Ohhhh 2020, what a year we’ve had and it’s barely halfway through. I’d recap it for you, but we’re all living through it. You know what’s going on.

Like so many other things, my job looks a lot different this year. No ten hour wedding days, no timelines, no big receptions with everyone who’s important in your life in one room drinking, dancing and celebrating. I miss photographing all the craziness of a full wedding day, but these small, intimate ceremonies have been a great reminder of why I started doing this so long ago. Big weddings are fun, but the reason you’re getting married can easily get lost in the shuffle of the wedding day chaos. Getting to photograph people’s love, just the two of them, has been a silver lining in a pretty dismal year. Jen & Brett were the very first micro-wedding I photographed this year and I loved every second of it! (as well as every inch of her dress…)

Before I blog a wedding, I like to ask my couples about their favorite parts of the day and anything they’d like to share with future couples. Since it was just the two of them (and me and the officiant), there wasn’t as much to recap. Jen went above and beyond and wrote this up for me to share.

“After 8 months of planning a wedding, I imagined I would wake up alone in a hotel ready to be pampered for the day.  A Hair and Makeup artist, coffee with out of town friends, and maybe a nice walk along the lakefront.  Instead our lives were still in quarantine.  I woke up to SNOW on the ground, in my own bed with 2 barking dogs…. my normal routine to say the least. I jumped into action for my quarantine wedding.  My new wedding morning consisted of picking up a wedding cake, picking up my dress from a friend’s closet, crafting my own bouquet of flowers, squeezing in a workout, and finally – doing my own hair and makeup.  To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised by it all.  After having a career built on planning other people’s lives, I had the ability to make things happen when things went awry and quickly react with a plan B, taking control of the situation and this allowed me to have a very successful wedding morning, albeit not the relaxing day I imagined. Having an intimate wedding in lieu of 100 guests had some perks.  The Trump Hotel was beyond amazing and surprised us with many perks given we were one of the few guests.  Being alone with my fiancé/husband was great as we had each other to lean on and didn’t have to worry about any crazy drama with friends/family, or folks running in and out of the rooms with requests and questions for us pulling us in different directions.  The stress of a large event was gone.  However, so was the big party.  I missed having a big dance party with my friends – having a crowd on the dance floor to jump around and sing along to Bon Jovi and Whitney Houston. The small wedding was still magical and was captured spectacularly on this sunny, yet cold day and we were able to feel like we had the streets of Chicago all to ourselves.”