Katie & Kevin are MARRIED! These two were wed a little over a week ago at Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth, Indiana about 40 minutes from us! You may remember these two from their Engagement Session in early spring in their home city of Chicago (in their last day living downtown at that), but we’ve been getting to know these two for over a year at this point! We made their Save the Dates for their wedding this Spring after their Engagement Session and have been in contact planning their wedding day schedule and more! Katie is fun-loving, intelligent, and accomplished and Kevin is also intelligent, has a fun sarcastic edge, and has a calm energy about him. Katie is a former gymnast and was also a swimmer at university setting RECORDS (one of which still hasn’t been beaten)-! Kevin is an accomplished engineer who is equally motivated and goal-driven and these two work right near each other in Chicago (and their corporations even work together)-! These two make a great pair/ power couple and are currently looking to buy a house of their own as one of their next big goals that we know they’ll accomplish with grace and hard work. We cannot wait to see how their story continues to unfold since this past year has been great getting to know them and their lives.
Since Swan Lake is a resort, everyone was getting ready right there in the many bedrooms at Kevin & Katie’s wedding venue on October 12th, 2019 making it the easiest it could possibly be for everyone in the wedding-! The rooms were some of the biggest we’ve encountered at a hotel-esque venue on a wedding day with Katie’s space being much like a literal apartment with kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, and bath making it very comfortable for all of the ladies getting ready. Katie’s literal cousin is a hair dresser, so she was doing Katie’s hair when we arrived, so Jenny started with Katie’s updo being done, then captured her wedding dress and wedding shoes out at the resort by themselves.
((The apples were fresh and handpicked by family in Michigan I believe Katie’s mom said!))
Jason headed around to find Kevin, then started in capturing Kevin getting ready with his groomsmen on the floor above.
Katie’s cousin did a great job on her hair and the makeup artist continued to do the women’s makeup there in the living room utilizing a ring light.
The bridal party helped Kevin and Katie put finishing touches on their wardrobe and soon they were ready to head outside to their First Look!
On her way outside Katie quickly stopped by her dad’s room to give him a Daddy-daughter first look at her wedding gown!
Oddly, the wedding day was a one day snap of cold windy weather, but Katie & Kevin still wanted to opt for an outdoor First Look, bridal party photos, and eventually outdoor wedding ceremony at the gazebo in the courtyard-! Regardless of the weather, Kevin patiently awaited Katie for their First Look outside.
Katie excitedly approached Kevin in their wedding ceremony gazebo and soon Kevin spun around to see his bride for the first time on their wedding day!
These two chattered away for a second excited to see each other on their wedding day after about 6 hours of getting ready that morning (at least for the women).
We gave them a few prompts for their First Look intimate moment together (dance a bit, give each other a kiss, etc), then it was time to head over to their bridal party!
Jason helped pin most of the groomsmen’s boutonnieres for them, then Kevin’s mom pinned Kevin’s on for him as Katie helped her dad with his and gifted him a sweet handkerchief with writing on it about the wedding day. We then took Kevin, Katie, and their entire bridal party outside for their bridal party portraits (which we’ll share later after their ceremony photos). After their First Look and bridal party photos we captured these two around the resort (via golf cart) and these two were troopers through the wind and weather. Once we finished up with those (which, again, we’ll share after the family group photos after the ceremony), we all headed back to the resort on time and everyone got in place for the wedding ceremony-!
Soon it was time for Katie & Kevin’s wedding CEREMONY! Kevin made his way down the aisle followed by the bridal party, then all went a bit quiet and songs changed as the doors opened and out walked Katie who headed down the aisle with her dad-!
She walked through down the gorgeous aisle with her dad flanked by nature and headed up to Kevin at the gazebo surrounded by their 200+ guests looking on.
Their ceremony was beautiful officiated by an uncle who did a wonderful job speaking about these two!
Once it was time for the official vows, Katie’s brother (a groomsman) went up to officiate (being a lawyer).
These two exchanged rings while saying their vows and they were almost finished up with their wedding ceremony!
There was a quick blessing at the end of the ceremony with a cross (passed down through the family), then these two had their First Kiss and headed down the aisle a married couple!
With Katie’s brother’s help, these two signed their official marriage license/ certificates and they were officially wed!
Post-ceremony, about 200 guests headed into the hallway inside for cocktail hour and we rounded up family members in order to capture the formal family portraits for Katie & Kevin! Initially planning for inside group portraits due to the temperature, these two opted for outdoor family portraits at their ceremony spot!
We worked our way through about 60 family portraits, captured some of just Katie herself, and then let everyone go and enjoy cocktail hour since there were many people to mingle with and because we’d already done bridal party and couple portraits prior to the wedding ceremony-!
Here are the best of the bridal party and newlywed portraits that we had captured earlier in the day after their First Look and before their wedding ceremony!
We were so glad that there was some forest around the resort for some classic gorgeous nature bridal party photos with Katie and Kevin!
We did also take another full bridal party photo there at the ceremony spot (gazebo) right after their wedding ceremony too! (They also got some silly photos with the other side of the bridal party which was fun!)
Like we said earlier, we also got to go around on a golf cart after the bridal party photos with just Katie & Kevin (and the awesome resort golf cart driver) to capture their Newlywed Portraits around the resort!
We loved this spot during Katie & Kevin’s newlywed portraits- a nice little field area with some tall grasses and one nice autumn red tree (below)-!
There were also little ponds scattered around with some bridges, so we all picked our favorite one and we captured some final Newlywed Portraits of these two there-!
(During a portion Katie was prompted to nuzzle Kevin like a cat which we were cracking up at since Katie took this prompt to a wonderful level)!
Once back inside the reception hall from the final formal portraits outside, it was still Cocktail Hour, so we stole them away for their individual portraits which were the last of the formal portraits of them that we needed for the day! Katie rocked her portraits with grace (and goofiness in between).
Kevin’s portraits were also elegant inside by the windows of the reception.
We then let these two go to enjoy their last bit of Cocktail Hour and their 200+ guests!
We captured some details around Cocktail hour including some beautiful family wedding portraits that were framed around Cocktail Hour as well as some Engagement Portraits that we captured and printed for Kevin & Katie’s Engagement Session-!
Once Cocktail Hour started to wind down everyone headed into the reception-! The hall itself is beautiful and much like Notre Dame’s Morris Inn on campus. The lights were turned down in there with candles spread throughout on the tables and gold embellishments.
Once the guests were seated, the bridal party was announced into the reception one-by-one, then Katie and Kevin were announced in and they did a little spin, then headed over to their cheering bridal party!
Soon it was time for their cake cutting-! They wanted this to be more intimate, so they had us capture it without having people come up and circle around.
Once the cake was cut, it was time for salads to be served! Jason took Katie & Kevin’s rings in order to capture detail photos of the rings out in the hallway and Jenny went to their table to save the salad for Jason and eat a bit before the speeches/ toasts.
After salads and bread it was time for the toasts/ speeches! The Matron of Honor and Best Man gave wonderful speeches with insight to the character of these two and following those were toasts/ speeches from Katie’s mom & dad. (Katie’s mom explaining in a part of hers Katie’s love for candy- hence their wedding gifts being small bags of the famous Albanese gummy bear candies for everyone)!
After the speeches everyone enjoyed their dinners in full (delicious beef with green beans and potatoes or chicken with snap peas and mashed potatoes).
Guests signed Katie & Kevin’s guest book, took selfies at the DJ’s photobooth, and chatted while we captured a few last big group family photos on the dance floor!
Before long it was time for the next big moment: Katie & Kevin’s First Dance-! Their First Dance was lovely with song exciting spins, heartfelt moments, and so much love.
Following their First Dance were the father-daughter dance and the mother-son dance. Katie’s dad stood for the momentous occasion and Katie was thrilled to share the moment with him!
Once the formal dances were over, Open Dance started a bit after 8 pm!
The DJ (who was our savior that evening) played the best tunes for every moment through the evening-!
Shortly before we left for the evening Katie did her bouquet toss and a few last big dances were had-! Once those were through, we headed out a couple hours before the reception ended as Open Dance raged on!
People were enjoying the gummy bear and sour worm wedding treats and there were still hundreds of folks within the hall when we left-!
(**We figured a great way to close out their wedding teaser photos would be to symbolically share some of the gorgeous wedding photographs that we captured during dinner-!)
Congratulations again Katie and Kevin on a beautiful wedding day at Swan Lake Resort AND making it through OVER a week as an officially married couple-!! We can’t wait to see and hear of your new house once you choose it and we hope that your first week & a half of married life has been relaxing and wonderful-! We can’t wait to show you your full wedding gallery in a few weeks and until then we hope you continue to have the best Autumn season-!
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((A bit of a backstory on the day for us: We were originally supposed to return from the all day Thursday wedding that we captured for Kyla & Walt around Siena, Italy (at Villa Catignano villa) on Friday afternoon/ early evening to South Bend, Indiana after leaving Siena at 7 a.m…… but our first of two flights was delayed for 2.5 hours for no reason (literally- ask us for the stupid non-issue that held the plane up from boarding). This caused us to miss our London flight which was the only other flight we were to take (2 flights total since there were no direct flights from Pisa to Chicago). Due to this, luckily our new flights were covered (by “Gatwick Connects”) and after hustling/ literally running with luggage the whole day and pleading with many people explaining about how we wanted to capture our clients’ wedding (and not have to resort to our back-up photographers/ wedding contract), one airport worker in London found ONE/ the literal ONLY set of flights that could get us to the United States/ Chicago with a lot of changed airports required- 6 airports total to be exact (1 in Italy, 2 in London, 1 in NYC, 1 in New Jersey, then one in Chicago/ Illinois). Though only upped to 3 flights total through Friday & Saturday and 2 taxi rides (one of which was fully covered by the London airport), we were very anxious about the travel bleeding over onto Saturday and didn’t feel centered until we finally made it home Saturday morning (shout out to Jenny’s parents for giving us a faster ride from Chicago). We decided to only stay home for an hour and a half to straighten up, shower, change into the wedding clothes, and re-pack our camera bags before heading to the wedding because we wanted to scout some portrait locations before starting photography at 1 p.m. We headed out to their wedding after 35 straight hours of travel (& downloading the Thursday wedding photos from airports, cars, etc) armed with our printed schedules for Kevin & Katie’s big day and were ready to go-! (But we did sleep VERY hard on Saturday night when we got home at 10 p.m.)
___________ Anywho…. onto this past week! Just a few days ago we spent 12.5 hours traveling to/ from and capturing a few Engagement Sessions for some of our 2020 couples-!! (Jenny may have temporarily passed out for 12 hours in between Sessions in what we think was extreme jet lag and physical exhaustion, but we hear 5 pm bedtimes are the new rage). A couple of these were some of our Basilica of the Sacred Heart/ Notre Dame couples who live extremely busy lives (literally AS busy as ours!), so we’re so glad that they and we could make it work and capture their Engagement Sessions at the end of our first week back from capturing the wedding in Italy and in between their crazy schedules that pretty much only allowed for this past weekend for their Engagement Sessions-!!
Next week we’ll be sharing Bridget & Brandon’s Chicago sunrise Engagement Session that we captured the morning of their big Engagement Party with their family and friends in Chicago-! Following that in a couple weeks we’ll be sharing Marisa & Erik’s South Bend/ Notre Dame Engagement Session at the very places that these two MET and where they actually work-! (These two now that they have a house are excited to hand out Halloween candy next week and we are too-!!) We’ll catch you NEXT WEEKLY WEDNESDAY the day before Halloween for one of these Engagement Sessions and until then, enjoy the Halloween spirit and spoopy fun! (#GetThatCandy )