Emily and Chris' gallery wall
Hello friends! Today I get to share Emily and Chris’ gallery wall of wedding photographs with you. This was a really fun gallery wall to design, and I absolutely love how it turned out!
I started photographing Emily and Chris’ wedding weekend the evening before their wedding for a beautiful rehearsal dinner at Alma followed by drinks with friends and family at Surly Brewing Co. It was a blast to get to photograph their rehearsal dinner and pre-wedding celebration at Surly -- starting the photography the night before the wedding was super fun way to kick off the weekend and get to know Emily and Chris’ loved ones!
The next day, Emily and Chris got married at the Aster Cafe! Emily and Chris’ wedding day was so, so special. The venue, the details, and every other part of their wedding day was chosen to focus on good food, celebration, and spending time with friends and family. It was such a joyful day and a delight to photograph.
Emily and Chris’ gallery wall of wedding pictures
Emily and Chris’ home is very curated and intentional, and they loved the idea of having their wedding photos become a really intentional art installation in their home. It was really fun to plan out a full gallery wall with them!
When we first discussed what sort of wedding art they wanted, Emily and Chris debated between creating a wedding album versus choosing wall art. They really loved the storytelling element that albums hold, but they were also super drawn to having art they could hang on the walls of their home. Creating a gallery wall ended up being the perfect middle ground; they were able to include eight pictures from throughout their wedding weekend, and together those pictures really captured the story of their wedding celebrations!
The gallery wall is totally amazing. It consists of eight frames of various sizes, all filled with black-and-white photos. Choosing to keep all of the photos black-and-white really united them -- even though the photos show various moments from the weekend, they all feel super clean, modern, and visually cohesive.
I truly adore the photos Emily and Chris chose for their gallery wall! There’s this wonderful picture from their rehearsal dinner where they’re kissing outside of Alma -- it was such a happy moment, and you can really feel the happiness just looking at the picture! There are portraits of each of them from their wedding day. There are lots of candid portraits (these two love candids!), including one of them walking out of their wedding ceremony laughing and smiling that feels SO iconic! There’s also a really beautiful portrait of them walking outside of Aster Cafe with the energy of Minneapolis buzzing around them -- it has some really cool architecture that harkens back to their venue and gives the entire gallery wall a real sense of place.
To bring even more visual cohesiveness to their gallery wall, Emily and Chris chose simple black frames for all of their portraits. These beautiful, monochromatic frames really draw the viewer’s eyes right into the moment that each photo shows. Grouped together, the portraits feel so classic and timeless. I am just completely in love with this gallery wall and am so grateful that I got to put it together!
Because Emily and Chris live in Chicago, I wasn’t able to install their gallery wall for them (a service I love gifting to my Twin Cities-based clients!) but I’ve included a couple of mock-ups of Emily and Chris’ gallery wall so that you can see what the collection of portraits looks like together!
I use this mock-up software with all of my clients who choose to create wall art with their wedding photos. The software allows me to either take a real picture of a client’s wall at home and design gallery walls to scale, or alternatively to use a digitally rendered room and then pull different gallery shapes and sizes together to imagine what different combinations of portraits will look like. One of the biggest creative challenges to figure out when creating a gallery wall is deciding what portraits will look really incredible together and which size to make each portrait, and my mock-up software is incredibly helpful for playing around with different options. The final product is a gallery wall with a real sense of cohesiveness that feels super special!
Emily and Chris, it was so fun to write this post and reflect on your wedding celebrations! Your wedding weekend was such a joy to photograph -- every bit of it felt so authentic to the kind, loving people that you are. Thank you for letting me share your gallery wall here and for giving me the chance to reminisce on your incredible wedding!