Seventeen years behind the camera at four hundred weddings taught me that the only thing that matters is the moment itself — and that the photographer's job is to be certain, quiet, and already in the right place.
Nothing about your day is staged for me. I work in the way a guest would move through it, close to the people who matter, unhurried, knowing from long practice where the light will be and what is about to happen. What you receive is not coverage. It is the day as it actually felt, made permanent.
Three ways a wedding day is usually photographed. Collections begin at $5,500, and every wedding is quoted individually once we have talked through your day.
A single day, photographed alone, from preparation through the first hours of the celebration.
For couples marrying close to home who want the day recorded with care and nothing more elaborate than that. Eight hours, one photographer, a private online gallery, and archival prints available whenever you are ready for them.
Full coverage with a second photographer, an engagement session, and a handmade heirloom album.
The way most Studio Y weddings are photographed. Two photographers so nothing happens unseen, an engagement session in the season before, and a linen-bound album printed on cotton paper — the piece your family will still be handling in fifty years.
Welcome dinner through farewell brunch, with travel included anywhere in the Midwest.
For weddings that unfold over several days — Galena, Lake Geneva, a family estate, somewhere further. Every event photographed, two photographers throughout, heirloom albums for you and for both families, and no travel line on the invoice.
Most couples land somewhere between these, and that is the point — tell me what your day actually looks like and I will put together exactly what it needs.
Start the ConversationA wedding photograph that lives only on a hard drive is a photograph your family will never hold.
Every collection includes archival prints, and the albums are made by hand — linen bound, printed on cotton paper rated for a century, sequenced the way the day actually moved. Parent albums are made from the same materials, at a size meant for a coffee table rather than a shelf.
Home is eastern Iowa, an hour from Galena and a short drive from Chicago, Madison, and the Quad Cities. Weddings in that corridor carry no travel charge; anywhere further is quoted with travel included rather than added afterward.
Editorial photographers of comparable experience in Chicago begin at $8,500 and rise from there. Studio Y begins at $5,500. The difference is geography, not craft.
Studio Y photographs a limited number of weddings each year, so that every one of them receives the same attention. If your date is still open, I would like to hear about the day you are planning.
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