St. Mary’s of Pine Bluff and the Double Tree Hotel in Madison

This wedding took place at St. Mary’s of Pine Bluff, Wisconsin.  This is a very pretty church only about 10 minutes outside of Madison.  It has a beautiful exterior brick and viberant stained glass windows throughout. 

The following picture was taken in the getting-ready room.  You can see another sample of the stained glass windows, which makes for a wonderful photographic background. 

I hung up the bride’s dress and set up her shoes and jewelry for some creative shots.  Then I saw this activity out of the corner of my eye.  A bridesmaid was applying hair spray to the bride.  I was able to capture the brief cloud of spray even though the focus was not on her. 

Here one can see some of the beauty and ornate character of the church.  It is a beautiful sanctuary. 

The following is a shot of the wedding party from the balcony of the church. 

Here the couple are lighting the unity candle.  I got this shot from the vantage point of the balcony, which gave me a clear view.  It is very helpful when a church has one. 

After the ceremony we headed over to Union Memorial Terrace on the University campus.   This is a nice way to get everyone in the shot and it looks a little different.  To get the shot I am laying on my back using my 5D Mark II full frame camera and a 24 to 105 mm lens.  One has be have a pretty wide lens to get this to work (having a full frame camera helps a lot too). 

One of my favorite shots to do with each newly wedded couple is to shots of them out of focus while the rings are sharply in focus.  It is also nice to get a shot like this and keep the blue sky blue and the faces well lit. 

Next we went to the Capitol.  I recommended that we get this shot from State Street so that the whole building could be seen.  With some basic instructions on how to do the dip, we got this photo.  

In this photo a pedestrian is eating his lunch while all this activity is going on in the middle of the road.   I think it’s funny.

The reception was held at the Double Tree Inn on University Avenue. 

At the end of the evening, after the special dances and traditional fun and games, we went outside to get a few more creative shots. 

This was one of several poses using a slow shutter speed.  It requires the couple to be very still in order to keep the focus on them very sharp.  There are cars in the background creating an interesting look.