Fifteen Years Later, Back Where It Started: A Family Session at The Blackstone
I met Danny my freshman year of high school. We went to prom together, then to Notre Dame together, studied abroad in London together and even nanny-shared together….we have been friends for a long time. When he met Colleen I fell in love with her immediately.
I was at their wedding at The Blackstone almost fifteen years ago. I was not their photographer. I was a guest who had just gotten a camera and could not stop taking pictures of everything. I was probably very annoying to the real photographers. I made Danny and Colleen a little album afterwards, before I had a business at all. Colleen reminded me of that this summer.
Back to The Blackstone
They live in Florida now. When they came back into town for the Foo Fighters concert and stayed at The Blackstone, that beautiful old South Loop hotel with the green roof, they called me to make family portraits.
There was a wedding happening the day we shot (actually 3 that weekend!), so the ballroom was out. We found a room off to the side where Danny and Colleen had once done their tasting, with a black and white marble floor, wood paneling, and tall windows with light pouring in. That room gave us the loveliest family pictures of the day.
The kids as tour guides
The kids took over. They wanted to show me Al Capone's barber chair, which is still in the building, and the dumbwaiter he apparently used to hide in when people came looking for him. I had no idea any of it was still there. They took turns in the chair.
The recreation
Then we went outside and recreated their wedding photos from fifteen years ago. Danny dipped Colleen with The Blackstone behind them, and the kids decided their job was to look horrified, hands over their eyes, faces pulled. It is my favorite frame from the whole session.
We finished the evening at Lou Malnati's with both our families together. The kids had not seen each other in a while.
Can you recreate wedding photos at your original venue?
Yes. If you were married somewhere in Chicago, we can go back. Anniversary sessions at the original venue are one of my favorite things to photograph, with or without the kids in the frame.
Ten Little Bluebirds is the family and newborn side of Emily Cummings Photography. Family sessions happen at Studio 25 Naperville, Studio 25 Chicago in Streeterville, and on location throughout Chicago and the western suburbs.