Andrea and Kevin, Rosemont Convention Center

If you think you have to go somewhere to take photos when you are having your wedding at the Rosemont Convention Center, think again! I photographed Andrea and Kevin's wedding on a beautiful Labor Day weekend at the Rosemont and I just couldn't have enough of this wonderful venue. It offers everything, the city feel, the romance of the most luxurious venues and a very contemporary feel at night with it's wonderful fountain at night. Their wedding was a blast thanks to the Dan Hayes Orchestra, they are just fabulous! I want to thank Andrea and Kevin and all the members of their bridal party, you guys where awesome to work with, for the second time for some of you!

Wedding in Durango, Mexico

I was in the beautiful city of Durango, Mexico to photograph the wedding of Sabrina and Salvador, one of the coolest weddings I've done. In Mexico, it is not customary to have a bridal party so the photography is concentrated on the bride and groom. It is also customary for the ceremony to be at night time so the bride and the groom have to see each other before the ceremony to go to a location to take photos. This turned out to be such a great time because we allocated two hours for photography and let me tell you, had they given me four hours, I would have still been short! The location we went was amazing, Internado Juana Villalobos is a colonial landmark of the city that used to be a school and not is a cultural center and museum. At the time of the session, in the big central patio, they had old dance music, I think it was "danzon" and there were old couples remembering their young days. I had never seen people that age dancing with so much energy! It was also interesting dealing with the "street" photographers that sneaked into the church to photograph the wedding in hopes to go to the reception and sell their prints, I was NOT prepared for this! Sabrina and Salvador, it was a delight working with you, best wishes! I want to specially thank my sister Eliana for putting up with me as my assistant. She's an amazing photographer as well and she accepted to be my assistant for this wedding, she could read my mind and anticipated all my movements! My wish of having a double of me has come true! Love you sis!

Fashion shoot in Mexico

I was in Durango, Mexico over labor day to shoot a wedding and ended up also doing a fashion shoot for a very high end bridal salon. It was so exciting to work with the owner, her doughter Carmen was our model and the hair and make up artist was Maria de Mexico. If you haven't heard of her, google her, she has salons all over Mexico and she's opening a salon in Chicago in the future. If you are thinking of having a destination wedding in Mexico, it's well worth the extra investment to have Maria de Mexico fly to your wedding destination to do your hair and make up. After your dress, those are the most important things you should invest on in order to look fabulous on your wedding day! The bridal salon is called Imagen and has the most stunning European desings. Here are some of my favorite images from the fashion shoot, enjoy!
I will be posting images from the wedding I did in Mexico soon, stay tunned!

Kristi and Jeremy

When I arrived to Kristi's house I was so in love with her bedroom, I wanted to keep shooting all day there! Kristi and her brides' maids where so happy to do something fun instead of a formal bridal party photo, it's a delight to work with such fun group of girls! I loved how expressive Kristi's Dad was, it brought tears to my eyes... seriously. Jeremy is one of those grooms that let the bride choose the photographer, so we met at the church for the first time. It was obvious from the begining that Jeremy trusted his future wife's common sense, he just surrendered to all my directions, I absolutely loved all his photos. At the reception site the parking lot was packed so I had to park at the very back, and thanks to that, I found this great locations that shelterd us from the blasting sun, don't you just love these images?

LEAH AND DANIEL, NAPERVILLE SETTLEMENT

I can't tell you what a delight it was to photograph Leah and Dan, even though I had never met Dan, he was so easy to work with and met all my photographer desires. Their wedding was so intimante at the Naperville settlement chapel, it's a great place to get married with it's old arquitecture, lighting is difficult nontheless beautiful for photos. I found out that Leah and Dan were planning to elope and after a lot of thought, they decided to have a ceremony since Leah is the last of her siblings to get married and all the family insisted. I had so much fun photographing them that I couldn't resist to include so many images of their wedding, everybody catered to my photographer ego! Thanks guys for such a great honor!

Quinceanera

Elizabeth turned 15 this year and it's a Mexican tradition to celebrate it as the ocassion when a girl turns into a woman. It is called Quinceanera and it's as important as a wedding. Family and closest friends get together for a mass and then a feast and dancing. Elizabeth and their family are very dear friends of mine and I believe they are one of the best looking families I know! Thank you for the privilege of capturing this special day, it was a delight and so easy since there is no groom involved like in a wedding! Elizabeth's album is so beautiful I made one for myself to send it for competition, I'll let you know the results next Spring!