Traditional church weddings
Church wedding ceremonies aren’t quite as common these days as more and more people go an untraditional route. For instance, it’s really hard to beat the wonderful natural beauty of the outdoors, especially when you can find one of the hundreds of local parks that offer an affordable alternative for your ceremony and reception.
And on the other side, it’s hard to beat the ease and convenience of a professionally run wedding venue. They’re beautiful and they’re designed to host your event and give you exactly everything you need from a good sized reception hall, room for any type of caterer, an outdoor and indoor ceremony option and grounds to roam for portraits.
However, for the couples that have a religious upbringing and want to honor their beliefs and family, getting married in a church is a must.
I myself grew up in an evangelical and mennonite church and have gone to evangelical or non-denominational churches since then. That experience, along with photographing my share of church ceremonies have given me an inside look at about every type of church building you can imagine.
Because of that, I’m fully aware that not every church building is created equal in terms of a photo backdrop. I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve photographed the bride and bridesmaids getting ready in a church basement with no windows and a room that previously doubled as the nursery or kids church.
However, catholic churches can be another story. There are quite a number of churches in Milwaukee, Waukesha and the surrounding areas that are just absolutely ornate with stained glass windows covering an entire wall, vaulted high ceilings and ornate statues and marble altars.
Using stained glass for colors in photos
St. Mary Catholic Church in Waukesha is one of those special churches. I had never photographed here before, but like I do for any new location I scouted out the location before the wedding and the first thing I noticed was how the whole front of the building above the first floor was stained glass.
I was so excited to use these reflections as much as possible and use the light shining through it to take portraits and detail photos. I found the best use of this technique when I took Kristine’s shoes and placed them in a ray of multi-colored light.
Then I featured the windows again during the first look. For this, I suggested that Dan and Kristine meet upstairs with all of the stained glass behind them. I then cranked up the settings in my camera to turn the scene into a silhouette of them two meeting.
Showing off their personalities a bit, Kristine and Dan met in the center of the stained glass and high-fived each other as they saw each other for the first time on their wedding day. They had me laughing at their no-fuss high five, but I got a picture and it really shows off their personalities.
A bare and wintry portrait scene
After their ceremony Dan and Kristine held their reception at Western Lakes Golf Club in Pewaukee.
Golf resorts are usually perfect for portraits since the fairways give you great long views that stretch for hundreds of yards and the cut grass allows your couple to stand out above the horizon.
Also, in most cases the resort will haul you around to their best locations on golf carts making the whole process super fast and easy. Even with the most forgiving of schedules, timing for portraits can always be tricky on a wedding day. Besides portraits, visiting with guests and making it on time for dinner will make time efficiency super important for portraits.
Usually, 90 minutes to two hours is ideal for the end of the ceremony and arriving at the reception for the grand march. But, even when couples give me two hours I’ll still try to work fast.
Like the church I scouted out the golf course the day before. Usually, you’re pretty safe with golf courses since it’s all so scenic, but Kristine and Dan were married in early March. And, for those people that are out of state and may not realize this, early March is still essentially winter in Wisconsin.
Winter photography can be absolutely beautiful if there is fresh snow, but sometimes it can just be gray, muddy and colorless if there is no snow to be found. And, then on top of that Wisconsin can have a lot of cloudy overcast days in the winter, so you won’t even get that soft golden hue coming from the late afternoon sun. Even with the snow I always want to find splashes of color that give the photos some life.
So, when I pick a location for winter portraits I look for things like evergreen trees, red branched bushes or green grass.
Western Lakes Golf Club had a little bit of all that, but mostly I focused on the green grass with pockets of snow around it. The resort also had some redosier dogwood, a bush with red bark near an outdoor pavilion.
Because, Dan and Kristine gave me plenty of time and in general were having a good time taking portraits I took the opportunity to be a bit more creative and I moved in really close to the dogwood and photographed through it. This basically created a red layer in the foreground with Kristine and Dan kissing in the background. It was practicing the photographer’s trick by using objects and things that are between you and your subject as a way to make the photo unique or to frame the subject or to give it random pops of color.
A rustic reception
Aside from the photography, Kristine and Dan did an amazing job with the reception, bringing in decorations that had a rustic rough wood vibe.
Their table placements were hanging from a a large wooden frame, taken from one of their relatives’ farm. It was an old and rustic piece and the placards were hanging on strings of light running horizontally across the middle of the frame where the picture would be.
They also had this neat idea where guests would leave a message for their anniversary and put the messages in bottles. They put the bottles in a wooden bottle carrier that matched the style of the placard holder.
I’m always a big fan of things like this that emphasize the deeper meaning of the day and bring more of the emotion back into things. I also, think you have so much support on your wedding day that it’d be wonderful to step back 10 years from now and experience some of that support from family and friends all over again as you read the messages.
Cake: Ellegant Designs in Menomonee Falls Website Facebook Instagram
Makeup: Beauty & Whiskey Website Facebook Instagram
Dress: Savvy Bride Website Facebook Instagram
Hair: Kati Mann
Rings: Kesslers Website Facebook Instagram
