Over the weekend this August Aimee & Ryan were wed in Indianapolis, Indiana! These two celebrated their wedding day fully at Canal 337 which is on the river in downtown Indianapolis right in the heart of the city! You may remember this spot as the last location during Paul & Travis’ Engagement Session there a few months ago in May, but if not just trust us that this venue is gorgeous as you’ll see below! It may have taken us over 5 hours round-trip to get to their wedding venue and back, but it was well worth this gorgeous big day for these two!
Aimee & Ryan’s wedding day started with the two of them getting ready separately at their venue on the bottom floor of the 3 story Canal 337 venue. Once dressed and ready, we captured some of the formal family portraits with them separately prior to their ceremony since afterward there wasn’t much time before these two needed to be announced into their reception. (We’ll share these later with other post-ceremony family portraits).
Ryan and Aimee have 3 kids of their own, so part of their pre-ceremony time was spent exchanging gifts with their kids and each other. Aimee’s 2 sons got Ryan a bracelet, Aimee & Ryan had their bridal party bring the two of them gifts that they got each other, and they gave their kids presents as well!
Once finished up with pre-ceremony family portraits it was time for their wedding ceremony! Ryan & Aimee had originally opted for an outdoor wedding ceremony at Canal 337, but changed it to the indoor top floor location due to summer heat (with it being a very humid 85 degrees out in direct sun). They and their bridal party/ families were thrilled about this because in their short time outside even in the shade for their pre-ceremony family portraits everyone was sweating and excited to be inside with the lovely air conditioning!
For their ceremony these two were lead in by their bridal party, then their flower girls! Ryan had been the first to come down the aisle with his mom, so he was looking on excitedly for his bride to come down the aisle. Finally Aimee made her way down the aisle with her two sons.
Aimee’s sons (half of their groomsmen) walked Aimee down the aisle as Ryan’s daughter looked on up near her dad as one of their bridesmaids!
Part-way through their ceremony Aimee & Ryan did a small ceremony in which they locked away a glass of wine and notes to each other for if they ever get into a rough moment in their relationship. The idea is that if they ever have to open it, they’re to share the glass of wine together, read the notes, and talk things out calmly.
Once the beautiful ceremony was finished, these two had two gondolas ready for guests to ride during cocktail hour! While we were capturing their portraits immediately after the ceremony, guests got to enjoy something usually only enjoyed in Venice, Italy!
These two also got to hop into a gondola post wedding ceremony! We had our fingers crossed that these two would get a gondola to ride in, but we didn’t find out until a week before their wedding that they’d secured not only one, but two of them! It was such a gorgeous addition to their beautiful wedding day and we think it was the perfect post-ceremony leisurely ride together that they deserved!
We also captured Aimee & Ryan’s family portraits post-wedding ceremony. We went back up to their ceremony spot on the top/ 3rd floor of Canal 337 for these and captured their group portraits around the room as the vendors took things down in there. We figured we’d do most of these inside since it was 85 and very humid outside by the canal and it was an easy for folks to get to cocktail hour/ the reception hall just a floor below.
Earlier in the day we had also captured Aimee and Ryan separately with their side of the bridal party as well as with some of their family members!
Since things got behind schedule, we actually did most of Aimee & Ryan’s married couple photos after they’d been announced into their reception and had eaten dinner.
We had already scheduled in sunset portraits of these two outside, but had to go out a little earlier than planned so that their loved ones could give their speeches/ toasts before these two had their cake cutting and First Dance!
Aimee & Ryan really only requested two specific photo ideas for their portraits and we were very excited with the results we got. These photos of they and their rings below aren’t collaged photos, rather they were taken how you see them with some photo magic done literally on the spot there!
Once these two finished enjoying their ride on the gondola & portraits it was time for them to be announced in to their reception! (We rented an AirBnB and came down early to see how things were looking in inside the reception hall, so we were thrilled to see the decor a few hours ahead of time when no one was there yet!)
After being announced in, we (vendors) rearranged the schedule a bit and dinner started immediately. Jason took their rings into the ceremony hall above and captured close-up detail photos of their rings together and we tried to eat our meals speedily while also capturing detail photos around the reception hall. Their wedding meal was a delicious salad (complete with strawberries), warm fresh bread, and the entree of beef that amazingly fell apart at first touch, chicken, and buttery mashed potatoes all with a delicious sauce.
After dinner we took these two out for final portraits at sunset (luckily something we’d put into the schedule a month in advance for the sunset half hour since we weren’t able to get regular married portraits of these two together within the first 4.5 hours of us photographing them).
Post-married portraits these two came back in to soon after their family members giving them wonderful speeches and toasts! Included in these were Aimee’s sister, Ryan’s dad, Aimee’s dad, and one of Aimee & Ryan’s 3 kids!
These two definitely shed tears during their family members’ speeches/ toasts!
One of their sons voluntarily got up and gave a speech during the reception as well! It was both hilarious and heartfelt to all of his immediate family members.
After speeches these two cut their cake and then had their first dance! Their dance was beautiful as the sunset on their wedding day shown through the windows. After their First Dance as a married couple these two danced with their parents.
Aimee had her father-daughter dance with her dad, she then sweetly had another father-daughter dance with her step dad, and finally Ryan had his mother-son dance with his mom as they lowered the lights.
The cake was then cut up and served to everyone as Open Dance began and people took to both the dance floor and balcony!
In the midst of Open Dance, Aimee and Ryan also did their flower toss and garter toss!
People headed around the room taking photos at the fun selfie wall and glued their Instax instant Polaroid photos into the wedding scrap book that Aimee & Ryan provided guests! People wrote in their well wishes to the couple and had a blast taking the instant photos! ((Hilarious sidenote: We noticed that many of the young kids had unsurprisingly never really dealt with Polaroids, physical photos, or instant photos and were shaking the photos thinking that would develop them faster and then even set the Polaroids face down onto the colored lights that were uplighting the walls hoping that that would make them develop faster)!
These two also had pork tenderloin sliders as a late night snack for guests! There was literally a metal slide for the servers to “slide” the sliders (in metal dishes) to guests on! Fun fact: Indiana is known for pork tenderloin!
At the end of the night Aimee and Ryan closed out the dance floor close to midnight with the classic Time of My Life song and scene from Dirty Dancing (complete with lift from Ryan at the end)!
These two finished the night with a gorgeous sparkler exit! Everyone gathered outside to light up huge sparklers to line the exit!
Soon after Aimee & Ryan came out of the building and hopped right into their limo to head to their hotel!
Congratulations Aimee & Ryan on your first few days of marriage! Your wedding day in Indianapolis at Canal 337 was gorgeous and we loved getting to capture your big day! We hope that you two had a great rest of your night and weekend!
_____________Unrelated: Coming up next week we’ll be sharing the Haggard Family Portrait Session at the University of Notre Dame! This family has been looking forward to their trip to Notre Dame (alma mater of 5 of them!) for their parents’ 50th Anniversary (originally Basilica wed) for at least over 7 months, so we’re thrilled that they were all able to come in from New York, Georgia, & Cleveland to make it happen! Be on the lookout for that next Weekly Wednesday blog post, but for now we’re printing photo choices for 3 wedding couples to then mat/ package/ send off to them, we’re designing Save the Date & Thank You cards for 2 wedding couples, getting together a photo lists and schedules for 2 couples whose weddings are in a month, and editing 2 Family Portrait Sessions!
Jenny heads out to California this weekend for our neice’s Baby Shower and Jason heads to California next weekend for one of his best friend’s (from high school)’s bachelor party also in California! We’ll only be together for a day & a half between flights from/ to California, so it’s going to be a hectic end to August as we work, care for our pets, and travel! We’re hoping to take a quick road trip (possibly to NYC) for Jenny’s birthday on September 5th as well before capturing 2 more weddings at the start of September, then heading to California again for the best friend’s wedding & possibly also catch the birth of our niece that week as well! Whew! After that we head to Italy for another wedding & return in October to capture more October weddings, finish editing the late September weddings, and move on to November weddings! As you can see, our schedule is very tight over the next 2 months, so if anyone is interested in Fall Family Portrait Sessions for Christmas cards and such, PLEASE reach out to us NOW at: info@jennyandjasonphoto.com to Schedule a Fall or Winter Portrait Session with us ASAP! We have limited availability and fall leaves will be best that last week of October/ first week of November as usual, so please take that into account when scheduling! (Only 1 reschedule allowed due to ANYTHING outside of rain).