Gardens of Woodstock Wedding in Woodstock, IL | Valerie and Cody

Gardens of Woodstock Wedding in Woodstock, IL | Jennifer Lourie

This highly anticipated Illinois wedding was the brain child of Valerie and Cody’s long years of planning, and quite a few tweaks a long the way. With the ceremony held at historical St. Peter's Catholic Church in Volo, IL and their reception at the picturesque outdoor Gardens of Woodstock in Woodstock, IL, I’m glad it was able to come together without a hitch.

I've been lucky enough to be around to hear about these two and all of their wedding planning dreams, and their story around the beautiful city of Chicago is one of my favorites. After going to the same middle school and high school in Illinois, these two actually didn’t meet until they both had graduated! From Facebook to a cute little coffee shop for their first date (where we went back to for their engagement session!), one thing of course led to another and three years later they were engaged.

Cody had asked if I wanted to go to Oak Street Beach to take some photos. We knew the weather obviously wasn’t optimal on a cold, sleety Saturday at the end of December, but hey—why not? After a quiet bus ride downtown, we found ourselves on a snow-covered beach and a halfway covered skyline as our backdrop. Regardless, we loved the view of our favorite city and began taking photos like usual. The beach was so peaceful with only a few stragglers braving the windy lakefront. Cody had asked me to turn around and face Lake Michigan for his next photo; naturally I did and began taking photos of the water. A few seconds later, he asked me to turn around and there he was with a sparkly ring in his hand, down on his knee in the snow, and asking me to marry him. It honestly couldn’t have been more perfect to us—snowy, gray day and all!

These two share a love of music and art; Valerie being an incredible artist herself, and Cody being a photographer, and it was such an honor to get to capture their day for the two of them to remember. Sadly missing was their recently acquired beagle puppy Charlie, but it’s never easy to wrangle a new family member on a crazy day of dancing and fun!