These two are ENGAGED! A week & a half ago we got to capture Chicagoans Bridget & Branden’s Sunrise Engagement Session for them right in downtown Chicago AT where they got engaged on May 4th… AND on the day of their Engagement Party at that-! These two are getting married next summer (July 2020) here in South Bend, IN at the University of Notre Dame’s famous Basilica of the Sacred Heart and having their reception right there on campus at the Morris Inn as well-! We actually first started talking to Bridget at the start of July just a couple months after their engagement and were able to meet these two in Chicago during lunchtime in July as well (a year before their wedding)! It’s been great getting to know these two over the past 4 months especially during their Engagement Session a little over a week ago since we got to chat about everything from the moment of their engagement, to their very busy lives/ careers, to their friends and family visiting, to our past cars, to everything in between! Getting to spend time in person is priceless and on top of that helps us continue to get a good feeling of how couples interact and what they like (which helps us capture them better)!
Anywho onto Bridget & Branden’s Engagement Session from a little over a week ago! Exactly one week prior to their Engagement Session within a very intense 35 hours of jinxed & extreme travel we got to Chicago (to that exact time in the morning actually) from capturing Kyla & Walt’s Italy wedding (heading that minute to prep for the next wedding that we headed to just 1.5 hours after we got to our house), so it was crazy being back to Chicago a week later on a much more peaceful and quiet morning just one week later. We met these two around 6:30 a.m. (having left our home a couple hours earlier.) and the air was crisp with a bit of pink coming into the sky as the Chicago skyline twinkled in the turquoise blue sky. Branden let us know while there that this is the exact spot that Branden actually proposed to Bridget, so we had to recreate and capture what that moment must have looked like when it happened!
Though a bit cooler in the morning before sunrise (it’s always coldest just before sunrise), the day really warmed up as we went on and was beautiful. Branden tried to keep Bridget warm as the sun rose over the Windy City that morning as they filled us in on their lives at the moment. They had family and friends visiting (and some even staying with them) since that evening they were throwing their Engagement Party there in Chicago- authentic taco cart and all-! We all swooned over authentic Mexican tacos for a moment and wondered when their guests would awake.
After sunrise portraits by the water’s edge there in Chicago, we headed toward Wrigley Field, but first stopped at a spot in between. These two soaked up the autumn views as we hilariously talked about what to do when you have to pee really badly (and Jason & Branden had a lot of input on the subject). Branden & Bridget definitely have a great sense of humor and interact much like we do with one another (often with one directing the other on how to stand or giving very honest feedback).
After making it through a cold sunrise together we were all much more excited about being at the next few spots that were progressively more physically comfortable! Bridget was no longer frozen and these two got to change into a few different outfits at each spot (in our changing tent or at the location’s bathrooms).
We then headed to the home of The Cubs and captured these two in front of the stadium! After Wrigley Field, we headed to one last bonus spot! The train station was oddly calm for a Saturday in the 3rd biggest city in the United States, so we captured these two within the station as well as outside around downtown.
All-in-all it was a blast and these two even gave us an amazing lunch recommendation for a place to eat at before driving the couple hours home (and invited us to their Engagement Party that we wish we could have gone to- seriously the sweetest)-!! Thank you so much, Bridget & Branden, for having us capture your Engagement Session a little over a week ago! We hope that you’ve been enjoying choosing photos from the full gallery of the Engagement Session and we can’t wait to see what you’ve chosen & print your photos for you-!! We hope that the Engagement Party was a blast later that day and that everyone ate their fill of Mexican tacos! We know that things never slow down for you two on weekdays or even weekends, so we hope that you enjoyed your Engagement Session moments together and thank you so much for putting up with us dragging you two all around the city!
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Unrelated: Coming up this weekend in a few days we’ll be capturing more Engagement Sessions (that got rained out this week) as well as Senior Portraits! Coming up also very soon next week we’ll be photographing Cassie & Jimmy’s full day wedding here in South Bend, Indiana, but before that next Weekly Wednesday we’ll share one more of the 3 recent Engagement Sessions-!
Over the next week we’ll be finishing up edits on two full weddings, editing 2 more Engagement Sessions, printing/ packaging/ sending out hundreds of printed photos to a couple of our couples, and capturing more Sessions this weekend! We are planning for next weekend to be the LAST of capturing Sessions for the YEAR and we will be delving more deeply into creating products for the 11 final 2019 couples (who will be finalizing their choices for us) to print literally 1,300 to 1,400 photos for and design & make 4 final physical wedding albums for. We also have that last wedding to edit and some final cards to design and print for Wedding Invitations and Christmas Cards, so it will be a BUSY and FULL final 2 months of the year for us, but we’re excited to dedicate ALL of our time editing and printing thousands of physical photos and physical wedding albums for the final 11 packages of products that we’ll be sending out to everyone!
If you follow our videos on Instagram, you’ll know that just a few days ago we almost finished up our current 2020 couples’ wooden boxes (staining them to finish engraving in the next week) and know that we will have more to make in the coming months as more couples book the final 2020 dates (but will have to hold off on that box creation until likely January after cross-country family holiday visits at the start of the new year).. It’s a crazy hectic time for us currently, but boundaries and solitude have been our best friends this fall! (Don’t underestimate the anxiety that great solid boundaries can alleviate in your career and personal life!) We love putting our clients and business schedule as priorities in our lives and will be in our work caves for the remainder of the year, so remember to make sure to check back here for every Weekly Wednesday to check out what we’ve physically been working on!