Stories of wedding photojournalism from the husband-wife team of Warmowski Photography
Pam Gaines not only helped her daughter, Kristen, plan for her wedding — she also made the decorations for Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church and Gee Whillikers Banquet Hall. Pam also made necklaces for the bridesmaids, sashes for the dresses, decorated the wedding cake, and the list goes on.
Event details: Family friends Jim & Linda Jones (Soundsations DJ Service 217.243.2928), wedding dress from State Street Bridal.
Retired wedding photographer Glen Preston joined in with the rest of the family in photographing at the wedding of Kristen (Gaines) and Joel Buchanan last weekend in Jacksonville.
Glen, who said he photographed more than 2,000 weddings in his career, asked how many photos we usually take during a day (answer, around 2,500-3,000 images). He said his first wedding he took 24 pictures. “Oh, Glen,” his wife said at the time, “We’ll never sell all those pictures.”
Big difference between the days of the Speed Graphic and digital cameras!
Posted by Steve of WarmowskiPhotography.com.
A funny moment during the dollar dance at Kristen (Gaines) Buchanan’s wedding . . .
First one up was her brother, Marc, who held aloft his dollar and made Kristen jump for it. After a swipe or two, he had his laugh. He handed over the bill, and the dance began.
Posted by Steve of WarmowskiPhotography.com, photojournalists offering wedding images in Jacksonville/Springfield, Illinois.
Kristen Gaines had her friends and family blow bubbles as she and Joel left Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church in Jacksonville last week. And they had a little help — a bubble machine. Walking through a cloud of bubbles is a nice way to leave, since many venues don’t allow guests to toss bird seed, throw rice and the like. What really helps is to have one (or two, or more) of these little bubble-blowing machines to help add to the show. Great idea Kristen!
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Saturday we photographed the wedding of Kristen Gaines and Joel Buchanan at Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Illinois. We’re currently working on their photos, but we wanted to share some classic car images.
The newlyweds are members of the Jacksonville Good-Time Cruisers. To make their hobby a part of their special day, fellow club members tailed their get-away vehicle. I wanted to get some details of the cars, but with everything going on I didn’t have the time. The club had a car show the next day, so I made the special effort to go out.
John Gaines, Kristen’s father, was nice enough to thank us for all our hard work. He said all the attention we gave on the wedding day made Kristen and Joel feel special.
Posted by Steve/Warmowski Photography. Photojournalists offering wedding coverage in Jacksonville/Springfield and across Illinois.
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Tiffany reports that everyone who sees our copy of Emily & Jk McLeod’s wedding album loves this photo. The flowers for the wedding were done by Floral Designer Rachel Roman Speh of Godfrey. She provides flowers for weddings in St. Louis and the Metro East region.
Some more bouquets from the day . . .
Event details: Ceremony at Provincial House Chapel at the University of Missouri St. Louis; reception at Windows on Washington.
Steve and Tiffany Warmowski, photojournalism wedding coverage in St. Louis, June 2008.
Julie said we could pass this on . . .
Steve and Tiffany,
After a whirlwind 10 days or so, I was finally able to sit down and look over all the wedding pictures…tears are streaming down my face. They are simply amazing! You captured so many moments – things I never saw or noticed that day, stories and people I might have forgotten about, and feelings that I do remember very clearly and never want to forget. You helped tell the story of our wedding so beautifully and that means to the world to me!
I know you stayed longer than you had to, and did much more than take our pictures. This might be the way you run your business, but it really made us feel special. Tiffany, thank you for all your help – fixing my bustle, providing everything in that amazing emergency kit of yours, and being so attentive to all my bridesmaids. Audrey even commented that she wanted you to stay and hang out at whatever time you could stop taking pictures! You are such a great person.
Steve, as you probably remember, Phil is not much of a picture person. Therefore, I knew he wouldn’t be as moved as I was to see the pictures from last Saturday. But you did get a reaction out of him that was pretty cool. He said you “were everywhere” and several times mentions that he had no idea you were around for pictures like the ones taken before we entered Hamilton’s and some of those taken in the library. You really were everywhere – quietly going about capturing the best day of our lives.
Call me an emotional new bride, but I can’t thank you enough for the wonderful pictures, and for being so affordable. I’m sure we’ll be in touch in the coming weeks or month about what’s next and how to order. Until then, I will be clicking through all of them repeatedly, feeling sort of like a celebrity on your website 🙂
Thanks again,
Julie Wilkinson
Thanks for the kind words Julie!
It was a blast covering Megan (Knocke) and Adam Wardlow’s wedding in Quincy this January. They had fun the whole day, and we’ve never seen so many people jamming the dance floor.
After their wedding we met to help plan their coffee table book. We asked for some feedback on our work, and Adam said hiring us was the “best decision ever.” Wow. What a compliment! It was our pleasure. And, I suppose you mean the best decision besides marrying Megan.
Their wedding was our first in Quincy. We’re located in Jacksonville and do most of our weddings here and in Springfield. But, we do many events in Chicago, St. Louis, and all around the state. We’re looking forward to our next wedding in Quincy this autumn, and hopefully many more in the future.
Steve and Tiffany Warmowski, photojournalism wedding coverage in Quincy, Illinois.
Hooray for Steve!
This month marks my first full year of “retirement” from the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. Before leaving the daily grind of the daily paper, I worked 11 years in Jacksonville, two years at the Herald & Review (Decatur, Illinois), two years at the Freeport Journal-Standard, and 4 months at the LaSalle-Peru News-Tribune (the home of half-time overtime, ask me about it sometime). While at the University of Illinois-Urbana, I was a photographer and photo editor for the Daily Illini. I took a summer and fall off to intern at newspapers in Saginaw and Muskegon, Michigan.
People have asked me if I miss working at the newspaper. Honestly, not in the least. I see my years in newspapers as a past chapter of my life. And, I’m using all the experience and skill from that time to do something I absolutely enjoy — telling wedding stories for our brides and grooms.
(Tiffany left the newspaper earlier to start our wedding photography business. She did all the “work” while I just joined her for the fun of photographing on Saturdays. We now are happy working as a team for our wedding clients. When you add our years together we have more than 30 years of experience as photojournalists.)
A little something about the photo atop our blog. Tiffany & I had a wonderful honeymoon in Sweden. We were married 15 September (the week of 9/11), and took a three-week trip to Sweden the next summer. I was lucky enough to have visited Sweden for five-and-a-half weeks the previous year as part of a Rotary Club Group Study Exchange (if you’re a young professional and can take an extended leave from your job, I highly suggest applying for the program).
New friends invited us to come visit, so we did! We stayed a week in Malmö with our friend Martin Israelsson; another week with our friends Bengt Josefsson and Ann Wilhelmsson at their home in Mariestad and their stuga (summer home) in Sisjön; and a final week in Stockholm. Bengt was the trigger man for our blog photo. We were visiting the small village of Hjo on the shores of Lake Vättern, when I saw the cool setting. I set the camera up, told Bengt not to put us in the middle, and we posed for the shot. Not bad for an accountant! And, a great remembrance of a place whose slogan is I love Hjo (pronounced “you”).
By the way, we suggest taking a pre-honeymoon followed by a full-fledged honeymoon. We went to Southern Illinois and stayed in cabins at the San Damiano Retreat Center a couple days after our wedding, then were able to take our longer honeymoon trip to Sweden. That way we could use vacation time from work to help prepare for the wedding and to settle things afterwards before our pre-honeymoon. Then our honeymoon could be longer and at a time when there was less to worry about and we had more energy.
