As most of you might know from reading this blog, you know it’s been my goal this year to start expanding beyond the Effingham, IL area. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my local wedding, but on occasion it’s always nice to see somewhere else, right? I mean it’s the same reason we take vacations; we love our homes, but it’s always nice to see somewhere different. So over the past year I’ve been on a push with my engagement sessions and senior sessions and we’ve actually been so fortunate to travel quite some distance including an engagement session in Las Vegas this winter. My first wedding out of the area took place today with John and Kimberly. While it wasn’t so much a “destination” wedding for them, it was for me. 🙂 And the location of their wedding was absolutely gorgeous. We actually shot in this area for their engagemetn session, so I was somewhat familiar with it, but with 1000 +/- acres, we definitely didn’t explore it all.
The wedding took place in the Founder’s Room of the Education Center at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL and the reception at the Hotel Arista in Naperville. This day was a day of first for me on top of my first wedding out of my “home” area. I’ve also been wanting a wedding where the preparations took place in a hotel. I know it’s a simple request and seems so odd to some, but I LOVE hotel prep pictures, and the Hotel Arista (which was an AMAZING hotel) provided for some amazing prep and detail pictures. This was also my first morning wedding. John and Kimberly got married at 11:00 in the morning and the reception was over early in the afternoon, so it was definitely an odd feeling loading up at a time that a majority of my weddings start to begin, but I’m not going to lie, I kind of liked it.
I may have said it in their engagement pictures but the first thing you’ll notice with John and Kim’s pictures is that they are truly in LOVE with one another. These two are so much fun to pose because I barely have to do anything. There are some couples that look great with dramatically lit pictures and poses and others that look great just showing one another love and John and Kimberly are definitely the latter. I just show them a spot that I want them to be and they just look at each other with loving eyes and at times it was almost difficult bringing their attention to me because they were locked in on each other. I absolutely loved capturing this love they had for each other. And of course I loved having the opportunity to photography their big day in such a wonderful location. The Morton Arboretum is such a fun place to work at, and it’s about like the “city” of landscape pictures. Just like a large city will provide great pictures and nearly an entire session in one block, the Morton Arboretum provides the same opportunities with the amount of landscaping surrounding the place. I definitely recommend the location for a wedding and/or engagement. Congratulations again John and Kim!!
I love this picture. The reassuring face from John that nothing will happen, but Kim’s smile says exactly what she feels about that assurance. John was a trooper though and didn’t do anything crazy. Still, I LOVE this moment. 🙂