Melissa & Jordan | Turner Hall and Milwaukee Athletic Club Wedding Photographer

It’s been awhile since I attended a wedding as a guest and even longer since I photographed a friend’s wedding but in early July this year I was happy to do both for Jordan and Melissa. They met a few years ago at a charity gala at Turner Hall (which says quite a lot about them) and have been rather inseparable ever since. She embraced what I knew as his crazy and tight knit friend group (that I am happy to claim membership in) and made it hers too, knitting her own ties to new friends and layering on new to old. In the lead up to the wedding we ended up doing a lot of dining out and supper club-ing instead of doing an engagement session so in the last few weeks before their MAC ballroom and rooftop wedding day we spent just a little time where it all started – at Turner Hall – to get warmed up. In those moments I saw them for the first time as a couple so very in love, giddy and fun-filled, amazed at one another and happy simply to be one another’s partner. That intimacy mixed with their own brand of sweet-goofy-best-friendship continued on their wedding day as they met early on the roof top to say I Love You. Let’s Do This. And they did. With their best friends from near and a brother from far, parents with tears and a whole slew of joyful backers they became wife and husband, my ordinary friends made extraordinary for one another.

Jordan & Melissa’s wedding ceremony was full of little details I adored. Jordan, a pretty talented hobby carpenter, built the pergola arch that would define their wedding space, a surprise for Melissa on the wedding weekend. Melissa’s composer/musician brother composed and performed a song for her walk down the aisle and tucked in Melissa’s bouquet was a charm from her mom, a stamped disc with a long ago started mom to daughter message so personal it doesn’t really make sense anymore, except to say I really, really love you. After the ceremony guests were treated to some very Jordan and Melissa entertainments, from a gelato bar to scratch off tickets to a photobooth, and for the bridal party more dice games and general amusement. Simply said, Jordan & Melissa have one of the silliest, craziest friend groups I’ve ever met but what comes with all the laughter is a lot of heart too. Most of them are nurses, social workers, educators, military personnel – world changers on the personal, touch a life level and each more humble than the next.