Abbey and Greg are married-!! These two Californians celebrated their big day just 4 days ago: Their gorgeous spring wedding at St. Mary's College! Following the wedding was their fantastic wedding reception nearby at Riverside Terrace in Mishawaka. Though we'll be uploading the complete set of photos in the next month or so, we wanted to take a moment to share our favorite moments from the wedding and reception here on the Weekly Wednesday blog post! Without further adieu, Abbey & Greg!
The day started with Abbey getting ready at a hotel in Mishawaka with her bridesmaids including her sisters and friends. It was a fun time with music blasting and after everyone was ready we headed over to the nearby Church of Our Lady of Loretto at St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana to meet up with Greg and the groomsmen. Greg and Abbey decided to keep it traditional and bypass the "first look" prior to the wedding, so we had to make sure that they didn't see each other prior to the wedding. We captured the formal photos of the groomsmen with Greg in various spots outside and before we knew it it was time for the ceremony!
The church itself is very unique, though you'd never know from looking at the red brick exterior: First of all it's reserved solely for alumni or students of St. Mary's (an all woman college). It's also completely round on the inside with huge vaulted ceilings leading up to the colossal round dome, beautiful stained glass, massive white coliseum-like pillars surrounding the entire perimeter of the interior, no raised altar, and gorgeous golden, colorful Catholic tile mosaics! It was truly a gorgeous, unique church for their wedding!
The wedding itself was beautiful. The priests did a fantastic job and had heartfelt wishes to impart onto Greg and Abbey. Catholic wedding ceremonies are full church services with the Eucharist and all, so it was a bit over an hour of worship! After the ceremony we had less than 10 minutes allowed in the church, so we snapped a few photos of family, the priests, and Greg and Abbey then headed outside for formal photos on the campus.
We captured formal photos of Abbey & Greg's families and friends outside, then focused on the rest of the photos of the bridal party. The day was gorgeous and we'd already location scouted earlier in the week, so the spots were fantastic! The bright pink and purple flowering trees were in full bloom throughout the campus and everyone looked fantastic amidst the gorgeous buildings and flora. We even captured some hilarious photos of both the bridesmaids and groomsmen as well as nice photos of Abbey with her sisters, Greg with his brother, and Abbey and her bridal party showing their St. Mary's alumni graduation rings!
After that the bridal party headed to the big limo to have some refreshments and enjoy themselves while we took Abbey and Greg around for some individual photos of them around the campus. The whole thing was stunning!
After campus we had a bit of down time and headed in the limo to the Whiskey Exchange in downtown South Bend. None of us had been before and it ended up being a pretty gorgeous, calm spot to hang out at before the reception. (The limo was a blast, too!)
Their reception venue Riverside Terrace a city over in Mishawaka is right on the river and across from a beautiful park, so the views were great! (Having once been a YMCA, Jenny had practiced for travel volleyball in middle school in the VERY room that Abbey and Greg celebrated their reception!) The venue was perfect and you'd never be able to tell what it once was. There was a waterfall wall, fireplace, cute bar, and cool white ceiling circles that hung down holding the lights above. Upon arrival to the venue, the bridal party came in slowly while being announced, each couple performing their own little skit! Heartfelt speeches were made, prayers were said, toasts were made, tears were shed, and people had a fantastic dinner followed by the first dance and father/ bride and mother/ groom dances!
After dinner we snatched Greg and Abbey away to take a few last photos of them together at sunset, this time next to their venue in Mishawaka. We laughed and talked about our absolute love for animals (especially our pets) and we headed back for more open dancing. In the blink of an eye it was time for cake cutting and laughing as Abbey smashed cake onto Greg's mouth! When the garter toss and bouquet toss came around we were thrilled to see kids catch both! The entire day had been a wonderful experience with two amazingly fun people, so we didn't want it to end and stuck around a bit longer capturing an awesome St. Joe H.S./ Marian H.S. graduate picture and some other fun shots.
Their big day couldn't have gone more smoothly. We'd originally gotten umbrellas just in case since it'd rained days prior and the forecast called for clouds, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky on their wedding day! All-in-all we are beyond thankful and happy that we were able to help out at these two's wedding and had an absolute blast all day with them! It's been great getting to know these two throughout the past year since their Engagement Session and we are just so happy that they're off enjoying themselves in Thailand on their honeymoon (and can't wait to see them when they return)!