Stephanie & Jay | Best Place + Pritzlaff Wedding Photographer

Stephanie & Jay are my kindof people. They love coffee dates and lakeside walks, European beer gardens and travel, family traditions and did I mention beer? They live in Minnesota but traveled to her home state of Wisconsin for an October wedding that reflected a fair amount of those loves and its an understatement to write that Carolina was thrilled to get to photograph it. People in the midwest take their heritage seriously and this wedding proves it – both were born and raised in the midwest, but Stephanie ‘s family is solidly German while Jay’s is all Scottish and they designed a wedding to celebrate both sides – blending cultural traditions with midwestern classics to create a wedding weekend that managed to be both glamorous and cozy, upscale and down-home, all about the drinks, the flowers and the love. The original inspiration for most of their design ideas was to host the weekend in a beer garden – think floating lights and florals dripping from the ceiling and you have the right idea. To that end, the weekend started with a groom’s dinner at Best Place, a rathskeller type space that used to be the boardroom for executives at the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee. Stephanie wore a dried flower crown for the evening in keeping with an old German tradition and their beer was served in glass boots from Mader’s, a local 100+ year old German restaurant. The next day they revisited Pabst Brewery for stunning portraits on the campus before hosting guests at the Historic Pritzlaff where an area that used to be loading docks was transformed with dripping candles and florals to be their European style beer garden. On this day the flower girls wore the flower crowns and Stephanie a bold Lazaro dress with gorgeous ruffles and a glam topknot. At the reception they offered guests a Milwaukee favorite – brandy old fashioneds – and the Scottish side changed into kilts (and the mother of the groom donned a tartan sash!) Stephanie even changed out of her sparkly Jimmy Choos and slipped into a tartan clad pair of shoes that I adored. Overall, the color palette was a surprise – teal and rust colors with pops of purple and lots of green – but I love how those deep fall colors suggested the change to kilts that was to come. With gold details, lots of candle light and garlands galore on wooden tables the effect was perfect and beautiful and very Stephanie & Jay.