Country-Style Wedding Photos

Jul 23, 2019 | Weddings

I have photos from one more wedding last summer to share with you.  This was quite the wedding!  The ceremony was on the bride’s parents’ front lawn, and the reception was a mile down the road in a tent in a private park near the Fox River.  The rain held off until the reception had started (lucky!), but some outdoor activities had to be cancelled due to the weather.  They had wanted all the guests to send floating lanterns down the river at the end of the evening.  Scroll down to the photos at the end to see what actually happened.

All of these lovely photos are courtesy of Kelly Jo Photo.  Catering was by 3 Chefs Catering; tent from Blue Peak Tents; DJ from Waysound Recording; Zippy Photo Booth did their thing; flowers from Wildrose Floral Design; dessert from B’s Sweet Bites; video by Whole Hearted Wedding Films; and portable restrooms from Crown Restrooms.

A large lawn in front of a suburban house, with rows of white chairs set up on two sides of an aisle. A rustic-looking arch is in front of the chairs.

A bride and groom in front of a rustic, flower-festooned arch, with an officiant and groomsmen in the background. The bride is leaning forward laughing, while the groom and a groomsman smile.

A man in a blue jacket and khaki pants, with a white boutonniere, rides a motorcycle with a sidecar. In the sidecar is a woman in a white dress and veil, holding up a bouquet of yellow and white flowers. Both are smiling.

Bride and groom in a large reception tent cutting a cake with a hunting knife and laughing.

Several people sit at a long table covered in a blue cloth with vases and garlands of yellow and white flowers on it. All are raising beer bottles for a toast.

A man and a woman stand face to face in the light of two candle lanterns they are holding between them.

A man and a woman, with their clothes hiked above their knees, stand in a river. Each has a floating lantern in their hands.

A man and a woman, seen from behind, embracing while they stand in a river above their knees. They are watching two lighted floating lanterns as they float downstream in the dark.

Climate Change and Your Wedding

Jul 15, 2019 | wedding planning

A view out a rainy window, with the focus on the raindrops on the glass. Blurred outside are greenery and a path.

Actual view out the window looking at where the ceremony was supposed to take place. Photo by Becca Heuer Photography.

This is a tough one to think about.  I like to stay positive, but I can’t help noticing that it’s getting harder and harder to do outdoor events, due to changes in the climate.  One of the things that climate change brings is more instability in the atmosphere.  I’ve noticed that that can make weather prediction trickier.

I’m no meteorologist, but watching the weather has been a hobby of mine for a very long time.  I enjoy looking at the weather radar maps and at the weather forecast maps, and making my own predictions about future conditions.  Up until recently, I was pretty accurate.  Given enough information, I could make a good call on whether a given event was going to be able to be outside, or not.

On a recent weekend, I had two outdoor weddings on a Saturday.  I’m used to being able to make a weather call 24-48 hours before an event.  Well, that didn’t work this time.  Starting about 36 hours before the event, the weather forecast changed drastically about every six hours.  First, it was a high chance of rain; then a low chance; then back to a high likelihood; and then low again.  The only thing that wasn’t predicted was what happened:  clear skies and sunny. (I guess that falls under “very low chance of rain”??)

One wedding that day had to make their rain call the day before, when it looked like there would almost definitely be rain.  They had the wedding indoors, even though the day was gorgeous.  The other wedding didn’t have to make the call until about 3 hours before the ceremony time.  By that time, it was a pretty sure thing that it was not going to rain, so they managed to have their ceremony outdoors.

So, if you’re planning a wedding, or any other outdoor event, just be sure to have a solid rain plan, and be ready to use it at a moment’s notice.  It seems that there are times when it may be hard to tell what is going to happen.

Who Runs Your Wedding?

Jul 8, 2019 | wedding planning

Two people wearing black standing near a buffet table.

Here is your planner/coordinator team at work. Don’t be fooled: Sometimes we’re working hardest when we are standing still! Photo courtesy of Godzroqk Designs.

So, you are getting married, and you’ve never done this before.  You don’t know:  Who is in charge of running things on the day of your wedding?  Is it the venue manager?  The caterer?  Your planner or coordinator?

The answer is:  Yes!

Now, I’m not going to promise that my experience will predict what every other wedding team will do; different people work different ways.  But here is how I see it:

The venue manager is there to protect the interests of the location.  Whether it’s a historic mansion or a downtown loft, they want to have someone there to make sure the physical location (and its reputation!) remain intact.  They are also invaluable as a source of information on how the space works best–and where to find things.  They are your first Very Important Team Member (VITM).

The caterer is not just in charge of food.  The caterer is also in charge of the staff that makes 90% of your event happen.  They set up chairs for the ceremony (unless the venue does that), take them down, move them to the reception location, set up and set the tables, set up and stock the bar, serve, tend bar, and clean up at the end of the night.  So, if something needs to happen in any of these areas, your caterer is in the picture.  Your Caterer is #2 on the list of VITMs.

Finally, you have your planner or coordinator.  They work exclusively for you, representing your interests, in so far as you have communicated them to her.  Ideally, your planner, caterer, and venue  manager all work together as a team.

The one person who should have the most information, though, is your planner–who also has the scoop on your florist, DJ, officiant, photographer, bus company, hair and make-up people, and all the other professionals you have hired.

The way I like to work is to gather all the information possible from all of your vendors, and then share it with each of them.  That helps to keep everyone on the same page.  It means I can answer questions from each vendor about what all the other vendors are doing, and I can coordinate among them for maximum efficiency.

If the bus is running late getting the guests to the ceremony, I can alert the caterer that we are running behind.  When the videographer needs to get a sound feed from the DJ, I make sure they are working together.  And a thousand other little things that make the day flow.

What this means for you when you are planning your wedding is that you should always keep your planner or coordinator in the loop.  You will probably never see 90% of the work I do for your wedding because it mainly takes place under the radar.  But the more you tell me about what you want and what you have planned, the better I can make it all happen.

Photos from Multi-Cultural Korean-Chinese Wedding

Jul 1, 2019 | Weddings

If you have been following me on Instagram (and, if not, why not?), then you may have seen a few of these photos from a wedding last summer.  This was one of the sweetest weddings I have worked on in a long time.  It was also culturally very interesting.  I didn’t know much about Korean wedding customs beforehand, so I got to learn a few new things.  I had worked with clients of Chinese heritage in the past, so I was more familiar with things like the Chinese Tea Ceremony.  But there is always more to know!

The other thing I loved about this wedding was that it was very much an Evanston wedding.  The couple are both graduates of Northwestern, so they got married at Alice Millar Chapel.  The reception was at the Evanston Golf Club— which is technically in Skokie, but it is close enough!  Flowers were from FlowersFlowers in downtown Evanston.  And all photos are by Evanston’s BlurFoto.

Molly’s Cupcakes provided the cake; DJ and photo booth came from Windy City Mix; and transportation came from both LCW Coach and VIP Livery.

Take a look at this completely adorable couple and their cute, cute wedding.  First, a few photos of the ceremony venue.

The entrance to a stone building with a carved sign, "Alice Millar Chapel."

A large stained-glass window in a chapel.

Modern organ pipes

The bride’s father walked her down the aisle–and then slipped into his clergyman’s robe to perform the ceremony!

A woman wearing a white dress and a veil, and carrying a bouquet of white roses, walks down the aisle on the arm of a man in a gray suit.

A woman in a white dress and veil, holding a bouquet of white roses, faces a man in a blue suit. Between them is a man in a clerical robe.

And then the fun began!

One woman in white is flanked by four women in aqua dresses. The four make "rabbit ears" over the one woman's head.

A man and a woman are seen kissing over a bank of flowers.

A 2-tier white wedding cake with white and blue flower decorations

Two women try on silly hats and other photo booth props.

Oversized sunglasses and silly hats as photo booth props.

Two men and a woman wearing silly hats and masks in a photo booth.

A man in a blue suit and a woman in a white dress dance on a dance floor.

At the end of the reception, it was time for the traditional Chinese tea ceremony.  As the groom’s uncle, who was master of ceremonies for the tea ceremony, explained, the tradition came about as a way for the groom’s family to welcome the bride as part of their family.

A red and white Chinese tea set, seen from above.

Close-up of tea being poured into a red Chinese tea cup.

A woman in a traditional Korean dress and a man in a blue suit stand near an older man with his hands on a small table containing a red and white Chinese tea set.

A woman in a traditional Korean dress and a man in a blue suit serve tea to an older couple.

Everyone had a fun day!

A woman in white and a man in a blue suit are flanked by people in aqua dresses and gray suits. They all have their hands in the air in a celebratory manner.

Re-run: DIY Weddings–Planning and Coordinating

Jun 24, 2019 | DIY

A woman in a white dress carrying white flowers and a man in a blue suit gaze into each others' eyes.

If you hire a good planner or coordinator, this should be all you have to think about on your wedding day. Photo by The Still Life Photography.

I’ve written a lot about do-it-yourself weddings lately, and here are my final thoughts on the subject.  Question:  Should you plan and manage your wedding yourself?  Answer:  No—and yes.

Most people can do much of the planning themselves.  Hiring vendors is not difficult, although finding excellent ones can be if you don’t already know where to look.  You might also want to plan the decor yourself so that it reflects your taste.  Of course, if you’d rather not handle all the details yourself, by all means, hire a wedding planner.  We’re always happy to do the planning part!

The place where a lot of people get stuck in the planning process is scheduling the wedding day and the logistics of making everything happen.  It turns out that these are special skills.  And so you will likely want to have a professional planner or coordinator on hand.  One of my favorite parts of this job is taking a tangled mass of good ideas and turning it into a usable plan.  Actually, I really like seeing the smile of relief on my clients’ faces when I do that.

Even if you are able to do the scheduling and logistics yourself, actually managing what happens on your wedding day is another matter.  I like to use a theatre metaphor to describe it:  You are the star of the show; you can also be the director and the producer.  But you need a good stage manager to make sure that you shine.

This might be predictable coming from me, but I have seen enough problems and near-disasters to know that it really does make a difference:  Make sure you have someone with practical, hands-on experience managing your wedding day.  Don’t try to do it yourself.

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