Just a few days ago we were lucky enough to get to capture May & Jimmy’s full University of Notre Dame wedding day at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and Foley’s (inside the Notre Dame stadium)-! May is currently in a Master’s program for Northwestern, so these two Notre Dame alum originally thought that they’d get married in New York in 2020, but decided last year that they’d move it to this year at their alma mater (since it is also in between their very southern and very northern home states)! We’ve really enjoyed getting to know these two over the past half year and were absolutely honored that this powerhouse couple chose to have us photograph both their Winter Engagement Session (when Jimmy was in town from New York visiting May for Valentine’s week) as well as their WEDDING!
Some backstory: These two met at university at Notre Dame here in town with May being from southern Louisiana and Jimmy being from New York (amazingly at the bottom and top of the country). Post graduation years ago Jimmy headed back up to New York to teach Math and May stayed and worked in South Bend and got accepted to her Masters at Northwestern! These two made the distance work for their engagement, but as soon as they were wed Saturday, May & her dog actually moved up to New York with Jimmy literally the following day (an hour-ish north of New York City). Their Hilton Head honeymoon is coming up in just about a week and a half, so we’re thrilled that these two hard workers will get a nice honeymoon/ well deserved break to celebrate each other amidst a Master’s program and teaching Math! Now, onto their wedding day!
At the start of their wedding day May and Jimmy got ready separately with their halves of the bridal party. May got ready at a friend’s parent’s home in Granger while Jimmy and his family (all in from New York) got ready in a nice AirBnB in South Bend.
After some portraits post-preparation, everyone drove over to and headed into the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame. The Basilica requires that you arrive a half hour early, so since they had a morning wedding everyone was inside by 10:30 a.m. for their 11 a.m. wedding! May and her bridesmaids waited in the vestibule of the Basilica while Jimmy and his groomsmen waited elsewhere.
Soon it was time for their ceremony! Their family members, then Jimmy, then 13 bridal party members lead the way down the aisle before the doors opened for May. Once opened, May made her way down the aisle to Jimmy who was beaming at the sight of her.
As is tradition, it was a full hour Catholic mass for their Basilica wedding ceremony. The priests were young and funny, so the mood was warm and inviting. May and Jimmy had a medium to more intimate group of guests that they’d invited, so it was nice being able to see everyone’s faces and watch them interact during the sign of peace.
With that May & Jimmy exchanged a First Kiss and made their way back down the aisle a married couple! They only requested 4 posed family portraits (since there wasn’t much time in between ceremony and reception and because it was a more intimate crowd), so they even got portraits leaving the Basilica!
Inside of the Basilica per their request we only captured the bridal party portrait and some portraits of the two of them. Much of the time when our couples get married at Notre Dame only one of them attended Notre Dame, so it was heartwarming to see these two get married and have all of their closest family and friends there on campus with them at their alma mater where they actually met!
After portraits in the Basilica we then headed outside to capture a few family portraits before heading over to the Notre Dame Stadium for their reception! May got photos with her dad and two sisters (most in from Louisiana) while Jimmy got photos with his 6 siblings, parents, and grandparents (most in from New York).
Earlier in the day (prior to the ceremony) we’d already captured photos of the bridesmaids with May as well as the groomsmen separately with Jimmy (since we knew we only had about 5 to 10 minutes outside for portraits post-Basilica). Right before heading to the reception at Foley’s on Notre Dame’s campus though we captured one last full bridal party photo in front of the Golden Dome!
We love when a wedding day is kept relatively in the same place, so May and Jimmy’s reception being at the Notre Dame Stadium right there on campus was wonderful. Their reception was at Foley’s in the stadium right next to Legends in the stadium parking lot making it easy for guests to get there in about 5 minutes by car! Once we got in everything was decorated beautifully and Anna Hagen was already playing the harp (you may remember her from a few years back when we captured staged harp videos for her).
Upon arrival May & Jimmy casually mingled with all of their guests as guests enjoyed drinks and snacks. Once they felt like they’d unwound a bit, these two headed in to grab delicious lunch. The lunch was amazingly decadent with gorgeously tender (freshly sliced) brisket, amped up/ freshly made avocado toasts, breakfast and lunch foods, salads, cheeses, fruit spreads, desserts, and more!
Guests enjoyed their meals and mingling while Jimmy and May ate. Once finished with their meal these two cut their cake! They were very sweet with it and seemed to really enjoy their cake! Just like Rose & Rick last weekend, these two also had an amazing C’est la Vie wedding cake (also having a couple layers of peach)! (Courtney of C’est la Vie is our favorite- equally delicious flavors from peach to raspberry to strawberry to lemon to champagne and all area delicious! Over 10 years in business like us and they also happen to be opening a physical store right now too!)
May and Jimmy as we said also had a ton of beautiful desserts for guests to enjoy as well from strawberries with a wine infusion, to truffles, to creme brulee, and even their first ever taste of macaroons (in a rainbow’s worth of flavors at that)!
After their cake cutting their Maid of Honor and Best Man gave sweet speeches which were heartfelt with a bit of humor sprinkled in.
Before we knew it it was close to 4 pm and their reception lunch was getting close to its finish. May and Jimmy said goodbye to family and friends. May has lived in South Bend, Indiana for 7 years with many of her friends also staying local, so she had that realization that she was leaving to move to New York literally the next day and burst into tears saying goodbye to some of her best friends that she’d grown up with in college (and even lived with at times). **For those who haven’t experienced a “college family” that you do everything with for 4 or more years of your life, it really is a devastating feeling having it all hit you at once right as one of you leaves. I think most of us have bawled our eyes out at that moment of saying goodbye.
After an emotional departure from friends and family, we headed out for a last hour of married portraits since we hadn’t gotten to any campus photos of the two of them married yet! Since there are 3 or 4 back-to-back weddings per day at Notre Dame’s Basilica (especially on Saturdays in the summer), we immediately walked back across campus with these two for some photos in front of the Basilica and Golden Dome before the next wedding ceremony let out.
After capturing married portraits of these two there, we headed to our favorite tree and captured some portraits of these two at it. Though that spot’s not too “Notre Dame”-esque, there are couples’ names etched into the tree (literally the entire trunk), so it is a romantic, private spot.
The final spot that we captured these two at was the spot where they actually got engaged on campus! It was extremely fitting for these two to have their final married portraits here as it was May’s dorm at Notre Dame AND their engagement spot! It was also nice and windy in that archway on the 85 degree humid spring day, so that was nice for them as they stood cooling off in the shade.
CONGRATULATIONS May & Jimmy on your marriage and beautiful wedding day! We hope that you two had a blast with your friends in the evening and that the drive moving May to New York with the pup went well a few days ago! We hope that the next week & a half before your honeymoon FLIES by and that you two have time to relax, enjoy each other, and really soak up the happiness. We hope to see you two sometime in the future and cannot wait to see which photos are your favorite when we finish up editing your gallery over the next few weeks! Thank you so much for having us capture such momentous moments in your life and we cannot wait to see you two continue to grow a beautiful life together!
___________Unrelated: Coming up this weekend we’re capturing Cassie & Jimmy’s Engagement Session which will be awesomely unique for a few reasons that you’ll have to wait to see next week! (Yes, oddly enough we’re capturing our other groom Jimmy’s engagement just a week after May & Jimmy’s wedding)! This week we’ve been editing 3 weddings’ worth of photos, just finished up one wedding gallery fully, AND have a couple awesome vocational talks that we’ll be doing in our studio tomorrow and Friday for 6 awesome folks from the Logan Center! We’re really excited to teach people about entrepreneurship, photography, education, and following your “purpose” in life, so tomorrow and Friday should be a blast. We can’t wait to see the passion from these folks! Check back next week for Cassie & Jimmy’s Engagement Session and maybe sometime this summer we’ll share photos and stories from the Logan Center folks!