Downtown Chicago Engagement Session

May 1, 2019

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When you fall in love, the world feels new. It's as if everything is happening for the first time. That's why we love photographing weddings. Each wedding has us falling in love over and over again—it reminds us that there is wonder and mystery in this shared life we all build together. The most aspirational thing to us is rekindling that initial spark of falling in love. We want to give you that experience with your wedding photos, perfectly captured and forever remembered. It's here, in our journal, we celebrate your love story so all can enjoy it.

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“Excuse me, the park is close. You are going to have to leave.”

Shooting an engagement session in a new location is both fun and exciting. We typically come with several ideas in mind. A few ideas lined up and shots picked out. And there are some locations like Chicago with so many good places to shoot, we felt like we are in photographer heaven. But new locations come with a few unexpected surprised. Such as when the security guard kicks you out of the park you just spent 2-hours looking for earlier that day.

We were blown away with how beautiful a little park next to the downtown Chicago Art Institute and spent the better half of the morning picking out that spot. But unfortunately, we learned the hard way that the park also closed with the art museum. Fortunately, since we were in “photographer heaven”, there were MANY backup plans for our downtown Chicago engagement session.

Photographer Heaven

Our session with Emily and Daniel was a blast, to put it mildly. Even with the hiccup at the Art Institute, we had so much fun photographing their engagement session in Chicago. Leidy jokingly refers to Chicago as, “Photographer Heaven”. There were so many beautiful buildings and STAIRS! (Which is something you don’t see very often in Grand Rapids.)

Emily and Daniel got engaged in a local Irish pub known as Galway Arms. It was the perfect place to start our shoot before moving to Museum Campus and Shed Aquarium. Near Shed Aquarium we were able to capture some gorgeous photos of Emily and Daniel with the Chicago skyline and sunset. A must for a Chicago engagement session.

But the craziest thing Emily and Daniel let us do was to get up at 4:30 am to meet at the Cloud Gate (aka “The Bean”) before anyone else got there! This is one of our favorite tricks for shooting in crowded places. While it seems crazy, it works almost every time. We are so glad that Emily and Daniel agreed! The pictures turned out great and we spent the rest of the morning at Millenium Park by ourselves. (Almost…)

Emily & Daniel

Emily and Daniel, thank you so much for inviting us to photograph you guys in the Windy City! You guys are absolutely going to find your way into the next update to the LJ Engagement Session Guide. This will be an engagement session we won’t soon forget! There were so many good places to shoot! We will absolutely be back soon to photograph you both again soon. Thank you so much for the coffees and putting up with our crazy idea of shooting so early in the morning! It was worth the early morning! You guys look so good! We cannot wait to see you both again soon at your wedding at Studio D2D this fall!