Catherine & Zach | American Club Wedding and Chicago Rooftop Engagement Photographer

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Catherine & Zach intrigued me when they called and started talking about their destination wedding in Wisconsin. They live in Chicago now, but had been in California where he’s from for years and Catherine was in New York before she moved to the States from her native Scotland years and years ago. They are both surgeons with an enviable dedication to their work, their passions really, so perhaps it’s not surprising that somehow more than three years had slipped by since Zach asked Catherine to be his wife. Knowing they wanted something small, intimate and elegant they searched and found The American Club not two hours up the lakefront from their home overlooking Navy Pier; at this point in their wanderings every place is a destination and most all their guests would be traveling so it fit the bill perfectly. But before we met in Kohler, Wisconsin I was treated to their gorgeous rooftops views in Chicago when we met the week of the wedding to sneak in an engagement session.

Fast forward just a few days and I find myself less in sunshine and more in puddles, but I’m about to realize that nothing can make Zach and Catherine’s wedding less perfect than it turns out to be. Zach played a well hit round of golf with a hardy lot of nearest and dearest on the morning of the wedding. I met him on the 18th green at Whistling Straits, still glorious despite the cold rain and I must say Zach was in bridal bliss mode. While the caddies and starter reported that most golfers had abandoned the course due to conditions, Zach climbed the final lannon stones to the clubhouse beaming. He had played through the rain and played well; he’d earned his two fingers of his favorite scotch and so had Catherine’s dad, her mentor and his cousin, the men who had stuck it out with him to play one of the top courses in the world. Back at the American Club in an elegant room overlooking a blooming courtyard Catherine dressed while I oooh’d and aaah’d over her Judith Leiber bauble – a shiny treat she happily held onto all day. They shared a first look in the covered passages that lead from brick building to courtyard and beyond and we ventured out in between rain drops. The world was shiny – like Catherine’s clutch – and they welcomed their families and guests – 19 people in total – to their envisioned intimate ceremony and dinner. I got the sense that Catherine and Zach don’t have time for as much golf and fancy clutches and family and flowers and friends as they would like so that was why it was so very important that they include all those things in their wedding weekend. Bravo to them for doing it exactly their way, on their own time, just as they wanted.