Chicago Rooftop Wedding by Amanda Wilcher Photographers

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you are all recovering from a breaking-news jammed weekend because I went to bed last night completely exhausted from so many different emotions. I did however have such a fabulous two day break taking a trip to IKEA where the frugal Apb decided to ditch his frugal ways, we finally finished unpacking the remainder of our things and our apartment is sort of starting to feel like home. The pink wall in my girl cave also known as my office is finished and is so totally adorbs, and today I have two consults; a final fitting with this beautiful bride to be, and a meeting at a bridal salon to meet the fabulous owner. I couldn't be more excited to start this week off on a good note especially since I finally bought all the ingredients to make cake pops this week. Did I tell you how obsessed I am with these things lately even though they are like circa 2009? Cannot. get. enough. lemme tell ya.

Enough of me though, cause today's wedding is so simple and pretty and lovely and comes straight from this fabulous bride who shared her skin care 101 with us last week. Christina and her husband were married last September just a week before yours truly and I have to say she did everything just right. Her shapely gown with just the perfect dash of detailing, the outdoor ceremony overlooking the Windy Cindy cityline, that cake combining quirky with beautiful and those Jimmys. Don't get me started on those shoes. Christina, I hope you go to bed at night with your shoes on. And I hope you wear them to the gym. I adore them. And you. And well, take a peek friends! All the glorious eye candy captured by no other than Amanda Wilcher, the talent behind our very own wedding photos.

{From Christina, the bride} I loved my wedding day. We were blessed with gorgeous weather given that three days before and after our wedding day were cold and rainy. I was surprisingly calm all day, despite my stressful state in the weeks prior. My husband said sweet, romantic things to me when we stole a few moments to ourselves that day and we were surrounded by love from our family and friends. But my advice to future brides would be to just breathe and be calm on the day of. There's nothing more you can do, and it's all out of your control now. Enjoy the day and soak in all the love that day. Remember the wedding is a celebration of your love and commitment to each other. Although we drool over the tiny, pretty details all over the Internet, don't let them control you.

For us, choosing a location was especially difficult. We had always envisioned an intimate, outdoor destination wedding. We scoured the Internet for places in the greater San Francisco area, but it seemed more daunting than we expected. (I have a new found admiration for destination weddings!) I felt pressure to minimize the disruption to people's schedules and was sensitive to people's finances. We finally decided to have an intimate wedding on the rooftop of Grand Piazza to enjoy the gorgeous views of the Chicago skyline. This venue is a hidden gem, and the skyline view represented us as a couple since I am from Chicago, and my husband has lived here for 12 years. Given the stunning backdrop, we used Chicago as a theme throughout our save the date, invitations, postage stamps and table names. In order to have the ceremony and reception on the rooftop, we had to keep our guest list on the smaller end. It was hard to eliminate some friends and family from the guest list, but they understood the size limitations. Even harder was editing all the lovely ideas from all over the web. There were so many different color combinations and gorgeous flowers that I loved, loved, loved! I wish I knew Rhiannon before my wedding and that we weren't married just one week apart. I would have hired her in a heart beat to help me edit my ideas and execute them on the day of the wedding.

One of my best friends from college performed the ceremony. In true journalistic form, she recorded an interview with us to write the ceremony with personalized details that made our wedding seem even more intimate. She later sent us the interview recordings, which I look forward to listening to years from now. True to our bad habits, our wedding somehow came together with lots of last minute DIY projects by several talented family members. I had grand ideas of doing a cookie buffet, but given that we were still completing scuba diving lessons the day before our wedding (for our Australian honeymoon), needless to say, it just wasn't feasible. Instead of baking hundreds of cookie for a buffet, I baked and packaged a large chocolate chip cookie (NYTimes recipe, of course) for each guest. My husband and I made the place card display inspired by another bride on one of the wedding forums. I decorated a three-tiered cake box for the wedding cards. My sister made my gorgeous necklace and the dress hanger with my husband's last name, and my cousin made the adorable cake topper. My mom did all of the flowers except for my bouquet and my mother-in-law hand embroidered the Mr and Mrs chair sashes for our sweetheart table. My dad helped with the hairbands for the girls and my brother and sister-in-law helped put out all the details on the wedding day.

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Photographer: Amanda Wilcher Photographers / Venue: The Grand Piazza / Groom's attire: Hugo Boss /  Groom's shoes: Bruno Magli shoes from Nordstrom / Bride's dress: Robert Bullock / Bride's hairpiece: LoBoheme / Alterations: Mary Catomy Alterations / Bride's bouquet and groom's boutonniere: Larkspur Chicago / Thumbprint tree guest book: Lovliday on Etsy