Their vows included a statement about being each other’s bread and butter.

If they’re bread and butter, they’re like real Italian bread and garlic butter. You know, the good stuff. The real thing. Not just the dollar white bread and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

Sarah and Gordon, you guys are amazing! I hope you enjoy your sneak peek… there are so many more to come!

Going through these, I realized how much I loved the beach shots that we took at the end. There is something about the beach that just makes pictures seem carefree and fun (and, okay, I might be a little biased since I grew up around the beach). I would love to do a few more beach sessions before the year’s out… we’ll see… but, for now, I am totally happy with these!

Anyway, huge thanks to Mark and Lea for rolling up their jeans to plod into the water and also for breaking rules by climbing onto the lifeguard station. You guys were so much fun to be around!

Martha, Braden, and I visited my favorite forest preserve of all time for their engagement session. They want to have a natural theme for their wedding, with a venue to match, so we wanted to incorporate that into their engagement session. While I’m really loving the interesting locations of the urban e-sessions I have scheduled for the next few weeks, I just cannot turn down an opportunity to shoot at this suburban forest preserve. As you can see from the lead image, Disneyworld’s Tree of Life’s brother resides there.

Oh, and these were taken just days after some massive rains, so much of the preserve was flooded and mucky and yucky. It didn’t phase Martha and Braden though, they waded in right after me.

I love my clients.

One of my favorite recent sessions, no joke.

Mallory and Tyler were so cute the whole time, laughing and having a great natural chemistry with each other. I hope you can see how much fun they were in the photos!

More soon!

These are some “finish the roll” photos… various pictures of details around the house and a hotel room.

While I love taking pictures of people, sometimes it’s fun to also take pictures of places people should be and inhabit, but minus the people.  The way a person’s home is decorated normally says so much about a person… one day I would love to do an engagement shoot in a couple’s house or apartment, just for that reason.

Kevin and Kathy had one of the most intimate weddings I have seen. It was them, their respective children, a small group of their closest friends and family, a beautiful park, and a room at a Mediterranean restaurant (which had AMAZING food)… while large weddings are always a fun party, sometimes it’s nice to just have a laid back day.

Congrats, Kevin & Kathy, and thank you for welcoming me into your family for a day!

Anny and I were starting to think this shoot was never going to happen. We had to reschedule several times due to the weather, but finally, on our third try, we got great weather. Sometimes good things are worth waiting for… this shoot was definitely a good thing.

Oh, and if you’re wondering…London and Paris, Alex and Anny’s dogs, came out for some fun too.

Blackberries are one of my favorite fruits.

I lived in Tennessee when I was in high school, and we had a house that sat on 10 acres.  We didn’t do much with those 10 acres (although I always wanted a horse and cow), but we did have wild blackberries growing around the perimeter.  It was my job to occasionally walk around and pick some blackberries.  Of course, between being a teenager and those tiny little thorns that covered the plant, I hated the task at the time… but since then, I’ve always loved fresh blackberries.  However, living in such an urban area, it’s difficult to find random patches of blackberries lying around, and store bought blackberries are not even remotely the same.

Imagine my happiness when my husband came home from a farmer’s market with real, fresh, delicious blackberries.  They were so juicy and yummy, I had to take a few photos.

Five things about this session:

1. Liz and Adam were adorable and I loved that they had a vision for the shoot (I mean, they even dressed all vintage-y! Could not love them more!)
2. The light was GORGEOUS. I wanted to bottle it up and carry it around with me always.
3. The mosquitoes were so so bad. I counted at least 38 bites, and I’m sure that Liz & Adam didn’t fare much better. Sorry guys!
4. That blue thing is a WWII bomb that Adam brought. He’s opening a store very soon, and it will be accentuating his store. So cool.
5. I love Chicago. One day I can be shooting on the top of a skyscraper in the heart of the city, and a few days later, I can be crawling in cornfields. This was at Peck Farm Park in Geneva.

And, now on to the photos!

These two couldn’t be cuter. I spent forever trying to narrow down which pictures to post, because I think they’re all so adorable.

Krystle, Eric, my husband/assistant Aaron, and I had lots of fun walking around St. Charles, climbing on things in St. Charles (my crowning glory was balancing on a trash can… they managed to scale a building to get onto a ledge) and laying on the slightly soggy ground in St. Charles. Through it all, they managed to look fantastic… me, I was a bit of a mess. But that’s okay.

And you know what? Krystle and Eric are getting married in just a few weeks… I have a feeling this is going to be a wedding where I tear up a bit.