Gina and Frank were married at St. Robert Bellamine Parish, where Gina and three of her bridemaid’s also attended elementary and middle school.  So it was natural that after the ceremony before heading to the reception that they wanted to scoot over to the school building for a quick picture in one of their old classrooms.

hThe highlight of their reception was the kick-ass performance of Maggie Speaks.  I know a lot of brides think if they have a band they are going to be sacrificing some of the more modern and current hits that their friends like to dance to.  ”Maggie’s” set list from Gina & Frank’s wedding included everything from wedding classics such as “Brown Eyed Girl” and “We Are Family” to current pop-rock versions of “Sexy-Back,” “Bad Romance,” “Let’s Get it Started,” “Soul Sister,” and “Disturbia.”

If you’re even remotely considering a band over a DJ for your wedding reception, your search should definitely include Maggie Speaks!

The first thing that I saw when I walked into Melissa’s Mom’s house at the beginning of the wedding day was this picture of Melissa as the flower girl at her Uncle’s wedding.  There’s a bit more to the story, but more on that later……..

Melissa’s father passed away several years ago, and it was her uncle who walked her down the aisle.  Her uncle also filled in for her father in the traditional Father-Daughter first dance.  The little girl who once walked down the aisle in front of her uncle on his wedding day, was now walking down the aisle WITH her  uncle on her own wedding day.

Shika and Shridhar from Jay Crihfield on Vimeo.

This photograph was from Kristin & Howard’s wedding last summer at the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in Vernon Hills.

….So we were walking back up the fairway at the Silver Lakes Country Club in Orland Park, when Andrea’s maid-of-honor, Maggie noticed a tree with some really curvy branches that might look pretty cool in a picture.  So rather than try something with looking up at the couple, with the curvy tree limbs behind them, I wanted to use the tree limbs as part of the foreground of the picture.  Only problem I’m not that tall, and getting up high enough to allow the branches to frame the image required climbing up in the tree……

So I did my best squirrel impression and figured out a way to boost myself up into the tree, along with my camera.  Only problem was the tree trunk had several flowering branches which also had some pretty mean looking thorns on them.  I thought I had avoided them all on the way up, as well as on the way down, but it turns out one of them loosely lodged itself on my pants, only to make its presence felt when I sat down a little later on!  It would’ve felt a lot worse if the shot didn’t quite work out.

I love this last picture because while so many couples run a slideshow of pictures at their reception, it’s often very difficult to make a good picture of the couple watching the show.   Either the screen is too far away from the bride & groom, or you wind up just seeing the backs of their heads.  Luckily the room at Silver Lake Country Club has mirrors on several of the walls, so I was able to frame this one up with the screen in the foreground, and show Andrea and Andy watching the slideshow by using their reflection in the mirror.

There’s also an interesting story behind this image involving a photographer, a tree, and some thorns, but I’ll wait to fill everyone in on that one!

I kinda wondered after I took this picture who had the “honor” of sitting at the Detention labeled table….turns out it was Yesenia and David’s fellow teachers!

The funny thing about this picture is David doesn’t play a lick of piano (apparantly “chop-sticks” are even a challenge), but Yesenia is actually pretty good!