PHOTOGRAPHY - ELOPEMENTS - ALBUMS
Every time a bell rings a bride is happy with her bouquet and flowers by event florists Natalie Willett and Dan Mitchell at Zuzu's Petals. We have enjoyed their work for quite a while and wanted to spotlight the lovely job they recently did for a wedding we photographed in June for bride and groom Megan and Luke. We love peonies, so we especially enjoyed the Zuzu's Petals floral work for this wedding. We'll have a full feature about this beautiful day coming soon.
© Wedding Creativo Photography
Chicago weddings that take place on Lake Michigan cruise ships can inspire fun nautical themes for summer weddings.
Ships docked at Navy Pier, Spirit of Chicago, Mystic Blue and Odyssey, are operated by Entertainment Cruises. The weddings we have experienced on them have been fun and unique, and when the Navy Pier fireworks go off, the view is always spectacular from the lake.
Chicago River wedding cruises are also fantastic. Wedding rentals are available by Chicago's First Lady, which docks along the Chicago River Walk and offers river and lakefront charters. The river cruise route, with up-close views of the city's spectacular architecture, gives your wedding reception an amazing backdrop.
With Chicago wedding cruises as our featured location inspiration today, there are many ideas and fashions that everyone could have fun with for nautical, marina, lakeside, navy, or sailor related themes.
Here is a collection of nautical wedding items we found on etsy.com:
Here are a variety of nautical, marina, sailor and seaside styles by a variety of designers.
Nautical bridal fashions:
 J.Crew Indie |
 Diane von Furstenberg Leron Wrap Dress |
 Betsy & Adam Split Sleeve Dress |
 BCBGMAXAZRIA Seashell Belted Silk Column Gown |
Nautical wedding fashions:
 Milly Sail Away Dress |
 Dahlia Anchor Print Chiffon Tea Dress |
 Ralph Lauren Polina Off-Shoulder |
 Laken long tank dress with belt navy |
 Laken long tank dress with belt |
 Anthropologie Gull Wing Dress |
 Yumi Sailor Dress |
 Marc Jacobs Delfine Sailor Dress |
 Badgley Mischka Platinum, black and white silk stripe detail |
 White House |
 Isabella Tonchi |
 Diane von Furstenberg Evadine Wavy-Knit Wrap |
Kyle and Steffanie recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary, (congratulations you two!) and to commemorate the special day, Kyle contacted us about a month in advance about making a special print for his lovely wife.
Instead of a traditional wedding day portrait he picked out a small special moment that meant a lot to Steffanie. You see, while she was getting ready on her wedding morning, this cute monarch butterfly landed on the window right in front of her. It sat there for a few minutes giving her a big smile while she was getting her hair and makeup done. It was a magic moment for her, and thankfully the little guy stayed on the window long enough for us to catch him grinning.
The best part about this story is that Steffanie contacted us a few weeks later wanting to order this same picture! We had to come up with an elaborate rouse to try and stall her to not spoil Kyle's surprise, which I knew was going to be disappointing at the time, but that soon enough her husband was going to get lots of kisses on their anniversary and that she would understand what the deal was. We all had a great laugh, and most of all, it was great to see how these newlyweds were so in tune with each other's heartstrings.
It is always wonderful when something unexpected happens to make a wedding day all the more special, and these little surprise moments are sometimes the things that people remember most about their day. It is a great idea to have something like this as a unique way to look back on the wedding, and makes for a fantastic anniversary gift!
This bridal portrait always reminds me (Sarah) of one of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939). His paintings and artwork used in early advertising during the Art Nouveau period are iconic.
Bride Nichole also loves Art Nouveau, and it was apparent with her home decor and wedding style. This portrait on her staircase is a classic favorite.
© Wedding Creativo Photography
We love this bright idea for wedding receptions: have your guests write messages on cards for you to open on each anniversary. What a great way to look back on your wedding day and look forward to your anniversary each year!
Basically, you just need a bunch of lovely blank note cards and envelopes. Numbering the envelopes for each anniversary year would be a reasonably manageable DIY project. It could even be delegated to someone with nice penmanship or who has patience to sit down for a couple of hours to neatly place pretty stickers like these pink glitter numbers found on the online craft supply store A Cherry on Top:
We are always in awe of the elaborate and unique details of wedding cakes. Today we would like to highlight some great cakes and the creative folks behind these edible works of art. These selections also show some general trends we've noticed in wedding cakes, other sweets, and cake toppers (or lack thereof) in the last year.
By far, the biggest trend we've seen with wedding cakes in the past year has been elegant "clean" designs, usually with fresh cut floral embellishments, such as this cake above by Oak Mill Bakery. The Polish are internationally known for their amazing sweet treats, and owner Bogna Iwanowska-Solak definitely brought that wonderful baking heritage with her to Chicago when she opened her family's first bakery here in 1986. Today they operate six stores in Chicago, Niles, Harwood Heights and Arlington Heights.
Amy Beck is known for her elegant custom cake designs, often using floral elements, whether they are created with sugar or real flowers. She used cascading violet and yellow orchids for this fantastic wedding cake. Earlier this year we were excited to see that Amy opened up a new store on Racine street, just a few blocks from our studio. Welcome to the neighborhood Amy!
Bride Krys added a single pink peony to top her wedding cake to go along with her peony-theme wedding. Central Continental Bakery, a north-west suburban bakery that has been making wonderful wedding cakes since 1922, detailed the design with words such as "family," "friendship," and "love" to express the things in life that the bride and groom most cherish.
Mary Winslow's small bakeshop, Take the Cake, specializes in intricately detailed custom designs and cake flavors, always with a look of timeless elegance. This white petal wedding cake perfectly complimented the petal details on the bride's wedding dress, as well as her all-white reception decor. We can only imagine the patience and focus it took to make those delicate frosting rose petals.
Couples that hold their weddings at venues renowned for their cuisine may also find the cake included in their package. As part of Chicago's fantastic foodie group of Levy Restaurants, Fulton's on the River offers their compelling Reid Murdoch Wedding Package, which includes a custom designed wedding cake. This one above incorporated the couple's pink and green wedding colors and their last name inital for the silver and diamond cake topper.
Maggie Roeder Cakes is a boutique that places equal importance on the taste of the cake as the design. For this reception, the bride and groom built an experience for their guests around gourmet cuisine and a cake made with top quality ingredients. Overall, their reception decor was minimalist, which was well complimented with the clean monogram design topping this cake.
For their vintage-style barn wedding, this bride and groom went with several small "old-fashioned" cakes. This was for a destination wedding in northern Michigan, with cakes made by Robin Smith from that area.
Wedding cupcakes have become very popular in recent years, but for this "ice-cream" theme reception the couple added a unique twist. Along with their ice-cream sundae bar, they also had cupcakes made by Luscious Layers Bakery, which were designed with typical sundae toppings, such as sprinkles and cherries.
Cake wasn't going to satisfy the sweet tooth for this bride and groom, so instead they got a double-decker banana cream pie, as well as several assorted "home-style pies" from Hoosier Mama Pie Company. The bride Elaine (who earned her Master of Fine Arts degree while planning her wedding!!!) made the bride and groom toppers using clothes-pins and her awesome crafting talents.
We haven't been seeing as many traditional cake toppers lately. While we totally appreciate couples wanting to do something different, we're kind of starting to miss seeing cake toppers. Perhaps folks could consider bringing them back, but in new and unique ways. We went on Etsy.com to create this collection of various items, with most of them not intended for use on cakes, but perhaps they will inspire couples to think outside of the box for little works of art or personality pieces to top their cakes and sweets.
Happy July! As we get ready to head into one of the hottest weekends of the year and lots of Independence Day fun, we would like to salute the leading fabric of coolness . . . seersucker.
Earlier this week we gave some tips on keeping cool at summer weddings, and with seersucker fabrics you can accomplish that both literally and figuratively. Seersucker suits and dresses don't seem to ever go out of style, but we've seen them increasingly more at weddings over the last few seasons.
While many of us might associate this fabric with good old fashioned American summers, as much as baseball and southern gentlemen with great fashion sense, we actually have our friends to the east to thank for these cool threads.
The word seersucker derives from the Persian word "shir o shekar," which means "milk and sugar." It was a common material used in the British colonial period among their warmer weather colonies. With the British having a keen eye for fashionable fabrics, it is no wonder it eventually caught on among the British in the west. Eventually during the world wars, seersucker was introduced in America, initially as an inexpensive fabric primarily used by working class families. However, in the 1920s college students began wearing seersucker outfits, and ever since then it seems to have always been a summertime favorite among fashionable folks.
It is always wonderful for us to see seersucker suits and dresses at our couples' summer weddings:
For men, seersucker suits are always cool and stylish.
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For women, we love the relaxed and retro feeling. And really, who says suits are only for men? We love these summer seersucker women's suits for wedding guests, and maybe even bridesmaids!
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And, seersucker outfits for kids are possibly the cutest things on earth!
Wedding Creativo makes custom designed albums and photo displays as part of our full line of studio services for wedding couples and family lifestyle portraits. This work includes guiding couples through our wide selection of album covers and specialty frames, canvases and print types to help them carefully choose the best ways to display and preserve their photographs.
Today we begin a new series of features about decor and color inspirations for coordinating albums and display goods, without loosing sight of complimenting the wedding or portrait imagery being displayed.
This month, we feature an album we recently made for a destination wedding that took place in Africa. The wedding colors were primarily bright yellows and greens with red and orange highlights. While the vibrant colors were wonderful for their wedding day, the couple wanted something a little more subdued for their home environment, which is primarily rustic and wood decor with natural tones of browns, beige, and cream with hints of lime and yellow.
For a view of went into their album design, we are excited present our first inspiration feature of this kind for album and decor coordinates.
© Wedding Creativo
While everyone's eye is on the bride on her wedding day, we know moms should not be overlooked when it comes to wedding fashions. After all, stylish brides and grooms often learn from the best -- their moms!
We like these modern wedding styles for fashionista moms this summer:
 Tadashi Shoji flutter sleeve iridescent gown |
 Redux Charles Chang-Lima Rosette-Sleeve Organza |
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 Nicole Miller, Techno Metal |
 Badgley Mischka Platinum Label |
 J Crew, Evie |
 J Crew, Duchesse |
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We're seeing a lot of chevron patterns lately. This design pattern could make for a bold looking wedding theme.
We made these chevron graphic patterns inspired by spring and summer colors.
This cute chevron invitation was made by Wiley Valentine
We want to congratulate one of our couples, Wendy and Neil, on the birth of their baby girl last week! We were so surprised to find out that they named her Sophia because Giorgio always thought Wendy had a striking resemblance to the famous Italian actress Sophia Loren. Giorgio was fortunate to make a portrait of her years ago (I'll ask him to scan the print and post it here some day). Anyway, he would often refer to Wendy as our "Sophia bride." Maybe you'll agree. This week's featured photo is one of Giorgio's all time favorites, which is of Wendy in the car on the way to the ceremony.
© Wedding Creativo Photography
Today marks the one year anniversary of Lisa and Ben! Congratulations you two! This stylish couple incorporated a great sense of vintage 1940s fashions in their wedding.
Interestingly, the designs worn in the 1940s were primarily influenced by conservation rationing of materials and resources by the government during WWII. Fashions designers in America, as well as the major European style capitals in Paris and Italy, were affected by the limited materials they were allotted during the war. Also, the fragile economy during the 1940s affected the purchasing power of pocketbooks. In many ways, brides today might feel similar challenges in light of our current economic climate.
Women of the 1940s had to embrace the mindset of "make do and mend." Where the 1920s and 1930s fashions featured silk stockings and a wide variety of more luxurious fabrics, the sacrifices of WWII ushered in a time of more simple designs with often clever solutions for fashion dilemmas. Stockings came to be in short supply so women drew lines on the back of their legs to give the illusion of wearing stockings. Less material was available to make dresses and skirts, so consequently hemlines became shorter.
Hollywood 1940s fashion icons and Veronica Lake and Lauren Bacall.
Designers in the 1940s might have edited their fashions a bit more than they would have liked. It wasn't until 1947 that Christian Dior "outraged" critics by using "excessive" fabric for his dresses when materials were still being rationed. Dior put Paris back on the map with his "shocking" styles, but even before this designers certainly did not let the difficult limitations of the 1940s keep them from creating many wonderful classic looks that still greatly influence current trends.
If the recent 2012 spring wedding fashions shows are any indication, the short wedding dress trend is only gaining in popularity right now. One of our favorite vintage-inspired collections this spring is by designer Matthew Christopher. His dresses are currently found in the Chicago area at Wolsfelt's Bridal in Aurora and Volle's Bridal in Lake Zurich.
Here are more fashions inspired by 1940s styles:
 Nina Ricci Pleated Tiered Dress |
 Oscar de la Renta Metallic-Embroidered Cocktail Dress |
 Milly Cap Sleeve Haley Dress |
And let's not forget about the guys who also have the war rations of the 1940s to thank for making it okay to wear a suit without a vest. Generally, men's suits were more loose fitting in the 40s (with the extreme being the zoot suit), which makes this look a bit more hard to find among today's more tightly tailored suits. However, we thought these styles would work great for vintage-minded grooms who want to look like Humphrey Bogart walking down the aisle.
 Ralph Lauren Drake Checked Wool Suit |
 Gucci Grey Pinstriped 3-Button Suit |
 Prada Black Wool 2-Button Suit |
Finally, for the guests, a couple of ensembles with 1940s flair.
And, for the first dance, consider these wonderful classics from the 1940s:
1. "Only Forever" (1940) - Bing Crosby
2. "Skylark" (1941) - Helen Forrest and Harry James Orchestra
3. "Night and Day" (1942) - Frank Sinatra
4. "I Love You For Sentimental Reasons" (1946) - Nat King Cole
5. "La Vie en Rose" (1946) - Edith Piaf
Congratulations to actress Sara Rue on her marriage. Details are emerging on People and other sources about her hummingbird and butterfly theme wedding, including her floral Amsale "Dahlia" gown and Swarovski crystal butterfly detailed Aruna Seth heels.
Photos: Dan Lecca/Amsale.com, ArunaSeth.com
Rue's bridesmaids also carried on the hummingbird theme with hairpins and broaches. We imagine they might have looked something like these hummingbird jewelry styles:
For the last few years peacock themes have been quite popular for weddings, and we loved how our couples have incorporated this beautiful bird into their details:
However, we've noticed 2011 fashion designers are adding a variety of bird plumage to dresses and accessories. Here are a few favorites we've noticed in recent collections:
Designer: Marika Brose, MAX ostrich feather dress (left), and JAMES rooster feather dress
So, as far as we can tell, "bird" is the word for wedding fashions right now!
Today we are highlighting a detail from Chris and Kelly's wedding who were married one year ago this weekend. We were inspired by their vibrant yellow, violet and lime colors and liked how they incorporated one of our favorite ideas at wedding receptions - - alternating height centerpieces. Not only do they make a stunning statement, but when done well, will not obstruct your guests vision across the table or across the room. The creative folks at Flora Chicago did a fantastic job alternating placement of the centerpieces throughout the dining hall.
© Wedding Creativo Photography
Belted wedding dresses are always wonderful, but today we would like to highlight the stunning black-belt look.
When dress designer Vera Wang's Fall 2010 line came out last year and featured many dresses with a black sash, we knew it would not be long before we started seeing brides sporting black belt dresses down the aisle.
Last November our bride Kallie actually had two belts, one for daytime and one for evening to go with her lovely Sassi Holford "Chloe" dress:
We love the black belt look and hope we see more of this trend this year.
Black belts and sashes for brides:
Bridesmaids dresses with sash belts:
The Preakness horse race yesterday had me thinking about the lucky horseshoe. It has universally been considered a good luck charm for centuries, but the British have been wise enough to incorporate them in their wedding traditions. Then, we realized that it was one year ago today that Catherine and Nick were married in Chicago, and the groom's English mother gave the bride a horseshoe as a gift to carry with her bouquet down the aisle. Congratulations to the happy couple on their first anniversary! We were lucky to have been included in their celebration at Grand Piazza with the ceremony on the rooftop of the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.
© Wedding Creativo Photography
We've received several inquires about where to find beautiful ornamental wedding horseshoes since we originally featured this wedding. Here are a couple that we recently spotted, as well as some other fashionable ways to include a little luck into your wedding day.
Horseshoe pattern Italian silk tie, and Good Luck garters, and vintage blue horseshoes pin:
Gift bag of luck charms and horseshoe wine rack:
Various lucky horseshoe jewelry and getting ready tank top:
Today is the 5th wedding anniversary of Kristian and Claudia! Congratulations you two! Their wedding reception is still memorable to us as one of the most fun parties we've ever experienced. The bride and groom were a "rockin'" couple and incorporated the awesomeness that is Live Band Karaoke to be the highlight of their reception. After all of the usual traditions of toasts, cake cutting and first dance, all of the sudden their reception transformed into a local live music dive bar vibe. After the Live Band Karaoke musicians warmly encouraged the first few brave souls to the stage (Kristian of course opened the show!), soon enough EVERYONE was taking multiple turns singing, with all of the "fans" dancing and screaming with excitement at the stage. No one was embarrassed because all of the guests treated each other as if they were the Beatles or Rolling Stones. It was so much fun that we didn't want to leave when our time was up late that night! This was one of our all-time favorite receptions and we wish more couples would consider this idea for their reception. Thanks Kristian and Claudia for single-handedly changing our opinion about karaoke from that day forward!
© Wedding Creativo Photography
Father's day is coming up soon! June 19, 2011 to be exact. For a sweet gift idea, might we suggest framing a loving moment from your wedding day?
For our current active galleries, you can order directly online from your wedding gallery. If your wedding was a while ago and the gallery has expired, just contact us for help.
Please note our deadlines for Father's Day orders:
Framed prints - June 3
Loose prints - June 8
We're thinking your dad probably has enough ties. ;-)
Photo Credit: Joe Buissink / People Magazine Victoria's Secret model Lily Aldridge wore a couture Vera Wang gown at her wedding with Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill on May 12, according to People Magazine.
What we're wondering is, did she get any take-home perks from her gig on the recent Victoria's Secret campaign that she was featured in? The lingerie giant launched their new Sexy Little Bride Collection in April, with Aldridge modeling the new line.
There is a slideshow on Victoria's Secret website showcasing their new bridal collection, which is designed like a very cute bridal boudoir portrait session album. By the way, if you would like to do something like this as a gift for your sweetheart, we can help you with that!
Here are a few of our bridal boudoir album designs:
© Wedding Creativo Photography
If you're looking to incorporate a "sexy bride" ensemble for your wedding night, here are more bridal lingerie fashions we spotted:
Why should groomsmen have all the fun when it comes to wearing comfy and cool Converse Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers at casual summer weddings? Bridesmaids could also wear them as a funky alternative to flip-flops or just bare feet when it comes time to give their feet relief from heels at the reception or maybe even wear all day! Either way your feet would be so happy.
Even our BRIDE Amie slipped into a pair of Chucks on the way to her reception!
Granted, this idea may not fly for all types of weddings, but certainly could be considered for more casual outdoor, beach or cocktail party style weddings. We've put together this inspiration board with some fun summer dresses combined with a few of the cutest Chuck styles.
