Dana and Ross | Wedding @ Sigel, IL and The Carriage House

We have a pretty strict set of photography rules that we follow every year and its on very rare occasions that we break them. The first rule is that we don’t shoot in December. This kind of upsets people but for us December is kind of a sacred time, necessary to prevent burnout as well as an allowance of time to finish up the editing for the year so that all our clients have their images before Christmas. Also, we are so busy with Christmas events, work, and end of year items for the business we just try to avoid the extra stress. When the wedding request comes from one of your closest cousins however, you just can’t say no. I honestly can’t sit here and believe she’s actually married, I mean, we used to play outside together and go Black Friday shopping together when she was still in high school, it feels like yesterday she just graduated from high school. She’s been with Ross since I can even remember and they have always been a perfect match from day one. It was fitting for our last wedding of the year that Mother Nature granted us with a lovely December day, warm enough to spend a good time outside shooting photos.

We started the morning with the ladies of Swagger Salon where they created the bridal party makeup and hair look. We spent the morning shooting detail shots and hanging with the family while the bridal party got ready for the first round of photos. Dana chose a beautiful dress with very pretty accessories to go along with it and she looked absolutely beautiful. We headed to an outdoor pond so Dana and Ross could have their first look which was aided nicely by Mother Nature’s forceful wind blowing Dana’s veil all over the place 😉 We took some family photos out by the pond and then headed to the church for the ceremony. Dana and Ross had chosen to have an unplugged wedding (where they ask guests to avoid taking photos or using their cell phones to document the wedding) which we were grateful for because in a crowded church it can be extremely difficult to photograph big moments when guests are reaching limbs into the aisle or in front of you to “get the shot.” Dana and Ross are two very loved people as you could tell from the very packed ceremony. With the ceremony complete, we wrapped up family photos and headed out to Effingham to finish up outdoor bridal photos. We had some killer golden hour sunset to work with and we had fun shooting with the bridal party and utilizing Dana’s veil for some pretty awesome veil shots. Since it was nice outside, we could spend a lot of time outside without getting cold, which was awesome. We headed to the Carriage House for the reception where Janet and her crew did yet again another amazing job decorating and facilitating the event. Dana had even chosen to have a hot chocolate bar which was extremely popular with just about everyone! The couple had their grand entrance, cut their gingerbread cake, and enjoyed a great meal by Niemergs before the dance kicked off. The dance floor was packed with friends and little kids all having a great time  and we know that Dana and Ross had such a great day. Both Doug and I shared the responsibility of shooting both photo and video for the entire day for Dana and Ross and we can’t wait to share it with you in the coming weeks. Welcome to the ole family Ross, we’re so happy to have you along for the ride- thanks for being so good to Dana and for being a cool guy. We love you both very much!

*Remember- while we would love to share each and every family formal photo we took at Dana and Ross’s big day, we just don’t have the ability to share the hundreds of photos the couple will receive in a very short time. Our most important job is to document the couple and their big day events and we stay attentive all day to ensure that we are not only getting some great guest candids but also that we are ready and available to shoot video and photos when the couple is having a big moment. With hundreds of people at the reception-we had a ton of requests for us to take photo booth style family photos of individual families during the reception and for any of those of you that we turned down, please know that we did so out of experience in knowing that once we opened the door to doing that, we would have never been able to focus back on the couple and their big events in addition to the delay it would have caused in the couple getting their photos returned. We appreciate all the families that utilized the photo booth available for that purpose and we hope you had a fantastic time.  We focus our blogs on the couple, their bridal party, and their big moments so if you don’t see a family photo in there from the ceremony- don’t worry, the couple will be happy to share their photos with you once they receive the final collection.

Congrats Dana and Ross-

Kate and Doug