John and I photograph a lot of high school sweethearts, or at least couples that have been together for quite awhile.  And these couples often have a lot of mutual friends!  So large wedding parties & tons of fun easily go had-in-hand with most of these memorable weddings.  Alec and Courtney’s wedding was a perfect example of this!

“We first met in our freshman year of high school at Bishop Fenwick. Courtney had arrived back to school from spring break vacation in Florida to a surprise guest standing in her parking spot. Alec was waiting there with a cookie cake to ask Courtney to Prom! She was surprised, but not too surprised because they had spent their entire spring break texting each other. We officially started dating on April 29th, 2016.”

Courtney & Alec’s preparations were at the Westin Hotel downtown Cincinnati.  They had their ‘first look’ at Ault Park  in a more secluded section where they had gotten engaged. We followed that up with wedding party photos around Ault Park and then off to the Monastery Event Center, where their reception was going to be held, to capture a few pictures of them and the space before guest arrived after the ceremony. This proved to be a great idea.  Nothing compares to venue spaces being photographed fresh and empty vs. guest and their belongings being in the images.

Their ceremony was held at St. Francis de Sales Church.  It’s a beautiful church with a great balcony for pictures. After the wedding ceremony we traveled back to the Monastery for cocktail hour and the reception!  Mt Adam’s is such a pretty little area and we would have loved to walk the romantic streets and capture more images, but our time was short, so we photographed just around the Monastery (which is beautiful as well) and then we were all ready for the fun night to begin!

This was our first time at the Monastery and of course we loved it.  Working with Kris (from the Monastery) was delightful and capturing such a beautiful space and couple was perfect!  Looking forward to returning to The Monastery soon!  Thank you Courtney and Alec for having us along on such an important day!

Dress Shoppe-Blush Bridal

Designer-Sophia Tolli

Ceremony-St. Francis de Sales Church

Makeup -Meggie Schmid (Megmakeovers)

Invitations-Minted

Hair-Refeyeance, Holly

Reception Venue-The Monastery Event Center 

Cake-A Spoon Fulla Sugar

Florist-Robben Florist & Garden Center

DJ-Perfect Day DJs

Video-Willow Tree Creations Video