This is one of those weddings I wish I’d been invited to. The emotion-filled images from Stinky Feet Photography show an event full of love, laughter and plain old fun along with some serious pretty from the amazing A New Leaf. From the bride’s Melissa Sweet stunner to some of the cutest bridal party pics I ever did see, there is so much more in the full gallery!
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From the Bride… When we got engaged, we were already planning to move to Chicago for our residencies, so the hunt for venues in Chicago began online. When we saw A New Leaf, we knew it was perfect. What could be more romantic than getting married at a local flower shop!?
We tried to do as much as possible ourselves, which proved to be difficult during intern year! Fortunately, we had lots of help. My mom sewed our cake topper birds, designed and printed our invitations on our home computer and hand-drew a map of Chicago for our guests. I was busy collecting vintage milk glass cake stands for our dessert table, searching for gray paper straws and hand-punching tissue paper confetti in our colors. To incorporate our family history in the wedding, we used my mother-in-law’s family candelabra for our unity candles and displayed family wedding photos on our welcome table in little silver frames. For our guests, we put together welcome bags with Chicago paraphernalia including metro maps, brochures for key activities, Chicago popcorn and, of course, local beer. Driving around Chicago with my parents delivering the bags to local hotels turned out to be one of my favorite memories as the wedding approached. For the cocktails, we chose drinks we had enjoyed during our year in Chicago. We were allowed to provide our own alcohol to the venue, so we decided to make all the mixers ourselves — a decision that could have been a mistake in retrospect, as my husband spent the morning of our wedding squeezing 25 pounds of limes and making liters of strawberry and blackberry puree. My husband was also in charge of constructing a homemade photo booth. After many trips to the Home Depot plumbing department, he made a photo-booth pipe structure and a photo-taking system using his Mac, Apple monitor and Canon camera. My mom sewed a surrounding enclosure, and it turned out to be the most fun part of the whole wedding!
Julie, our photographer, was such an amazing sport, hunting down balloons for our first look, squatting on stools to get the perfect shots and, most of all, bringing a fun and creative energy to the whole day! In the end, it was our perfect wedding, filled with exactly the people and details we imagined!
Wedding Photography: Julie Montgomery of Stinky Feet Photography / Wedding Venue + Floral Design: A New Leaf in Chicago, Illinois / Catering + Bartending: Connie’s Catering / Cake Topper: DIY by the Bride’s Mother / DJ: Gibson Speech / Signs, Photo Booth Props + Fingerprint Guest Book: Etsy / Wedding Dress: Melissa Sweet / Bride’s Shoes: Kate Spade / Bride’s Ring: The Bride’s Grandmother’s Wedding Ring / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: J.Crew