Julie and Chad...

and Ally of course! I had the pleasure of ending my photography year on a high note! Mindy and I went down to Bloomington at the end of December to be with Chad and Julie! I did their engagement pictures a while back and had such a blast getting to know them and sweet Ally. Funny side note...as Ally looked at their engagement pictures, she said, "Why are there so many of you guys?" Here I thought I took too many of Ally and those pretty eyes!

Julie and Chad had a private ceremony with just family and then had a big reception with all of their friends right after. The ceremony was so beautiful! Everything was candlelit, they had a harp, and Ally by their side. There were 2 amazing moments in the ceremony that stuck out for me. The first is when Julie gave Ally a special bracelet...she just kept rubbing Ally's hand (I was totally crying during this whole part!) And the second was when they lit their unity candle. Every family member had a candle. The pastor started the flame with one person until every candle was lit and it got back to Julie and Chad. Then they lit the unity candle. It was such a special way to join two families into one.

The reception was in the Tudor room of the Union at IU. Considering DePauw is about the size of the actually Union building, I was beside myself! It was so beautiful! We sat with the most hilarious people in the world. They've known Chad forever. Mindy and I were cracking up the whole time. Plus, instead of a cake, they had a dessert table with favorite recipes from family members. All I have to say is that the chocolate chip cookies took the blue ribbon!

Julie is a teacher and you can SO tell by the amount of fun the kids were having at her reception. Now we all know that the kids get out on the dance floor first at weddings...however, with these little ones, it was a good thing because had the best dance moves ever! I'm not sure I could even capture what they were doing, but it was awesome!

Thanks again for letting us be a part of your special day! Click here to see the slideshow!