Megan and Nolan tied the knot over the weekend just a few days ago in their city of Indianapolis this past Saturday October 28th! Although we never got to meet in person with Megan and Nolan like we do with all of our other wedding clients, we talked to them so often via email that we felt like we knew them. These two have been together for four years and have an amazing sense of humor and dry wit. They're pretty easy going and have great taste to boot! We love that we got to head down to their wedding in Indianapolis because though we photograph a lot of Basilica of the Sacred Heart Notre Dame and South Bend weddings in general, it's always fun to head out of town to photograph weddings in the cities of Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit! There's such a rich urban scene in these cities and we believe that a mixture of urban and rural is a beautiful thing- especially for weddings! WIthout further adieu, we'd like to share with you Nolan and Megan's wedding!
The day started out with preparation photos at the Omni hotel. Megan and Nolan got ready 5 floors apart with their side of the bridal parties in tow. They were both mostly ready when we arrived, but we were able to capture some of the best parts of their getting ready time! Megan's bridesmaids were a fun bunch and they helped her prepare her last details before their party bus arrived! Nolan had some beers with his groomsmen as everyone got ready, then it was time for Nolan to head out and walk over to the location of he and Megan's First Look.
The two initially thought photos inside the Omni Severin Indianapolis (where they were staying and where they got prepared) would be nice for their First Look, but there was another wedding taking place in the hotel, so we instead took them to the back-up amazing venue of The Arts Garden. This venue was rated #8 on the top 22 wedding locations in the NATION due to its uniqueness of its 7 story tall windows hovering in the air! The Arts Garden is attached to 4 hotels and the mall! Its glass bubble self attaches to the 4 walkways that hovers over an intersection of downtown Indianapolis. The cool part is that the Omni Severin hotel (where everyone got ready) is actually one of the hotels attached to The Arts Garden by a unique walkway: appropriately named The Sky Walk. This was a trip destination around Thanksgiving or Christmas for Jenny's family: When the weather was freezing with tons of wind and falling snow they'd visit family in West Lafayette for one of the holidays and then drive another hour south to stay in a connected hotel, walk the Sky Walk, and go to the mall without ever leaving the warmth of the great indoors! This convenience helped out a lot on Megan and Nolan's wedding day on Saturday to keep the two apart for their First Look AND served to keep them warm and away from the 35 to 45 degree weather outside! Nolan and Jason walked the Sky Walk over to the Arts Garden, Jason chose a spot for Nolan to wait at, and they waited (while listening to a free live music performance) for Megan to arrive by bus.
Meanwhile, Megan and the entire bridal party got into their Party Bus with Jenny and drove over to the Arts Garden for Megan and Nolan's First Look prior to their ceremony! Megan got out of the party bus directly underneath the Arts Garden and took an elevator up to where Nolan was waiting. With a quick wave to Jason, Nolan kept facing the windows to the street and waited for Megan to climb the steps up to see him. Megan climbed the steps, tapped Nolan on the shoulder, and the two were all smiles for their First Look! They hugged and kissed for a few minutes, then we all headed down in the elevator to Fountain Square at the center of the city for Megan & Nolan's formal wedding portraits!
The bridal party enjoyed the warmth of fun in the bus while we got out of the bus at Fountain Square. It was quite a crisp autumn afternoon with the weather hovering between 35 and 45 degrees, but both Nolan and Megan were great sports about enduring the weather for their portraits! We photographed the two of them near some picturesque spots in the center of the city and even captured them dancing in the street!
After we photographed the two of them downtown, we had planned to head over a couple blocks away to have their portraits with their bridal party outside amidst trees and a fountain, but due to the extremely cold and sudden weather we re-routed to their hotel for a second before moving on early to their ceremony and reception venue: The gorgeous Biltwell Event Center. We decided to have their portraits taken inside the warm interior of their venue instead!
After the bridal party portraits, it was time to hide Megan from any guests arriving, so everyone headed into another room. Guests started filing in for the wedding (dropping off presents at the gift table) and suddenly it was time for the ceremony!
Following the ceremony we captured some family portraits with Megan and Nolan. Afterward everyone headed downstairs for cocktail hour in the beautiful lower level while the staff changed the ceremony location into the dinner location! Megan and Nolan enjoyed drinks and a good time with their guests, then headed back up to hide before being announced into the reception with their bridal party!
Megan and Nolan were announced into their reception after their bridal party and immediately headed over to cut their cake. After that, Nolan gave a blessing to the attendees and it was time for dinner! During dinner we photographed their rings, had a bite to eat, and then got ready for the speeches. The speeches started with Megan's dad. He spoke about how stubborn and independent Megan has always been and how perfectly she and Nolan fit together. After his speech came Megan's sister's speech: the person responsible for the two meeting in the first place! After Megan's sister came Nolan's best friend. His speech was hilarious and the dry humor that Megan and Nolan share definitely shined through his speech as well.
Once speeches were through, it was time for Megan and Nolan's First Dance as a married couple! The two of them shared a heartfelt dance in the middle of the spacious room of the converted mill. Once the dance was over, Megan's dad headed over for their father-daughter dance. Lastly, before the dance floor was opened to all, Nolan and his mother took to the floor for a Mother-Son dance.
After the dances, all of the formalities were finished and everyone entered the dance floor for a contest of the Longest Married Couple. Instead of throwing her bouquet, Megan gave the winning couple who had been married the longest her bouquet! It was definitely a cool spin on the giving of the bouquet (to a married woman rather than unmarried woman) and we really enjoyed it! Open Dance then began and everyone started to cut a rug. Everyone was on the dance floor enjoying themselves or off grabbing cupcakes to enjoy.
At some point within the last hour we also took Megan and Nolan aside for some last portraits in their beautiful venue. We loved the Bitlwell's beautiful wooden interior and spaciousness since it'd been a mill prior to becoming an event space, so we wanted some final images of them within this building with so much character!
A huge Congratulations, Megan and Nolan! We hope you've enjoyed your first few days of your honeymoon in sunny, WARM Aruba and we wish you a lifetime of happiness! We'll of course be chatting with you more as you choose images for your beautifully engraved Keepsake Box, but for now enjoy your first week of wedded bliss!
We hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween yesterday with some costumes, candy, and maybe some Trick-or-Treaters! We sure did! We have 3 more recent Portrait Sessions to share with you all in the upcoming weeks as well as a plethora of weddings and wedding anniversaries to share with ya, so keep checking in each Weekly Wednesday blog to see some awesome 100th Birthday Portraits, Family Portraits, Newborn Portraits, and our specialty: Weddings! We can't believe this was the last wedding we photographed in October just a few days ago and are looking forward to so many amazing weddings to capture of our clients! Spring of 2018 has filled up nicely with wedding clients as have summer and fall 2018, so we're starting to chat with couples about their 2019 weddings-! We can't believe it's been over 8 years of weddings now!
We're so thankful for our clients and are looking forward to meeting and photographing many more in the coming year while also starting to teach a bit again! Did you know that it's usually only PhDs that can teach at universities and that Jenny's Fine Art Photography MFA degree qualifies her to teach at universities too AND that Jason is one of the most educated and knowledgable commercial photographers...? He's actually been sitting on the advisory board for a college photography department in California for almost SIX years now and he often advises the school on how to spend their grant money in the photography department (often pointing out which gear would be most beneficial for students to learn on and grow from)! We both love education deeply and see a lot of holes in the photography education (or lack thereof) in this day-and-age of Instagram photographers. We look forward to putting together workshops as well as exploring the world of formal education further this coming March, so be on the lookout for some educational opportunities from us! We may even offer our past curriculum that we've used to teach children, teens, and adults alike so that there's a specific workshop for each level of life! There is always an aspect of art mixed with the technical, so we're excited to impart some knowledge mixed with wisdom onto others!