Lincolnshire Marriott Resort wedding reception | St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr, Chicago | Frank & Renee

Once I met a couple named Frank and Renee, who were straight out of a romance novel…I swear, had I not personally witnessed this (and I have the photos to prove it, HA!!!) I would not believe it. On their wedding day of course they had lots of fun, dancing and making sure they mingled with everyone, and did all the wedding things, but every free second they had they connected somehow. While walking around the tables greeting guests, they grabbed each other and danced for 10-20 seconds…they were always aware of the other, and looked into each others eyes with such love and happiness that Carol and I were practically in tears just watching them.

Thank you Frank and Renee for allowing me to witness and capture your wedding day, and your obvious love for each other…I will always smile whenever I think about you and your wedding 😀

Church – St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr

I usually don’t include photos from the bus on the blog post, but I had to make an exception here…if you’ve ever been on a wedding party bus, you know the chaos….but just look at how cute they are, connecting in some way every chance they had, I mean they are holding pinkies for Pete’s sake.

Post ceremony photos at Lincoln Park, Chicago.

Venue – Marriott in Lincolnshire

From the couple…

‘Church – St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr. This church holds a special place in the bride’s heart. The priest is a really good family friend and he even baptized the bride. 

Hair/Makeup – Salon M in Niles. Absolutely love them! It’s a family business and the staff is fun. Plus they did an amazing job! 

Sew Bridal – alterations. Kelly is great at what she does and has such a cool personality. She even created my veil from scratch. 

Tux – J.O.S. Bank. Unfortunately our first location when choosing the tuxes was awful! Thankfully we went to another and the experience was so much better!! Some of the issues we ran into were incorrect information in the systems that we had to re-correct several times, there was confusion with the type of tux.

Flowers – Nutmeg Flowers. We absolutely loved
Meghan! She was great and super easy to work with. 

Dress – House of Brides. Took every ounce of the bride not to go there (due to the horror stories), and while unsuccessfully finding a dress decided to go try one. Instantly fell in love with a dress the moment I saw it on me in the mirrors. And I even recall thinking in the dressing room that I was going to hate it since it had flowers on it! It was simple yet beautiful at the same time. Sadly, the experience wasn’t as great. Customer service was awful. Half the time trying to get a hold of someone was nearly impossible. I provided a fake wedding date (a month before) to make sure I’d get the dress on time and it came a week before this date. So happy I had a fake date in the system! Also, since I tried the dress during the winter, my pale skin looked better with the blush color sample I tried on. Freaked out when I was all tan from the summer the day I was able to pick it up. Thankfully my nerves were  for no reason as it still looked gorgeous the day of. More of a lesson…

Videographer- Petit Four Films. They exceeded our expectations. 

Venue – Marriott in Lincolnshire. Gorgeous venue. Booze was flowing. Food was good. Dance floor big. Setup of the room was awesome. Customer service could’ve been better. 

Favors (cookies) – Trudy’s treats. Mama Ladd is one of my friend’s mom and she nailed what we wanted. And the cookies are delicious!! Plus she’s cool. 

Favorite wedding related purchase… Renee: the cake topper which includes a Boxer dog silhouette as to incorporate our fur baby Winston. 
Frank: the scotch (highland park 18) for the groomsmen. 
Together: Angel Eyes (pending status lol). Honestly though, Hilda was awesome and came well prepared for everything that day. Even with scissors! She was able to coral all of us to get the best shots. Quite a task with the bridal party we had! Saved the day that day!

Favorite wedding memory…Seeing each other for the first time on our wedding day. 

Funny moments…Alina, our flower girl, stealing the show during the ceremony. 

Advice for couples… Enjoy the engagement. The process is stressful and at times you wish you just went abroad. ‘