you than me on my wedding day :) I am so happy to pay for my “best friend” for her services, as her DOC package is described.

Are you hiring a DOC?  How did you connect with them?

So I finally made some time last night to organize the gazillion and jazillion pictures of inspiration I’ve saved to my desktop (inspired by hitting the 1 year mark till the big day).  While I was at it,  I made my first inspiration board.  As I’ve mentioned, the wedding style will be chic, simple and reflective of our venue - this fabulous top floor loft in the city of Chicago.  I do plan on adding more green, the color of life, to give it just that since it will be June.  Let me know what you think.

I’ve come to grips with reality this week. My wedding day may NOT be perfect.

As I mentioned before, my fiancé proposed with a placeholder ring last January. At that time I was living in Africa and he didn’t feel comfortable traveling there with valuables. Fortunately, this enabled us to pick out the ring together when I got back to the States last spring - he picked the diamond, and I chose the setting. Our jeweler predicted the ring would take up to 2 months to complete and I recently overheard that the ring is ready! Hooray!

It couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s been nearly 5 months since we got engaged, but since both of us are live in different cities (he in NYC and me in DC) and most of our friends and families live in Chicago, we haven’t had a real acknowledgement/celebration of our engagement. Moreover, besides our mothers and brothers, our family members have yet to be introduced to one another. As a result, we decided to plan an engagement party this June 27th in Chicago. Not only will this enable our friends and families to meet and celebrate, but it will be the perfect place to show off my sparker (a vision I’ve been dreaming about for months). I’ve been growing out my nails, moisturizing my hands and trimming my cuticles all in preparation for the big unveiling.

So you can only imagine my reaction last Wednesday night as I was being rushed to the emergency room - for accidentally amputating the tippety-top of my pointer finger on my LEFT hand (while cooking). I sounded something like this, “WAHHHHHH, WAHHHH,why did this have to happen now! Weeks before I showcase my ring for the very first time! My freakish finger will steal all the attention!” I got a lot of laughs from hospital staff but I was pretty serious.

And so ladies and gentlemen, here it is….the big unveiling.

I’m not sure what will look better at the real unveiling of the ring. Should I cover up my finger with gauze as is, which will be a huge distraction to the ring – or should I go au natural, and let everyone see my finger with half of the tippety-top missing? What is the greater distraction?

Have any of you had similar plans go drastically wrong? Either at bridal events leading up to the big day, or on the wedding day itself? How did you deal with them?

Sara and Pat were married about two weeks ago in the Chicago suburbs. They were referred to me by the wonderful Adam and Emily, who had a wonderful celebration at A New Leaf and were one of my favourite and sweetest couples from 2008 (Part I, Part II). I thought that any friend of theirs would be enjoyable to shoot, and I was so happy to be right on the money with the assessment.

I really love shooting the big, “fabulous” city weddings that we are so fortunate to get here in Chicago, but I also love to have my calendar filled with a few intimate, relaxed, and down-to-earth weddings, which was exactly what Pat and Sara’s was. These are the sort of weddings that are honestly the most humbling for me to be a part of–they help to remind me why I love what I do, and what a gift it is to be included in such intimate celebrations. Pat and Sara were so calm and laid-back the entire day, and it really was a relaxed celebration of their relationship, friends and family.

Sara’s lovely dress was by the always fabulous Dame Couture, who also made my favourite dress of last year, that of the lovely Sam. Sara’s was based on the design of her grandmother’s wedding dress, and it was lovely.

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It’s already June 2009 - only one year away from our wedding! We’ve made a lot of progress since we began planning a few months ago…we’ve picked the venue, chosen the date, picked the church, the photog, the DJ and found the dress (but have not actually bought it yet).

Out of these decisions, the one that gave me the most angst when making it was actually choosing the date. This made me wonder how other brides chose their dates, and whether this was or was not a priority for others. Is it planned or is it arbitrary? What influenced you to pick your date?

I trust that everyone has their own “formula” for choosing their date. Here is how we chose ours.

Dave and I got engaged in January 2009. Before I even got engaged, I had called around a couple of churches and inquired about availability for September or October or 2010 :). I wanted desperately at that point to get married in my 20s and this meant before April 20, 2010 (my 30th birthday). However, all of the September dates were already booked at the church I am getting married at. Of the ones in October, only a couple were available and they weren’t at optimal times.

Right after I got engaged, I continued to work and live in Africa and wasn’t expected to move back until May 2009. Dave was graduating from grad school in May and would begin training for his new job beginning in July 2009 for 3 months, finally settling in to his new position in October. Finally, two of my good friends announced their engagements and September wedding dates. Therefore, based on all this we concluded that it would be way to hectic to get married this summer.

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Although the weather has been lovely lately here in Chicago, we’ve had many days of rain this spring, and overcast skies fell upon us for Terri + Brian’s engagement connection session. We decided to go ahead with the session, though, and I’m so glad we did, as the colours were popping and we were able to create several delightful photographs before the rain started to pour. Terri and Brian are a lovely couple, with Terri’s calm and kind nature perfectly complementing Brian’s fun and outgoing personality. I am so thrilled to shoot their wedding here in November. I hope you enjoy!

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