Chelsea and Brian Simonton Wedding | Wedding Photography | Bartelso, IL Wedding Photographer

A few years ago I made a hard choice in my career. I chose to only accept a limited number of weddings a year and allow for more time with my kids and family. Making that kind of decision wasn’t easy. What if I’d miss out on weddings I really wanted to photograph one day?….like my best friends little sister?

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry too much about it! I’ve been blessed with the best brides, grooms, families, and wedding parties ever since. AND thankfully my best friends little sister made sure I was the photographer on her wedding day!

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The day she sent me a text about getting engaged I knew her wedding day was bound to be one of the most beautiful events in my career! I was correct! So much heart and soul went into the decorations and planning for this day. Special touches and memories of family members were throughout the day. Brian’s sister wrote a song just for them. His niece sang the song in church. Along with singing their first dance song “Timber I’m Fallin’ in Love” (rewritten by the bride just for the groom)

Wooden tree truck stumps, a custom handmade wooden bar, wood pallets, and so many other vintage chic decorations were tastefully and uniquely created by the Brian, and decorated by Chelsea and her family. How special is that?

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One of my favorite details about the day has to been Chelsea’s custom wedding dress. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a bride wear long sleeves….OMG she was stunning!!!! The dress was perfect on her (so perfect, that she actually slept in it the night of her wedding- no changing into PJ’s for this girl – LOL – she crawled right into bed with her dress on and fell fast asleep! 😉  )

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For their engagement session we went out to Brian’s sawmill and I knew right then and there we had to go back on the wedding day. These might just be some of my all time favorite wedding images. This location was phenomenal!!!! But then again, you put two good looking people in the scene and of course those logs look great!

I had a great friend help me second shoot this wedding.  Kim Hinkle, from Hinkle Photography in Fairfield stated it perfectly when we were photographing the girls that morning…”Holy cow, this is the prettiest wedding party I’ve ever seen!”

Yep! I’m one lucky girl to capture days like this!

Chelsea and Brian, I know I shared how I felt about you two in your guest book message, but I want to let you know again how honored I am that I was the one chosen to photograph your wedding day. It will forever be one that goes down in the memory book for me.

XOXO, Anna