First wedding of 2016!
Combine the following: a super cool laid back couple, an amazing bunch of salon artists, the beautiful backdrop of the Austin Mansion, the classically beautiful St. Anthony Church, a wonderful and cooperative bridal party, a decked out KC Hall thanks to Walnut Street Weddings, some Niemerg’s pie, great weather, and the DJ awesomeness that is Zach Lorton and you have created one spectacular wedding.
Basically, all of the above are a large combination of some of my favorite wedding vendors and combinations and it made for an absolute perfect day for Kenny and Kristen. We find that there is this really great trend with some of our epic weddings and that is the attitude of the couple. When you have a couple that is just so genuine and focused on their love only for the day and having a great time rather than stressing about every small detail you get magic that comes through in your photos. Kristen completely trusted our abilities to document her day and put all of her trust in our photo ideas and schedule and it was just such a smooth, amazing day. We started the morning off at Branches Salon where Katrina Smith created this amazing, flawless bridal makeup look for Kristen and resident hair ninja Nikki Beck gave Kristen the most classic and elegant up-do ever. We then headed to one of my favorite prep spots, the Austin Mansion, for getting ready shots and bridal portraits. The Austin Mansion is just second to none when it comes to weddings. Getting ready in the beautiful bridal suite sure puts all church basements to shame as it offers an elegant backdrop to some amazing memories. Despite being in a time crunch, we actually managed to pull off some of my favorite bridal portraits to date in the mansion before heading to St. Anthony Church for group formals. Because of the excellent cooperation of the bridal party and family we were even able to squeeze in some outdoor portraits of the groom and groomsmen prior the wedding. You won’t find a nicer guy than Kenny and it was touching watching his face as Kristen walked down the aisle. The couple laughed and smiled through the ceremony and we were able to take care of all of the remaining family formals quite quickly after the wedding. This allowed us enough time to return to the Austin Mansion for some beautiful photos in the low, yellow sun. I usually am not a fan of the “getting dark early” concept in the winter and I always have to be vigilant when scheduling photos for winter weddings however sunset now hits at the absolute perfect time and it did so for this wedding. Normally I’m not much to rely on natural light to do what I want but the sun this evening as absolutely stunning. We can’t thank Walnut Street Weddings enough for always allowing us to utilize the mansion for taking some epic shots! We headed to the Effingham KC Hall where Walnut Street Weddings had completely transformed the hall into a gold and white heaven complete with fur accents, feathers, and glittery gold centerpieces. The couple’s reception was complete with a cupcake/pie table (total yum) a delicious meal from Niemerg’s, and the amazing DJ talents of Zach Lorton from Complete Music. Zach is one of our all-time favorite DJ’s from Complete and we absolutely LOVE walking into a reception and seeing him because we know all will be organized and smooth in his capable hands! The reception was an absolute blast complete with fireball circle, some free form karaoke (Kristen can RAP you guys!), and a completely packed dance floor. We even found ourselves at some point just dancing along with Kristen and all of the bridesmaids, their good time was infectious! Thanks to all the great vendors that made this day awesome to photograph and be a part of. Thank you Kristen and Kenny for being absolutely amazing and go with the flow! We have no doubt you’ll have a long and happy life together! Congrats!
-Kate and Doug
*Special Note* If you are viewing this blog please know it is only a small snapshot of the couples big day! There is absolutely no way we can include all of the family photos and group formals taken throughout the day in this blog and our focus for this blog is typically the bride and groom. We promise to deliver all of the final images to the bride and groom once they are finished and they will get all of those great family formals that we took throughout the day plus so many more candid images!
