Last July, Amy and Jake were married in her hometown of Geneva, IL.  There were crazy thunderstorms and flooding the night before but if Amy was stressed over it, you couldn’t tell!  The actual day of the wedding was nice and dry…and humid!  I think that I have never experienced so much humidity in my life.

You may recognize these two from their fun firehouse engagement session!

My assistant Tina found this cool old abandoned building in Geneva!

The river in Geneva was crazy flooded so we went with our back up plan – the Japanese Garden in the Fabyan Forest Preserve.

The water you see here?  Not supposed to be there!

The reception was at the Lincoln Inn in Batavia. Its supposed to be super haunted!

I love when couples use their engagement photos on the day of!

Cool shot by Tina below!

It was such a fun reception…I was on the dance floor boogieing more than once that night!

xoxo, M

I’ve been in the Midwest for a little over a week now. I head to Orlando tomorrow, St Croix on Tuesday (for fun) and then on a cruise to the Bahama’s on Sunday (for a wedding)! Crazy busy this month but loving every minute! I am still super behind on blogging and really appreciate your patience while I play catch up!

In the meantime, enjoy a few photos from the last week!

Peoria Fall colors:

On the road to Chicago

Bryan and I took some headshots of each other this week. This is my favorite of him 🙂

A spot we saw off of the 55 freeway…we just had to stop and enjoy the sunset!

Back in Chi-town 🙂

Bon Voyage!

xoxo, M

It was the wedding that never was. But Krystle wasn’t going to just hide in a corner and pretend it never happened. Instead she took 6 of her close friends on a girls weekend in La Jolla and had the party of their lives!

I was so pleased to be able to contribute to this celebration weekend! These ladies were so fun and outgoing and up for ANYTHING!

Thanks to Bryan N Miller for coming along (risking his man-hood with some bashing) and shooting some great images with my underwater gear!

They made these fun signs with empowerment quotes on the back!

Love this photo of Krystle and her mom!

The next two photos below are taken by Bryan with my underwater equipment:

Pool time!

Krystle, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your Undoing – we had so much fun on the shoot! You have the most amazing positive attitude and hope we can stay in touch!

xoxo, M

ps Oh yes, both Bryan and I were 100% soaked from this shoot!  If you are my friend on Facebook, there are some classic behind the scene shots of that!

It had been years since I shot a wedding at the Serra Muesum and I’m a little bummed it took so long!  Such a gorgeous location.  Carolyn and Paul were so fun to be around too.  They are caring and genuine people and have an awesome group of friends and family!

Stunning florals by Christine with Fancy That

Congrats you two!

xo, Melissa

About a week after I booked my trip to Boston, Ashley got in touch with me about shooting her San Diego destination wedding.  Her email was so cute. she wrote: “We’d love to come meet with you at the studio but we actually live outside of Boston!”   I was excited when I was able to write back and let her know I would be in her ‘hood in a few weeks!  It was fate 😉  I’m super excited because not only did they book me for their Summer wedding, but they opted to do an engagement session in Boston!   We had a blast site-seeing, I mean photographing, in the Boston Common and around the Wharf!

Thanks for the good beer and good conversation, Adam and Ashley!!

xo, M