” For Ryan + Amber’s Summer engagement session, we decided on far Chicago western suburbs shooting spot in Utica, IL at Starved Rock State Park. It was an event filled + adventurous day. R+A were down for just about anything like walking through an abandoned house + burned rubble, hiking, climbing to heights, and even sitting on a “World Famous” dumpster we stumbled upon. LOL As always, we had a great time and captured a variety of photo styles and unique engagement pictures.

 

In not meeting Ryan until the photo session, all of our initial communication was only with the bride to be, Amber had told us quite a bit about Ryan and his interest in rock climbing. ( With not many options for rock climbing in our flat state of Illinois, the first question we had was after you get married, will you be moving to a more rocky state like Colorado… and can you take us with you? They laughed. ) When initially discussing with Amber potential shooting location spots, traveling out to Starved Rock was definitely at must. The groom Ryan and his family live in the far North Chicago ‘burbs of Antioch ( near the Wisconsin border ) and Amber and her family in the Aurora / Naperville area … so as you can guess, Ryan is all too comfortable doing a lot of driving ( as he’s down near Amber pretty often. ) So planning for the 2 hour drive West of downtown Chicago to Utica and the popular Starved Rock State Park was no problem at all. Not only did Amber request photos at the Rock, but she also asked to incorporate a high-fashion element into the shoot too. That was no prob, we love hiking the rock canyons and we had a few new + secret shooting spots up our sleeves too.

 

Ryan + Amber’s love story started down state in Bloomington Illinois while both R+A were in college attending Illinois State University. Yes, they are college sweet hearts. However ironically enough, they actually met while on a church trip over Spring break in Florida. Continuing to live on campus for a few years later and in the same college dorm building, they soon became inseparable. We know their wedding is definitely going to have a good sized group of college friends in attendance. Looking forward to all the fun and details Amber has told us about. Thanks for spending the day with us… congrats to the two of you on your engagement. We can’t wait to photograph your upcoming Fall wedding in just a few weeks.”

 

 

 

Ryan + Amber are narrowing down their favorites images to feature in one of our Miller + Miller engagement photos guestbook featuring 10 image pages. Their October 2010 ceremony is planned for Gary United Methodist Church in downtown Wheaton and their reception in Downers Grove in the Esplanade Lakes Ballroom by Double Tree within the Sara Lee building. We love the architecture of the Sara Lee building, it’s western facing setting next to the wooded Morton Arboretum and the curved all glass ballroom which overlooks the private pond. The Esplanade is a favorite of ours and considered one of the best wedding reception venues in the West suburbs of Chicago.

“Jeff + Chrissie were another awesome couple to work with. ( How do we get so lucky with our couples. ) For these two, we enjoyed meeting up with them on a warm, early June Thursday afternoon, shooting engagement photos, exploring new locations, getting to know each other, and learning about their upcoming destination wedding plans. Because we’re located in the Naperville area, and they are in Peoria we didn’t actually meet until the day of the shoot, except on Facebook.

 

For J+C’s shoot, we first stopped at a VERY unique location – with lots of urban grungy style. When I proposed this abandoned factory shooting location idea, which is just west of our Naperville area home studio to Chrissie, she said her and Jeff loved it. After the decaying building, we then mixed in a few Chicagoland nature locations and a quick stop in town for a fun “fine dining here!” pic. LOL!! One of our nature stops was in front of a picturesque, canyon at Starved Rock State Park. Although the canyon was a little crowded with kids playing in the canyon’s water, we were able to sneak in a few quick shots from a cliff above the waterfall. Next, we grabbed some pics along the river, in the tall grasses, and wow the evening sunset Jeff + Chrissie had on their day was seriously epic. The blazing night sky colors were unreal and unlike anything the four of us had ever seen. Ryan previewed the shots to us in the viewfinder and said nobody is going to believe the sky was really this colorful.

 

Jeff + Chrissie’s love story started a state away… they are originally from central Missouri and they met while Chrissie was in college. At the time Jeff was starting his own business and Chrissie and her twin sister auditioned for a commercial he was creating for the company. After J+C met, the rest is history. Currently they are both currently living in Peoria Illinois. Jeff + Chrissie mentioned they searched for the perfect wedding and engagement photographer that was basically anywhere in between St. Louis and Chicago. And gratefully they found Miller + MIller! We know there are thousands of wedding photographers to search through on the web and we are so glad they found our photo blog + fell in love with our unique photography style. The week of their shoot, J+C planned for an event filled, long weekend mini-vacation planning first a creative engagement session with us! Following our engagement session, they booked a couple of nights downtown Chicago and to close the weekend, skydiving! Chrissie was definitely showing a little hesitation when talking about jumping out of the plane, even with it being three days away from our shoot… I don’t blame her. We’ve talked since the photo session and learned she jumped – And had a great time. Jeff already had jumped previously, but was looking forward to another jump together this time with Chrissie.

 

We had a great time getting to know the two of you Jeff + Chrissie. Ryan and I enjoyed talking about your upcoming Cancun Mexico destination wedding plans, growing up in Missouri, boating, and talking a little about the perks of running a small business. Hope you enjoyed our tour of Starved Rock. As mentioned, we’d suggest heading back sometime on your own…. there are so many beautiful parts of the park to explore! Enjoy the rest of your Mexico destination wedding planning. You’ll have to let us know after you receive your disk of all the photos, how many of the pictures you decide enlarge and put on your new home as wall art. It will be difficult to choose just a few. Talk to you soon!!”

 

 

 

Jeff + Chrissie are planning their January 2011 wedding at the Royal Solaris Marina Resort & Spa all-inclusive in Cancun, Mexico. How exciting! We love destination weddings.