Sarah and Firas Wedding, Riverwoods Illinois

How do I even start writing about the most eventful wedding I’ve ever been to? I guess we can start with days and days of rain that completely flooded the tent that was set up on the Bride’s parents property for the reception…or do I start with on how one amazing wedding planner managed to come up with a brand new location and a way to transport almost 200 guests with less that 24 hours notice…I guess we’ll get to that in a minute…

The beautiful Bride getting ready.

Firas waiting for the ceremony to start, he looks like he just stepped off the pages of GQ doesn’t he?

An awesome ring shot from my assistant Carolyn…I’m so proud of her!!!

And one from me.

And here is the hero of the day Patti the amazing wedding planner, she should be wearing a cape for pulling off the impossible, here she is helping one of the adorable flower girls get ready. At the end of this post I’ll list some of the things she did to make this wedding a success and it was!

Some tears and beautiful moments during the ceremony.

Right after they were pronounced husband and wife they took a little walk around the property, the light was amazing!

One of my favorites! I love the  joy on Sarah’s face when she looks at her new groom.

Love this one too!

Yes, they had a lake and swans !!!   Didn’t have to look too hard for a nice place to take photos that’s for sure!!

Patti bustling Sarah’s dress.

The first dance.

A great speech from Dr. Douglas.

And now the fun starts with the belly dancers.

Elvis came for a visit later on in the evening, he was very good! He has a great voice, all the ladies loved him!!!

<Click here for Windy City Elvis info>

And then Homer Simpson wanted to get his party on…

He also had some cool moves…

All the ladies wanted to dance with Homer…

Good thing Marge was at home with the children so she didn’t see Homie coming apart at the seams…

All efforts were made to revive him…

Unfortunately it didn’t work….

R.I.P. Homer.

But the party continued where?? With the groom on the best man’s shoulders of course!

Tequila!

I laughed till I cried, it was soo much fun!!!

Here are just some of highlights of this amazing event.

-Early in the week, there was rain forecast…tents are set up for the ceremony and the reception on the  property.

-By Thursday the mud in the reception tent was several inches deep….the dance floor is floating.

-Friday it’s decided that the reception is not going to happen in the tent…Sarah and Patti cry together…Patti goes into action! All she need to do is find an event space  a Saturday in June with less than 24 hour notice for 190 people plus a dance floor.

-A reception hall is found, and it’s beautiful. (The Milan in Waukegan IL)

-BTW all the linens were already set up in the tent, they are drenched.

-Special kudos to BBJ Linens who replaced the wet linens with dry ones for the hall at no extra charge and in time!  http://www.bbjlinen.com/

-Transportation is hired for the guests, 4 full size buses and drivers.

-Patti contacts about 20 vendors who need to move to a different location…most of them cuss her out…I was not one of them 🙂

-The day of the wedding Patti and her assistant Melissa are up at the crack of  dawn to make sure the new hall is set up and ready to go for the reception.

-The wedding is beautiful, everyone has a blast…Sarah and Firas live happily ever after!

I asked Sarah to tell me about how she felt about the wedding…I love hearing a bride’s point of view.

I’ve felt like Firas and I were married since practically the first week that we were together. From the instant that I met him, I knew that he was probably the one for me. I had never met a man that was as intelligent, sensitive, kind and funny as Firas. Plus, he seemed to feel the same way about me! So, I never felt nervous or anxious about our wedding day. It always seemed like a natural next step. However, I was so excited about having all of our friends and family together at one time.

Firas and I are from different countries and my parents are from different countries and we live in Africa, so getting everyone together was a major event! As the RSVPs kept coming in, I was shocked by how many people were coming from far and wide to celebrate with us. In the end we had 31 nationalities represented amongst our guests! After weeks of rain, the actual day was brilliantly sunny. I was so excited to see Firas in his tuxedo and looking forward to an amazing party with 180 of the most amazing people on the planet. I barely remember the ceremony. It went by so fast.

But the party was the most fun! We know a lot of fun people and they were all in top form. We managed to integrate our cultures into the celebration by serving British Pimms cocktails, Arabic food for dinner, having belly dancers to get the party going and an incredible Elvis impersonator to liven the dancing up later on in the night. Thanks to the excellent support of all our vendors, it was not only the most fun day of my entire life but also the most meaningful as I committed myself to the man I love in front of all the people in the world that are closest to me.

Link to wonder woman Patti http://www.withlovebridal.com/

Link to my main website http://www.angeleyesphotography.com/

Thanks for visiting my blog, please leave a comment 🙂