Liz and Aaron are MARRIED!! These two tied the knot a few days ago over the weekend down at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (about two hours from where we live) and it was an absolutely perfect day! We've been getting to know these two since last July and had a blast capturing their Engagement Session at Purdue with their amazing dog in the fall. (The session also included near the end some photos of them in the Memorial Union with Liz's late mother's head scarf held between their hands- a beautiful tribute to Liz's mother.)
Liz and Aaron's wedding day this past Saturday July 22nd started off with thunderstorms, so we prepared and brought 6 beautiful matching umbrellas down with us since suddenly the day called for thunderstorms all day. We walked around a wet campus in the morning checking out how things looked now around the church (since it'd been months since we'd been here) and the areas we'd planned on taking portraits of the bridal party as well as Liz and Aaron before heading into the Union to find them and start photographing. We headed into their separate hotel rooms in the Purdue Memorial Union and miraculously throughout their time getting ready for the wedding the sun came out and dried all the rain! The forecast kept pushing the rain back further and further in the day, so we were elated that everyone would stay nice and dry throughout the day!
Liz, her nieces, and bridesmaids got ready beautifully with hair and makeup stylists in a hotel room directly above Aaron's at the Union. Aaron and the groomsmen got ready so quickly that they were even able to head down to the reception hall and even take all of their groomsmen portraits with Aaaron! After all of the preparation was done, the ladies actually had to end up running most of the way to the church with fingers crossed that the men were off in their room so that they could go downstairs to their waiting room before the ceremony without Aaron seeing Liz!
Though there was a bit of chaos prior to the ceremony, the ceremony went off without a hitch! The ceremony was an augmented Catholic mass at St. Thomas Aquinas church at Purdue and had cute little flower girls preceding the bride (Liz' nieces). The priest even joked around and kept Aaron and Liz laughing prior to the rings being exchanged and the two being officially wed!
After the wedding ceremony the sun was still out so Liz and Aaron hugged their guests and then immediately hopped on one of Purdue's official mascots: the train vehicle by the name of "The Boiler Express!" They made a lap around campus and then came back to sign the wedding documents and have some formal photos of them with family captured at the church. After the church portraits they and the bridal party all hopped back onto The Boiler Express, amazingly fun music started blasting, and we headed to a handful of spots for bridal party and bride & groom portraits! It was awesome listening to the fun music while taking some awesome portraits and honestly we wish all post-wedding bridal party portrait sessions included The Boiler Express, its speediness getting from location to location, the music, and the ample time we had to work with everyone! Due to the rain earlier in the morning, the humidity was rapidly rising though, so Liz and Aaron opted to cut the outdoor portraits a bit short to opt for some last indoor portraits of all of them!
The wind in everyone's hair as we all headed in The Boiler Express back to the Union was extremely welcomed as was the A/C once we all got there! We snapped a shot of Aaron and Liz driving the train and then headed inside for some last portraits of everyone. Once inside we captured the last photos of the bridal party and let Liz and Aaron head up to their room prior to their announcement into cocktail hour at the reception! After they went up to their room to unwind for a second, they were announced into the reception, cut their cake, and then went and grabbed a drink before Liz's dad made a formal welcome speech. After his speech everyone sat down for dinner as we captured some portraits of their rings.
After dinner Liz's dad made another speech followed by the Maid of Honor (Liz's sister) and Best Man speech (by Aaron's good friend). The speeches had us all rolling laughing, and then it was time for the First Dance, Father-Daughter dance, and Mother-Son dance. All had unique songs chosen to best fit each dance. After the dances, they opened the floor to Open Dance and everyone joined in! There was a bit of country music to satiate Liz's love for it and everything in between. Before leaving we even squeezed in a couple photos of the bouquet toss and snagged some photos of the beautiful tables decorations that were glistening in the beautiful lights!
Congratulations Liz and Aaron on your amazing wedding and the start to your marriage! We know you'll continue to enjoy your lives together with your fur baby and we can't wait to see what else is in store for you! We've loved working with you two over the past year and thank you so much for having us capture your big day! We can't wait to get your your physical wedding photos soon!
>>Up next in just a few days is Caitlin and Joe's big day! They'll be having their wedding at the University of Notre Dame's Basilica with portraits also done at Caitlin's alma mater St. Mary's College (literally just across the street) with their reception at the Palais Royale in downtown South Bend! We can't wait to celebrate with them so soon! The day after starts Jenny's sister's wedding week, so the next two weeks will be filled with wedding things while editing and sending out wedding albums and physical photos to our lovely summer wedding (now married!) couples! We're really looking forward to the weddings in August, September, and October and we can't wait to celebrate with everyone! *Check back here to the blog next week to check out Caitlin and Joe's sure to be amazing wedding!