Anatomy lesson, Chicago Indian Latin wedding included!

I’ve started to realize my blog post are becoming more and more like diary entries lately and so I’m going to embrace this instead of trying to avoid it! I began this chapter with the intention to break down the various components of an Indian wedding including the super exuberant baraat through the Ganesh Puja and onto the ceremony under the mandap. I wanted to compare and contrast the traditions of South Asian weddings to other cultures and highlight how same they really are; there are loads of parallels including the pre-parties i, mandap to the chuppa, the #bridetribe, etc, etc but I changed course on this entry about halfway through my first draft. Instead, I want to focus not on the anatomy, per se, but the extremities that hold together a union, any union in fact.

When I sit down to write, I pause about every 5-10 minutes not only because I have the attention span of a gnat but also so I can review our team’s photo captures to be sure what I am writing is parallel to what we’ve shot. I started to notice many of the shots I chose for our blog post outside of my favorite portraits - face forward captures of people- are shots featuring hands and feet. After taking another break to pontificate about the possibility of a hand or foot fetish, I realized that quite literally, the hands hold the union together and the feet carry it to the next adventure and thus did not edit my photo selections. So, dear diary, I want to divulge my admiration of the ways that we hold onto love and take it to the next level.

That sweet biology based, old Roman idea that rocking your diamond on your left hand was anatomically correct based on that fourth finger’s job to house the one vein directly to your heart is just a little bit outdated and also not entirely correct; as it turns out all fingers have veins that run to your heart! So really one could don wedding rings on any or all of your fingers if it is truly to express a union coming from the heart, right?! Alas, ever the hopeless romantic waiting for my chance to rock a diamond and a big fan of shiny distractions, let’s get back to the topic on hand, shall we?? Hands are, indeed, an extension of our hearts, whether we are speaking anatomically, metaphysically or just as an accessory. We extend our hand to greet one another with handshakes, high fives and even hold hands to show our intimacy with someone dear to us. It seems fitting then that our grip on life, love and all things physical are ‘held close’, be it in the ‘palm of your hand’ or one even could be ‘wrapped around your finger!’. I love all these references to ‘handling’ love and how we have a ‘hand in’ making our own choice in love.

Certainly in Indian culture, choice in your partner is not traditionally the way marriages have been made. Lucky for Veronica + Kapil, their getting together was kismet when the stars aligned them on Coffee Meets Bagel. Her traditional Latin roots paired with his Indian heritage made way for this really unique, cultural fusion of a wedding where East meets West, and you know how we love a good cultural exchange!! Hand in hand, these two made really sweet intentions of unifying their very different families into one big celebration that ultimately showed more similarity than difference. In a time when small variations cause major riffs, it’s so important that we handle the opportunities to come together in the most conscious ways we can. We, too, have a hand in making choices that can lead us forward instead of backward. And our sweet couple did that so perfectly on their wedding weekend! From the pre-party at the mariachi lead sangeet all the way to the wedding reception dance floor where Kapil’s parents celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary, the spirit of love of was handled so kindly and so perfectly.

And dance they did! There were many sweet moments captured on the dance floor including breaks for samba, bhangra and even some sweet beats from Bruno Mars. I have not soon forgotten about the multitude of good footwear at this awesome wedding. Kapil made certain his crew of dapper groomsmen could stand up for him in comfort throughout the day and gifted all the guys a pair of classic, Air Jordans! After all, #Chicago ya’ll! Even Veronica kicked off her high heels and rocked a pair of her own Nike’s and helped keep the dance floor energy all the way up!!

They say feet are your biggest access point to the rest of your body as the pores on your tootsies are the largest. It is also said that the reflexology which connects your hands and feet to other organs in your body can truly help circulation not to mention your connection to the rest of your body. Obviously, I’m no Dr. Oz but having been a wedding photographer for the last decade, I’ve become very versed in the world of post-wedding foot rubs so I can walk again in the days following. That said, a proper pair of shoes for all night dancing or just for fashion's sake is always a great idea in my book. Again, fashion and function are totally able to live in the same arena and especially if that ballpark has you dancing with your boo! And so far as feet carrying us forward to other amazing adventures off of the dance floor, let’s go ahead and be hopeless romantics together, shall we? I know you clicked on that Bruno Mars link and are singing along. It’s totally cool!

My challenge to you is to do a little hokey pokey this weekend! Put your hand in, put your hand out and shake it all about!! Repeat with the feet and everything in between. I promise, you will feel better afterward and nobody has to know you did it. Orrrrrr you could invite your whole crew over, make a video and post it in the comments on this little Dear Diary entry with #loverosephoto and follow along to me #dancinglikenooneiswatching on IG @rose_kaz and our crew page @rosephoto.official

To Veronica + Kapil, thank you so very much for having the RP crew to document your love story. You know it’s our favorite thing to do and truly an honor to meet your families. Your clever ways of introducing cultures to one another had our team in stitches and we love your love!! Can’t wait for the next chapters!!

love,

Rose + Co

PRIDE IN CHICAGO: A very glam gay wedding

‘When you know, you know!’, ‘She’s the one!!’, ‘It was love at first site!!’ These are just a few of our very favorite things to hear when we ask our couples about meeting their person! As the month of Pride comes to a beautiful, colorful and brilliantly bold end, we like it just as well to say love in all its forms is beautiful. Our job as photojournalists in documenting love stories knows no boundaries and cares greatly for all the diverse ways people can love one another. After all, there isn’t one person that can possibly know what love means to everyone else; that is love is subjective and what may make you swoon may not phase me. What may make me go ‘ga ga’, may make you curious to know just what makes me tick! There are so many forms of love and why restrict our scope based on limited experience, exposure or even understanding.

Today, we also mark 50 years from the riots at Stonewall, an event that really mobilized the LGBTQ movement across this country and inspired others around the world. Reflecting on this moment in history half a century ago, reminds me that it is also equally important to be and have allies in all movements which seek equality for every body. Safe space for people to connect, commune and show their love is also paramount in growing a world of tolerance and love. I’m likely preaching to the choir here but let us also take pause to remember how far we have come for equal rights for same sex couples as well as how far we still have to go. So much pioneering has be done by activists pushing forward legislation that advocates for dignity and equal status to all same-sex couples and their families and abolishes laws that limit rights. It was just in June of 2015 when the United States Supreme Court ruled that marriage between peoples of the same sex was legal in all 50 states.

It’s with this forward progress that make such celebrations as the wedding we documented earlier this month a public, honored and celebratory occasion in one of Chicago’s most notable, historic hotels in the Loop. Keeping in mind that less than a century earlier, white men were the primary guests, visitors and social leaders of such spaces. Women, people of color and certainly any queer celebrations where not openly hosted, attended or praised. Whilst The Windy City is notably a liberal bubble and metropolitan hub of its own accord, progress still takes time to really grow roots and shine brightly in public arenas. It’s therefore even more imperative that those of us who are family in the LGBTQ community and our allies take every inch we move forward and push it down that Mag Mile! And Sophie + Melissa did exactly that with the support of their friends, families and about 50 of Melissa’s co workers, Chicago Police Department officers. Truly the city was standing in their honor!

As I write this sweet, photographic diary, I am listening to the bold and brilliant song that Sophie + Melissa had played as they entered the grand ballroom at Hotel Allegro upon being announced as Wife + Wife! Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days are Over is THE PERFECT ballad of love, progress and resilience. As these two women entered, the gusto and sincere pride they have in their hearts shined so brightly. Everyone in the room was standing with them, in great support of their love and applauding as if the Chicago Cubs won the world series again; but this time LOVE WINS in Chicago! The incredible energy and excitement of moving forward with this big, true and equal love was palpable. To think, less than 100 years ago, this couldn’t have happened in such an open and supportive way. It’s truly incredible and we are all part of making history move forward. Sophie’s father even mentioned his own journey of acceptance and honoring his daughter’s choice for seeking, finding and honoring her true love. His honesty shows that we are evolving as humans, we are changing and we can move forward.

To my beautiful, lovely brides of recent Chicago Pride glory, I am honored to have had my team along side to tell your love story. We are allies, family and friends. Rose Photo believes fully that #lovewins and that living your best, true and honest life leads you to the biggest and best love one can dream of. Thank you for trusting us with your love story. To many more chapters!

love,

Rose Kaz

Farm Fresh love: Blue Ridge Mountain wedding

When you work out with total babes and co work with amazing dress designers, you wind up with really fit clients in couture gowns! What can I say? When I started Rose Photo 5 years ago after 5 years freelancing in the portrait and wedding world, I knew my mission: find beautiful settings, capture pretty people, wearing gorgeous fashion. Being the daughter of a fashion designer I grew up surrounded by bolts of beautiful fabric. As a student photography since a young age, I learned to paint with light and often my canvas was my mom’s sewing room. Fast forward the tape to current life, and this makes my job creating beautiful wedding imagery a very enjoyable walk in the park. That’s not to say my job is easy, far from it in fact!! It’s the hardest job I’ve ever loved… so far;) I think when you truly love something, it not only shows but it is also infused into every little thing one does to support the vision. Even when my camera is set down, I see the shot, the way the light dances and the colors, textures and patterns that would make the perfect photo. Leading with love makes for lovely images, easy as that! Now preparing the timeline, getting the gear in order and obsessing over edits, is an entirely different topic. But let’s keep the focus on the lovely images, shall we??

When this babe of bride told me about her engagement to her Puerto Rican beaux and their plans to have a perfectly picturesque, outdoors wedding in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I jumped at the chance to grab my camera. Then, when she said she was having her gown made custom by one of my favorite designers in Asheville, I couldn’t wait a minute longer for her to confirm our contract! Angela Kim designs timeliness silhouettes and drapes laces so perfectly even her sample gowns are stunning! I know because she made a one of her one of kind pant suits for me to wear to my little sister’s Chicago wedding this past holiday season.

Beautiful bride in a stunning gown, check! Good looking groom with rhythm and a great smile, check! Vintage chic, outdoor venue with charming tree swing, organic garden and chickens, check! All that is left on the wedding day check list to be sure all the love that surrounds this darling couple is perfectly captured and no kiss is left behind. After all, the reason for the season is LOVE and it is the job of any good wedding photographer to see the love all around, even when it isn’t a #weddingday!!

To Katie + Mike a million times thanks for sharing your love story with Rose Photo. I loved capturing your beautiful moments of kindness and true love. You both inspire genuine connection to all the good people you’ve surrounded yourself with and it’s really clear to see that when documenting your big day.

love,

Rose + Co

Gorgeous Indian Wedding in Cancún, Q.R., Mexico

When our very favorite wedding planner called on our team to meet another of his stunning brides, we where beyond thrilled to hear the news that his team was planning an Indian Wedding in Mexico for spring of 2019. Then, when we met this amazing couple behind this international and multi-cultural adventure, we fell in love even more with our next project. The Rose Photo mission is to genuinely connect with our client’s love story so we can journey with them, even if out of country, on destination wedding. We love to tell story as bold and colorful as the world we live in. When offered the opportunity to travel out of the United States to vibrant Mexico , our answer was a big ol’ YES PLEASE !

Before grabbing our passports and catching our flights out of Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport, we began with our wedding photo coverage at Theater on the Lake with our couple as their friends and family gathered for an amazing Sangeet- the perfect pre game to any celebration, focused on dancing until you cannot dance anymore! The night’s program, complete with Bollywood infused dance numbers performed by cousins, aunties and uncles, parents and siblings of the couple where spectacular. Their super high energy and well choreographed dance moves set the tempo for the next round of events to come as we traveled to the destination wedding venue in May! Sure to be inspired by the cultural traditions this wedding celebration was built around and the beautiful wedding venue our couple decided on, the combo of the traditional Indian wedding events on the Riveria Maya promised to be packed with amazing photo ops!!

To say that the location chosen for the most epic wedding we’v seen yet was stunning is vast understatement. The site lines and architecture in and around the property at Nizuc are perfection. Then add our beautiful couple dressed to the nines, not once but on 4 different occasions for what can only be described as a dream come true for our RP Photo Crew ! To have so many options for incredible back drops AND costume changes is the stuff we build our pro photo, vision boards on. And as child of a fashion designer, I personally tend to go a little overboard on textures, colors and patterns of fabrics. Thankfully, our gorgeous bride also has amazing taste in fashion so her incredibly detailed lenghas where breathtaking. The black and red style she wore to the welcome reception at Nizuc’s beautiful La Punta was designed by Mani Jassal . Her wedding day lengha was perfectly stitched and detailed by Sabyasachi and our bride’s final look for her black tie reception was created by Shyamal & Bhumika. Whilst this was not Rose Photo’s first Indian wedding, the occasion to travel to find new photo locations and the best possible back drops that perfectly suit our couple is always, always high on our list of perks of the job.

From the start of the Ganesh Puja, on through the Haldi & Mehndi preparations, through the next morning’s first look prior to wedding ceremony and even as we prepared for killer portraits prior to their final party of the weekend, P + A where absolutely themselves, super kind and dialed into their family and friends around them; which we must reiterate is the reason for the season! It is exactly why we get so excited to dial into other peoples’ story, to come to know their family, their friends and their style of loving. It’s what drives our excitement as we prepare for wedding photos, what builds these captures, and keeps us going during the countless hours on the ground and in post production ! Without our beautiful clients and their families, our photo work would be largely just architecture shots; but perfectly place beautiful people in gorgeous places, and viola: we have a highlight reel of wedding portraiture we like to call art !!

To our dear couple, their incredible friends and family, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for including Rose Photo on your dearest celebrations….all of them :) The incredible energy that is builds throughout the multiple days of revelry in your honor is contagious and inspires us to keep our cameras clicking, even when an Auntie’s arm should whip (accidentally) in the direction of a camera and cause a small black eye ( true story but I got the shot!) It is truly our honor and privilege to be a part of the action and to share with you all our ways of seeing your love. We can’t wait for the next party!!

love,

Rose + Co

TRUE LOVE STORY: when Annie met Paul

When my little sister came home one Christmas morning at 4am after meeting her now husband, let me just say, I was not initially impressed. While it is a family tradition for all our cousins to head to the local dive bar for after dinner drinks …errrr shots, I’m the old lady of the bunch that prefers to stay home and cuddle with family dog on the couch instead. I wasn’t sure what kinda guy would keep a gal up late and out on Christmas night but it turns out Paul is the kinda guy that makes sure a gal is home on Christmas morning! In any case, that fateful Christmas eve would go down in history as the night Annie met Paul.

Fast forward the tape through many a family crisis, the death of our dear mother and all the interesting ups and downs a new relationship can have in it’s salad days, and these two love birds continue to impress me with the evolution of their love and #relationshipgoals. Whilst their engagement was long and full of it’s challenges, it certainly proved their dedication to one another and when getting to the altar became next steps, Annie + Paul where just as inventive and creative as they’d been in growing with each other in their first few years dating; he with his strong loyalty to his awesome group of friends and dear family and she with her dedication to keeping it classy and always being the hostess with the mostess.

Since our mom, Marie, had passed away in the initial year of Annie + Paul meeting, wedding planning took an unusual and out of the box twist when the two dreamt up the idea to have their ceremony prerecorded at our hometown, vintage movie house, The Tivoli Theater . Both Annie + Paul grew up seeing movies at the ‘Tiv’ and they thought it extra special to have a slightly more private take on their vows. The ceremony would then be shared as a surprise unveil to their guests at their winter wedding. Super untraditional and really creative, all the small pieces of creating that endearing film will remain one of my favorite wedding ceremonies ever. I only wish our mom could have been there with our combined family but we know for sure she watched from above.

Of the 250 friends + family on the guest list, only very few knew that the ceremony had already happened. The showcasing of the short film in place of the live exchange of vows was another unconventional and sweet twist on the standard wedding approach. Aside from the Tivoli surprise, Paul had a number of super heartfelt and really thoughtful moves up his very dapper, white tuxedo sleeves on wedding night . Though prior to #Pannie’s grand entrance into the wedding reception when the two where announced in at the video’s end, Paul + Annie went for a totally different look at their wedding ceremony. Paul wore his army greens and Annie rocked one of our mom’s favorite dresses, from every girl’s favorite shop, Anthro. And of course, always with amazing floral accents from Annie’s + my very fave storefront florist in Chicago, Asrai Garden. Whilst the two opted for just video coverage of the ceremony, I couldn’t help but bring my camera for a few captures at the theater, just after they said ‘I do’, really in love and really outside of the wedding box!

When it came time to wedding day, with the ceremony having already been captured, my team worked on developing a calm timeline so we could create truly stunning portraits of Paul + Annie’s combined families, the shimmer of the season and, of course, set in a gorgeous location. One of my favorite things to do as a photographer is scout the best backdrops for the best wedding portraits. Can we say…out of the box one more time ?? Specifically since my sister and soon to be brother in law - btw he wouldn’t say they where hubs and wife until December 22 was all tied up!! - but since the two of them wanted to focus on being with all the people they love so much and really just hosting THE BEST HOLIDAY WEDDING EVER, I wanted to be sure the Rose Photo fly on the wall approach to documenting moments was spot on - especially on that crazy dance floor - and our portrait game was strong. You might even peek a photo of me shooting in my Sunday best below and a few cameos in family formals, too !! I’m so in love with all the Christmas inspired shots from that big day but since it’s now February, I’ll save a little of that holiday bokeh for next Christmas season and share just a few here.

Paul + Annie gave me one more job beside running photo crew on wedding day. It was big sis on the mic as I pined over a little welcome speech and a few general MC duties. I fell right back into my age old, obviously not shy, show pony role as Master of Ceremony! Another slight nod to our mom, Marie, because a) she is our fashion queen forever b) to shield any ugly crying and c) also be fabulous, I had to accessorize with some very large sunglasses . Even though I wrote my speech 5 or 6 times on my smartphone, I ended up rewriting it the night before the wedding, on napkins. Ever the classy show pony, I delivered said speech in fancy Gucci’s from a paper towel like a good ‘Sister of Honor’ would do!!

To Annie + Paul, thank you so much for including me, my photo crew and our collective vision to see your wedding into photo memories! It is always a privilege to capture any love story and though we are family, it is my true honor to have the occasion to not only observe your love but also to make chronicle of it and a bit of commentary, too. I’ll pass the mic back now but only because Annie is in great hands of dear Paul.

love,

Rose + Co