There are weddings you photograph and weddings that photograph you back. J + L's day at Adler Planetarium was the second kind. I've been doing this long enough (over a decade!) to know when something is going to stay with me - not just in a hard drive folder, but in the way you remember a smell or a piece of music. This one had that quality from the moment I pulled up to the Museum Campus and saw the limestone terrace stretched out toward Lake Michigan, the whole Chicago skyline sitting quietly on the other side of the water like it had been waiting. And J & L’s love story, that stretches across international borders and over time, really something extraordinary.
Most people know Adler as a science museum. The couples who choose it for their wedding know something else - that the terrace on the east side of that dome sits at the very tip of the Museum Campus peninsula, with Lake Michigan wrapping around three sides and an unobstructed view of the Chicago skyline that doesn't exist anywhere else in the city at quite that angle. Sailboats drift behind the ceremony arch like they were hired. No ballroom, no chandelier, no interior does what that backdrop does. It is, simply put, one of the most cinematic ceremony settings in Chicago. And I don't say that lightly.
L got ready in a robe and heart-shaped "Just Married" sunglasses, sitting in a bath of soft morning light with her dress hanging above her. That image - the playfulness, the ease - told me everything I needed to know about her. There was a moment when all the bridesmaids were drinking champagne by the bathtub, when the faucet turned on accidentally - it was an unforgettable wedding moment, filled with so much laughter and the images are everything. L wore Bella Belle heelsflats, laid out on white tulle with garden flowers tucked between them. Peonies, ranunculus, sweet peas, blue delphinium. The same palette that would run through every arrangement of the day. She wasn't nervous in the way brides sometimes are. She was just ready.
The florals lining the aisle were something. Flowerchild did what they do best - creating absolute floral magic! Low, overflowing ground arrangements in blush, peach, lavender, and white - roses, peonies, Queen Anne's lace, trailing greenery that crept across the limestone like it grew there. The arch at the altar was full and abundant, the kind of floral design that reads as wild and intentional at the same time. The guests were standing as L walked down the aisle - all of Chicago standing with them across the water. So many Chicago perfect moments occured, like the blue helicopter cutting low across the lake behind the groomsmen just moments before their first look with L. Nobody planned it. Nobody could have. The groomsmen turned and waved. We got the shot.
There's a photograph from that ceremony - the aerial view, drone footage from directly above - that shows the full scope of what that day looked like. The white runner stretching across the terrace. The guests fanned out on either side. The arch at the altar. And behind it all, Lake Michigan and the city. When I look at that image I still feel the size of it. When J + L were pronounced married, L raised her bouquet toward the sky. J's face said everything words couldn't.
After the ceremony, the light started doing what late afternoon Chicago light does in late spring - it goes pink and gold and impossibly soft, and the skyline turns from architecture into something that looks painted. This evening had the most perfect weather and lighting imaginable. We walked them to the water's edge. L's cathedral veil caught the breeze off the lake and went fully horizontal in one frame, the entire Chicago skyline behind them, the Willis Tower glowing. That image is one of my favorites I've ever made. Not because of the technical execution of that moment on medium format film, but because of what's in his face when he looks at her. We also got the quiet ones. The veil portraits, shot through the tulle so the couple is framed in diffused light, almost abstract. Those are the images I live for - the ones where the emotion is more present than the subject.
Inside, the sweetheart table was buried in florals. Black and white film captured the two of them mid-laugh during toasts - L covering her mouth, J fully, freely laughing. No posing. Just a moment of true, unfiltered joy. On the table: dessert shots, cake, small bites arranged on white trays, and both pairs of their "Just Married" heart sunglasses (late night flatlays forever!) A detail so specific to them it couldn't have belonged to any other couple. Lavender taper candles. Amethyst glassware. Handwritten place cards with ribbon. The kind of reception table that holds its own story.
I became a photographer because of the feeling in a room when two people are so fully present with each other that the air changes. You can't manufacture that. You can only be ready for it. J + L gave us a full day of that. The sunglasses in the bathtub. The helicopter over the lake. The veil on the lake at golden hour. The laugh during the toast. None of those were on any shot list. They were just the day, unfolding the way a real day does, with all its texture and surprise and feeling. This is why I still press the shutter, roll the film, and stay present all day. Not for the skyline - though the skyline doesn't hurt - but for the moments that happen inside of it. The small, true ones. Chicago keeps giving us days like this. And every time, I'm grateful all over again.
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