Just a few days ago Ohioans Stacey & Michael celebrated their legal wedding day getting married at Notre Dame-! Their big wedding day was originally set for this EXACT date (June 19th, 2020), but when Notre Dame started to help couples adjust to the Pandemic in April, Stacey and Michael chose to move their big wedding day back 4 months to October 2020.
Notre Dame gave all of our Spring & Summer couples of 2020 a few options on how to proceed with their wedding (or not having their wedding) during the pandemic which was great to finally see after a FULL stressful month of Pandemic Stay at Home orders and confusion over what was legal in terms of weddings across the NATION. We had been trying to keep up with 5 states’ policies (difficult- having to check what their governors’ names were and constantly having to check regulations DAILY/ weekly) to help advise our couples, but in the end most couples from March through July ended up pushing their weddings back 4 to 13 months. Stacey & Michael live in Ohio (Cleveland), so they also had a hard time keeping track of what was going on with the different states’ policies. Once they saw that states would start to open back up in June, they immediately decided that they wanted to have another wedding day- their original wedding date of June 19th, 2020 for a legal wedding still at Notre Dame! They asked us if we were available and we cleared the schedule for the day to make sure that we could capture their wedding for a couple hours as we were already suddenly doing for other couples throughout all the June weekends.
Originally these two were set to have their wedding originally on this date (June 19th), but due to the Pandemic these two were able to do a Bonus Wedding this week on their original date and will be wed again in later this 2020 year with their full bigger wedding at the Basilica at Notre Dame with their full reception following. They were excited that they could still get married legally on their original wedding date out-of-state at Notre Dame still-! Their families were still available, so they re-invited a small handful of their beloved family members (making sure to chat about masking up while inside the wedding ceremony) and were set for their wedding day #1 (Pandemic bonus wedding day)! Without further adieu, here is Stacey & Michael’s Wedding Day #1 !
Stacey & Michael set their bonus wedding ceremony (legal wedding) for mid-day at 2 p.m. (like all of our bonus wedding days for our couples all of the weekends of June)! Their bonus wedding ceremony was held in the Sacred Heart Parish Center church which is a lovely spot on the 2nd lake at Notre Dame. The priest (officiant) for their wedding day was actually Michael’s uncle which was pretty fun and special (especially since he had a great sense of humor).
(Michael even decided to record the wedding on his own cell phone to have some video memories of their Wedding #1).
These two had their parents & grandparents masked up and looking on as Michael and Stacey were wed at Notre Dame over the weekend! It was a nice, intimate full Catholic wedding with a few alterations to their ceremony. Instead of guests exchanging a sign of peace by shaking hands, attendees flashed each other a peace sign with their fingers. Michael’s uncle served everyone the eucharist individually at their seat, but no one other than him drank from the cup. Also tweaked was the fact that Stacey and Michael didn’t exchange rings during their ceremony!
Once wed, these two had their First Kiss! Like Bee & Jordan the weekend prior, these two didn’t come back down the aisle, rather just turned around to their small group of guests as their guests clapped for them. After their wedding ceremony, we captured a few photos of everyone inside of the church, then promptly headed outside to do their 20 group photos (and 15 Newlywed photos) that they’d chosen.
We went out the day prior to their wedding check out the lighting (usually intense mid-day since sunsets here are currently 9:30 p.m.) and choose some gorgeous spots for their 20 group family photos post-ceremony. Stacey’s mom did a great job finding 15 inspiration photos for us to kind of recreate (some from past weddings we’ve captured at Notre Dame), so we made sure to check out how the shaded spots for those were looking for 3 to 4 pm as well to ensure we get the best photos for their bonus wedding day!
We loved the lighting at that time as it surrounded these two. We added a bit more light of our own to light up everyone in the shaded nature area, then took Stacey & Michael off for the rest of the photos of the two of them by themselves (newlywed photos)! We headed right into the middle of campus with them and captured photos of the two of them in their requested spots. Stacey had attended Notre Dame while Michael had attended Michigan for college, so Michael joked about not needing photos by the “God, Country, Notre Dame” words at the Basilica, but did end up mustering up the courage to appease his new wife for those.
We’re so happy that we were able to capture Stacey & Michael’s legal Bonus Wedding on their original wedding date this June-! These two rescheduled their wedding for 4 months later at the Basilica/ Notre Dame & the Gillespie, so we’ll be seeing them when they again come in from Cleveland/ Ohio in the fall for their BIG wedding day. These two will likely still have full green leaves and grass outside, so though it may visually look the same, the weather luckily won’t be 90 degrees with full humidity like it was on their Bonus legal wedding day this week which will be an added bonus.
Thank you so much for having us at your Bonus Wedding, Stacey & Michael! We can’t wait to see you two again as we capture your big wedding day in 4 months to celebrate with ALL of your family & friends-! We’re so glad that you get 2 special days to celebrate your love and are proud of you for adapting to these weird pandemic circumstances. We hope that you two had a great rest of your wedding day and had safe travels home back to Ohio/ Cleveland! We’ll see you again soon-ish!
_________Unrelated: Coming up in just a few days we’ll also be capturing Marisa & Erik’s intimate Bonus Wedding here in South Bend on their original wedding date-! These two also had their wedding date set for June at the Basilica, but the Pandemic caused them to have to reschedule their wedding for a little over 5 months later at the start of December. These two will be celebrating their Bonus Wedding day at their home/ neighborhood Catholic church (St. Jude) here in South Bend and afterward we’ll be capturing their family group photos a couple blocks over in their own backyard-! We can’t wait to capture their legal wedding in just a few days (we have their photo list all ready to go) and are excited that these two ALSO get to be wed on their original wedding date (with their bigger day still at the Basilica- now rescheduled for late fall with their reception at The Armory)! We’ll catch you again next week with Marisa & Erik’s Bonus Wedding Teasers!!