Just a few days ago we captured the Engagement Session of Chicagoans Elise & Matt-! We last saw these two in our Consultation Office with Elise’s mom, nephew, & Sister-in-Law the day before March started, so suffice to say things have been nutso in the half year that’s passed since then. We’ll be capturing their full WEDDING in Michigan (about 10 minutes across the border from us) in a little over a month this October/ Fall, but for their Engagement Session we headed to them in Chicago.
Totally in line with these unprecedented times, there were a few hiccups along the way to getting to their Engagement Session. At the start of the Pandemic they went to Elise’s parents’ home here in Indiana for over 2 months before heading back to their condo in Chicago at the start of June. Of course throughout June there were many protests in Chicago wherein the mayor lifted the bridges to block protesters in/ keep folks out. We hit July and again started chatting about dates for their Engagement Session and in August settled on September for their long awaited Session-! We sent over galleries to help them choose outfits & locations in Chicago for their Session, then we sorted out parking spots for the 3 locations they themselves found! Their Engagement Session got rained out due to all day rain on Saturday and THEN unfortunately it turned out that 2 of the 3 spots were either totally closed due to the Pandemic & “erosion” OR had completely closed its parking lots due to the Pandemic. Right before driving in to Chicago we found this out & quickly changed the game plan to utilize a spot of ours that is almost identical to one of those spots AND swapped in an additional spot they’d originally mentioned for post-sunset (and we quickly found the free parking for around there on our Chicago parking apps).
Initially we’d chatted to them about a funny Tiger King themed Engagement Session for Spring, but given these difficult & extreme Pandemic, Racial Unrest, & Climate Change times in the past 6 months, these two opted for a more classic Session to celebrate their love/ partnership that’s helped them get through the best and worst of times. These two are so fun-loving (with Elise having been in Chicago’s Second City/ doing comedy for years) that we found ourselves laughing most of their Session, but stayed focused since Matt revealed to us that they don’t have a ton of photos together.
We masked up in our N95s and headed over to their place. Their pets are some of the most important loved ones in their lives, so we were thrilled to get to meet them! They have 2 cats & 2 dogs (and often foster more dogs) and we got to pet their doggos immediately upon arriving. Both dogs (Geoff & Diana) had their own amazing scarves that say “My humans are getting married” on them which was adorable. The cats chilled out in their bedroom instead of partaking in the family photo, but we were still excited that we got to include the dogs in a few of their Engagement photos-!
Once we wrapped up at their place, we headed out (drove separately- yay Pandemic times!) to some murals on their street. These two see and enjoy these murals often since they live right by them, so that was the first spot that they had requested for portraits! Among the epic artist-made portraits & art was a mural/ collage of Obama on a rapper’s body by SacSix which of course these two had to get a photo in front of. Also symbolic of the times was a mural by artist Stinkfish that showed a girl in her Pandemic mask. We had Elise & Matt put their masks back on for this one as a reminder of these weird historic times that they’re engaged and will be getting married within. (They also had a painted crow take a cell phone photo of them and joined in on a game of plastic cup “telephone” with some of the other mural kids).
After wrapping up at the murals we headed over to catch them at sunset by the skyline of Chicago! Even though we got there about 40 minutes before official sunset, the sky was hazy with orange from the nearly 100 fires raging on the West Coast of the United States currently, so eerily there was no real sunset to be seen other than an orange haze. Regardless, it was still light out so we captured some photos of these two by the coast & skyline at sunset with seagulls swooping to catch fish pre-sunset.
Unintentionally while winding down for a second while we all talking about being pet parents, the sun went down and lights came on in the city- an unintentional and even more gorgeous backdrop for some quick portraits of these two! The fires out West may have removed any real beautiful sunset light, but the city’s lights were aglow and perfectly framed Matt & Elise before we headed out to their last spot.
((Since there were so many good ones, we couldn’t help but include some of the funnier joke photos of these two. Like us these two definitely bond over their humor and sarcasm not taking themselves too seriously, so we wanted to throw in a few of these so you could really get a feel for their resting personalities)).
Up last were some final photos in downtown Chicago. These two amazingly changed at breakneck speeds in their car for each of their outfits which we were impressed by! Our parking notes had us parking for free smack dab in the middle of the city and shockingly there were exactly 2 open spots right where we were parking- which was actually turned out to be the exact parade route of AND the main hub for participants cheering for Mexico’s Independence Day which happened to be TODAY!
Because of this parade & heightened paranoia over summer civil unrest looters, some streets were blocked off & we pretty much had a bridge & block to ourselves! Chicago was beautifully lit up, felt extremely safe, and was filled with cheering and music from the happy parade. We were so happy that after all of the stress of the past 6 months that the day ended so beautifully.
Their Session wouldn’t be complete, though, without some more fun. There was chest bumping on the bridge, dancing, headlocks, and more to be had to finish out their Engagement Session of course.
Through all of the fun & goofiness these was still a deep sense of love and appreciation of one another. Throughout the day these two continued to keep each other laughing and happy (even if that meant straight up tackling the other one).
May we all be as fun, down-to-earth, and deeply animal loving as these two pet parents are.
To Elise & Matt! Thank you so much for having us capture you two this year! We had so much fun with you two and definitely needed the laughs after such a serious half year so far. We can’t wait to capture your fall October wedding in a little over a month & look forward to planning the final details with you two! It’s been a long a crazy ride this year, but we’re happy that you two can still celebrate your love amidst these unprecedented times. We’ll see you again soon-!
___________ Unrelated: The past week+ personally & professionally has been pretty crazy-! We bid adieu to some immediate family heading back out West after we’d speed packed & shipped packages to clients. We’ve finished printing photos for all but 5 clients whose final print orders we’re still waiting on after a month or two. In the next few days we finish editing the rest of the recent 11 hour full wedding that we captured this past month & the rest of this Engagement Session after which we’ll be fully finished with work for the next week!
Personally we recently spent a couple hours hiking with our dogs while also foraging wild oyster mushrooms, Chicken of the Woods, & puffball mushrooms… along with finding a ton of our first ever (almost ripe) pawpaw fruits-! Since we’ve been too afraid of campground bathrooms (that often kick up & aerosolize Covid-19 that can last in urine for up to 2.5 weeks & can be found in bodily fluids in the modern showers there) to go all year, we’re borrowing a brand new tiny travel toilet from Jenny’s parents and heading out with our camper for Jenny’s belated birthday camping ASAP after finishing the pending work this weekend-! Our puppy has never gone camping, so we’ll have our hands full camping with our 3 pets. They all had their annual check-ups & shots this past week & are looking good, so we’re excited to get out of the house with them. We haven’t gotten to go do most of our favorite things this spring or summer (many international food fests, fairs, art fests, fun travel, etc) NOR have we hung out with anyone other than masked up capturing images for the clients who’d already hired us pre-Pandemic (AND occasionally in the past couple months a few of Jenny’s quarantined/ home-bound immediate family), so we’re a bit stir crazy.
We sadly have to bring our hundreds of tropical plants inside tomorrow night from their temporary porch home a whopping MONTH early making this our SHORTEST ever outdoor season for our plants (merely 3 months outside instead of the regular 5 or 6 due to a LATE start to Spring after freezing night temps in the middle of May & no 50+ night temps until around June). The summer was even crazier with staggering temperatures in the 100s with FULL humidity and a drought (after ALL of last year raining from January through December), so we’re getting even more worried about our declining environment nation-wide and worldwide lately. We’re looking forward to camping while we can. With increasingly insane temperatures and natural disasters (fires, floods, etc) we’re not sure how many good camping years the world will have left.