wintergarden downtown rochester wedding: courtney + drew

Wintergarden Night Rain Downtown Rochester Wedding Photography

Courtney and Drew met while both getting their undergraduate degrees in Physics at Duquesne University. Needless to say, these two are both extremely smart! They’re also kind, outgoing, and a joy to be around, so basically - each of them is quite a catch! When they first reached out they were living in Bethlehem, PA where they were both getting graduate degrees from LeHigh, so obviously they had to do most of their planning from afar. I didn’t get to meet them in person until their engagement session, but I loved getting to know them then and have been so looking forward to their wedding day ever since!

It was supposed to rain on day of, which wouldn’t have been a huge deal as everything was planned to be indoors aside from the First Look and bridal party photos, so we had our umbrellas ready to go for those! Thankfully we didn’t end up needing them and I hope I’m not jinxing myself to say that this was the 3rd wedding in a row where the rain ended up holding out until the reception when we were all indoors! It was the perfect temperature out when we arrived at Highland Park for Courtney & Drew’s First Look! As always, this was definitely one of my favorite moments of the day! We did the rest of the portraits of Courtney and Drew along with their awesome bridal party in the park before making our way to the Wintergarden for the ceremony and reception.

I’m going to assume everyone in Rochester has heard of the Wintergarden by Monroe’s downtown, but if you’re not local it’s a really neat venue in a massive glass walled atrium, lined with a handful of trees full of twinkle lights! It’s a one-of-a-kind venue and I really love shooting there! Seeing Courtney & Drew beam at each other throughout the ceremony, their first dance, speeches, and throughout the night was priceless. The dance floor at this wedding was SO much fun to photograph - the highlight for me was probably when about 100 people were on the dance floor doing the “wobble” haha - what a fun group! We said our goodbyes after finishing off the night with some outdoor photos in the rain, which turned out to be some of my favorites from the whole day!