We’ve got a brand new venue in town and I could not be more thrilled about it! Welcome to The HarMac. It’s beautiful, with exposed bricks and concrete floors, original window metalwork (with updated glass for heating/cooling efficiency), white walls, strategically thought-out women’s and men’s getting ready/lounging rooms, grand pillars throughout, natural light, and all of this in a historic warehouse building in downtown Cedar Rapids. I feel so lucky to live in an area that has so many amazing wedding venues, and even luckier now that we can add a much-needed industrial venue to the list!

It was such an honor to be part of this styled collaboration shoot yesterday! I had been itching to see the space and this was a huge bonus to seeing it: shooting  in it! The best part of styled shoots is that everyone truly gets to provide their own talents in the best way possible and the sky is the limit as far as creativity goes. On a wedding day, we are working within necessary time constraints and logical budgets and our clients come absolutely first above everything else. It is, as it should be, our client’s day. Conversely, for a styled shoot, where no client is involved, it becomes a matter of what each vendor can bring to the table, a true collaboration of time, talents, efforts, space, and design elements, to create something for no one else but ourselves. For no other purpose than the joy of creating and documenting and sharing.

We had such a fun team yesterday and I’m thankful first to The HarMac for opening the space to us to use. Unique Events did all the design and floral work. They have never disappointed me in my 10+ years of working with them! Makeup was provided by Banes Beauty and hair was done by Hair by Tiffany Terzo. The vintage rentals were provided by Borrow My Vintage, another company with an amazing inventory of design elements, decor, and furniture! The cake, oh, man, that cake!!! was created by Classic Cakes by Design and the stunning paper suite was hand-crafted by Painting For Cheese. A special thank you to Erin for modeling for us and to Hope’s Bridal for providing the most perfectly-fitting gown for her to wear. And lastly, thank you to Joel and Jess and TKM Productions for working so effortlessly and smoothly with me and each other, sharing spaces and a model and never once getting into each other’s way. It was a true pleasure to see how we each approached the shots differently in our own unique ways while simultaneously respecting the need for collaboratively working.