November 11, 2018

Jared + Jess’s Fall Engagement Session | Chicago, IL

Jess and Jared’s Chicago engagement photos are some of my favorite I’ve ever taken!! Jessica reached out to me about a week after they got engaged, and we scheduled something just a few weekends later, so they were freshly engaged and excited about their wedding during the shoot! Both of them are just so sweet, both to me and in their interactions with each other—and we got insanely lucky with weather! It was perfectly overcast (nature’s diffuser), not too cold for early November, and the last of the fall colors were out in full force at our second location outside.

We started out the shoot at the Chicago Cultural Center, one of Jessica’s favorite places in Chicago. Both Jess and Jared are designers, so she loved the small mosaic details and all of the leading lines inside the cultural center. As for Jared, I got to see his design skills put to work when Jess showed me her engagement ring; he designed it himself!!! How cute is that?

For our second location, we headed a few blocks away to Lurie Garden near Millennium Park. I shot another engagement session here in the summer (Urbano and Tiffany’s), but it was even more gorgeous in late fall; all of the tall grasses were a beautiful shade of yellow and the dead flower bushes actually added some lovely brown tones as well.

From Jessica:

Marissa was such a peach to meet, smile, and travel around the city with! She had such an exuberant energy that puts even the most camera shy at ease. My fiancé and I could not be more pumped about the moments she captures, alongside her beautiful edits and fast turnaround! Thankful for Marissa and her incredible gift for photography💕

Scroll down to see my favorites from their session (mostly in Lurie Garden!) and Jess’s ring that Jared designed himself!

Locations: Chicago Cultural Center + Lurie Garden

Dress: Zara

Photographer: Marissa Kelly Photography