Mawage. | Milwaukee Wedding Photographer.

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...
- The Impressive Clergyman

Today I celebrate 4 years of "mawage" with the hubby. So I thought it would be fun to revisit some of my own professional wedding pictures. A few notes first:
- We were dumb and didn't get an album. Therefore, our pictures STILL, to this day, sit collecting dust as digital files. GET. AN. ALBUM. Ok....moving on....
- It was INSANELY hot the day of my wedding. Like...100 degrees hot. So, if we all look like melty messes, that's why.
- We did an "Asian" theme to the wedding. Food was awesome, but not sure I would choose the same color scheme if I had a chance to do it all again.
- All the pictures were from Expressive Photography out of Mequon. Our day was shot by the owners Patrick and Tracy. They were relatively new to the wedding photography scene at the time and we sought them out because we wanted a very "documentary" and "fly on the wall" approach to our coverage. We didn't want the photographers to set up moments, really...and that's what we got! We spent the largest amount of our budget (outside of the food) on the photography, and I don't regret it.

Here's some other details of the day (if I can remember!):

Ceremony: The roof of the ABC Supply building in Beloit. There is a green grid garden on the rooftop of the main building, and that's where we got married. We remain the only couple ever to do so.

Reception: Country Club of Beloit. They have THEE BEST wedding food I've ever had since. Instead of having a regular wedding cake I had them make me their strawberry shortcake trifle. Oh. My. Lord. It's to die for. Truly.

Clothing: I wore a $250 David's Bridal dress, off the rack. The dress wasn't really all that important to me, as long as it fit. Looking back, a ball gown probably wasn't the best choice for a 100 degree day, but live and learn. The guys wore black suits and red ties. My lone bridesmaid wore a Cheongsam. We both carried parasols. With the exception of the bouts, there were no flowers.

Wedding Party: I had a "Man of Honor" (my friend Kasey) and a bridesmaid, my good friend Carolyn. Jon had his brother Jason as best man and his friend Mike as groomsman.

The Music: Probably the 2nd most important aspect of the day next to the photography, honestly. I walked down the "aisle" to "Across the Universe". We did a "sand ceremony" (in place of a unity candle) to "Blackbird" and the recessional was "Mexico" from James Taylor (where we got engaged). Our musician was Jon's bandmate Scott, who is just a phenomenal guitarist.

Our first dance song has...sadly...become quite cliche in the past few years, but it was "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. We also used Ben Folds for the mother/son dance ("Still Fighting It") and I danced with my dad to "In My Life". Jon and I also made sure that the dinner music wasn't sucky....we had everything from The Cure, The Get Up Kids, Jimmy Eat World, and Nirvana.

It was a great day, and mostly went off without a hitch....

It's been a fun four years...here's to many more! Love you hubby!


Jon and I opted for a "first look". This was GREAT, because we got in some pre-ceremony shots, plus he got to see me before the heat completely destroyed my makeup.
We got married before Etsy was such a huge deal, so Ebay was my friend. The parasol was an Ebay find, as was all my jewelry and my veil.

My wedding party, Carolyn and "The Ugliest Bridesmaid" Kasey

My husband is a cry-baby : ) We wrote our own vows.

There's a story here. My father in law, bless his heart, secured a limo for us after the ceremony. However, the limo company kind of....well...forgot they had a job that day. So, they called this poor guy, who had to stop doing yard work to run over with a limo and pick us up. So...our limo driver showed up looking like.....this. It's a good thing I have a sense of humor. That could have been a bridezilla moment, I'm sure.

My favorite picture from the day. Grams, Gramps, and me.

You can see my tan line in this one. Note: tanning is bad kids. Embrace your pasty-ness.