Jessica & Stephen | Wade House at Elkhart Lake Wedding Photographer

Jessica & Stephen were engaged on North Avenue Beach with the stunning skyline of Chicago and the cold waters of Lake Michigan their easy companions. Chicago is home for now, the city where they met and fell in love and where they’ll raise a family but Jessica’s second home (and now, Stephen’s, too) is further north in a town by a different lake. Jessica grew up in California but spent summers back at her father’s family home on Elkhart Lake in Wisconsin. She learned to love cowboy boots and rustic lace; she became a country girl at heart. So when it was time to plan their wedding there was no question where it would be and that it would be a mini-destination wedding for just about everyone involved. And what a wonderful destination it is. An unexpected gem of a venue in the Wade House sits sprawling on old farm lands and boasts period-costumed farm hands, blacksmiths and more, recalling the stage coach era of Wisconsin’s past. After saying I do in a beautiful cream city brick church, Jessica & Stephen added a modern tent, gorgeous florals, whisky barrel bars, and lots of lounge furniture to the Wade House’s one-of-a-kind Carriage Museum grounds and toasted the night away with their favorite people in the world. The band kept everyone on their feet through out dinner and after, while the toasts of family and friends illuminated Jessica & Stephen for the awesome couple they are. It was rustic, but elegant, down home but refined. It was a perfect blend of city and country, of two families and sets of friends, of Jessica and Stephen.