Matt + Sharon - The Wedding (Wilderness Lodge and Resort Wisconsin Dells.

What an amazing wedding venue for Matt and Sharon. It was held at the Wilderness Lodge and Resort in Wisconsin Dells. I started at 11am, and wanted to leave by 8:45am so I made sure I got there by 10:30am to scout and see the place and get my equipment out and ready to go. Thank God I left when I did because if you haven't been to the Wilderness, it's as big as a city. Ofcourse the GPS had one address, but that was the main entrance, and I believe there were 7 or 8 entrances. So when I finally got to Glacier Canyon conference center, it was 10:45am. We started off the day with a Crazy hair get up on Sharon. I thought she should have walked down the isle like this:

Sharon is from the Madison area, and I got the referral from my Dad's friend Marcia's daughter Morgan. Morgan is Sharon's best friend and Maid of Honor. I've known Morgan for 7 or 8 years, see eachother a couple times a year, usually at my Dad's camper upnorth or are Marcia's house in DeForest. A big shout out to Morgan and a big Thankyou for getting me their wedding.

What an AMAZING venue, The Wilderness Lodge and Resort/Glacier Canyon Conference/Banquet facility. Everything was set up to the T, beautiful chair covers, blue bows to match the bridesmaid dresses, creme linens, beautiful centerpieces etc. It was simply amazing.

I got there as they were setting up everything you see in the above photo. It was a business out of Princeton Wisconsin called Embellished (WWW.EMBELLISHED.US) 920.295.0373. They laid out all of the chair covers, put on each one, then laid out each bow for the back, then hand tied them. Set up all the center pieces and table numbers, and they also did all of the flowers. I can't imagine all the work they put in to do all of that.

Sharon warned me a few days before the wedding, that their ceremony was going to be 5 minutes long, and to be prepaired to take as many photos of the ceremony within 5 minutes. She was not kidding, and her Mom told me after she timed it, 4 minutes.....

So after the ceremony we had some down time before dinner started and before they cut the cake and dance to follow, so we did some fun shots of the wedding party just outside on the back patio of the Wilderness.

SHOW ME YOUR GUNS!!!!

All the bridesmaids in the wedding party were great, and had some fun ideas other than mine. So Cheers!!

Right before dinner the DJ, Marc Lovicott, from Juke Box Bandstand out of Madison, (www.jukeboxbandstand.com) 608.249.2900, had a small intro for the newly weds Matt and Sharon into the reception hall, which led right into the cake cutting so the staff could get the cake cut and served after dinner.

Dinner was awesome, choices were prime rib, portabella mushroom pasta, or pork. Some people don't know, and didn't know that Matt is a very picky eater, so Sharon had her Maid of Honor's brother, Mason, run to McDonalds for a joke. Since Matt was a picky eater he got a double cheeseburger and fries if he didn't like the wedding food.

Time for the first dance. This is one of my favorite parts of the wedding, because it's so much fun to watch the emotion and reactions of their first dance as husband and wife.

Since it was so hot out during the day and bright sun until 6:30pm or later, we decided we wanted to wait until after the dances to go on our private session with just Matt and Sharon. We jumped in my car and took a quick drive around the area, and I had scouted a spot as I was coming into the Dells that I thought was neat. Check out the videos of us on the shoot. Thanks to my Dad for coming with and shooting some footage for me.

Super laid back and fun couple. Great wedding party, amazing venue.....enough said. Congrats to Matt and Sharon from Jared Lee Photography. All of Matt and Sharon's images will be posted on my website to view and purchase within a week or two. www.JaredLeeLLC.com -> "Order Images"

Rachell + Ryan - The Wedding

SUPER RACH!!!!! That's what the girls at Feature's Sports Bar and Grill in Holmen call her wen she's behind the bar making the tastiest drinks in town.

Super she was indeed on her big day. Woke up to another Wisconsin crazy weather day, sunny and 84'. Started out at Rachell's parents house where all the bridesmaids were getting ready before they went to the church. Who would have thought I would have been welcomed with open arms again. This weekend especially because I went to High School with Rachell, she was a few years ahead of me but I knew pretty much everyone of the girls that were in her wedding and it was nice seeing all of them and catching up on what was going on in their lives. Who would have thought AGAIN they were having the time of their lives.....

The flowers were something I've never seen before, and they all had Peacock feather's, it was really neat:

As soon as we got to the church, the girls did their last minute touch ups, grabbed a quick sandwhich before formal posed pictures started for the bridesmaids and groomsmen. I had a couple minutes of downtime, so I took Rachell for a quick portrait session just around the Church for maybe five minutes, also after her session, I put her back in the girls room, and grabbed Ryan:

As I mentioned before, PEACOCK feathers everywhere. I was relaxing before the ceremony just walking around looking at different things to get some ideas for the ceremony, and Rachell yell's out, I WANT SOME PICTURES OF PEACOCK FEATHERS"!!" So she threw me a huge bag of peacock feathers, so I thought outloud to myself, that would be a fun shot for the rings:

Now, almost time for the ceremony. I went outside to grab a bottle of water from my car because it was hot hot hot and saw the guys hanging outside:

It was a long ceremony, almost an hour and twenty minutes long, Catholic mass, along with communion. I grabbed this shot of Rachell and Ryan almost as soon as the ceremony started:

Between the ceremony and reception, the entire bridal party went over to features, and Rachell said they didn't need me until just before the reception started to do fun group shots with the bridal party at the Omni Center. Ryan is into baseball big time, and most of his groomsmen were as well so we did a "Baseball" theme session with the group before we did a couple other shots with mix matching the bride with groomsmen and groom with bridesmaids:

Since it was 85' outside right after their ceremony, Rachell and Ryan decided we were going to do our private bride and groom session after dinner and speeches. PERFECT timing, speeches got done a little bit later than expected, but it worked out great. Here is their private bride and groom session:

I wanted to try something a little bit different with their first dance, instead of the normal closer headshot of them during their first dance as husband and wife, so I made it wide! The Omni center has these really neat christmas lights if you will hanging from the ceiling over the top of the dance floor. Here is their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Ryan Levendoski:

I want to wish Rachell and Ryan the best of luck in the future as they are moving near Brainerd Minnesota this week! Congrats to the Levendoski's from Jared Lee Photography. All images of Rachel and Ryan's wedding are posted and for sale at www.JaredLeeLLC.com - "Order Images"

Hard Rock Baby!!

Lacuna Coil, Drowning Pool, Hellyeah, Five Finger Death Punch, and Seether at the La Crosse Center May 19th, 2010. Crazy loud hard/heavy rock, 3500+ people, beer, and lots of crazy people! I for once didn't have my camera at the show, but it got me excited about the other concerts that I had photographed in the past.

I got to photograph Killswitch Engage and Disturbed, and also got to photograph Breaking Benjamin and Three Day's Grace, both AWESOME concerts.

But first I have to start out with some really cool people, people that you listen to every day, morning, afternoon, supper time, 2-3am. The 95.7 The Rock Crew! Last year I photographed the 95.7 The Rock Calendar and got to work next to the people that are on the air, and organize the calendar and put all these things together. Brian, Dio, Phish, Jean, Puck, and the rest of the Rock staff! These are a few shots from the 3DG/Breaking Benjamin concert last year:

Above: Phish, on air from 2-7pm

Above: Brian, from the Morning Sickness with Brian and Jean on air 5am-10am.

Above: Dio on air from 7pm-midnight!

Working along side and with these guys shooting the Rock Calendar is so much fun! I actually text Dio last night after Heather and I got done with ballroom dance lessons and told him to play "The Devil's Own" from Five Finger Death Punch, so on air he said he just got a text from Jared the Rock Calendar photographer, just left ballroom dance lessons and wants to hear a song.....lame :) But thanks for that Dio. These guys are a lot of fun, but the most fun I have is hanging out with Brian, working along side him the most shooting the Calendar, he is with every shoot, helping with lighting, assisting me, and just hanging out having a good time. I always give him a hard time because he keeps telling me how he can't wait to get married.....nah, just kidding, he doesn't like that idea much.

So on with what you guys want to see, pictures....I got to photograph Killswitch Engage and the Disturbed concert almost 2 years ago, and for those who don't know how concerts work, or have ever been to a concert, they have the headliner band, which obviously everyone wants to see go last, so they have an opener, and Killswitch Engage opened for Disturbed. Here are some of the images I took of Killswithc from being right underneath them next to the stage:

After they performed, I couldnt hear anything because I was standing right next to the subwoofers and my ears were ringing, but I liked what I heard, and they were actually my new favorite band. Got their album, loaded up my ipod for my workouts at the gym, great heavy stuff to lift weights to.

Disturbed had a really neat entrance, with the lead singer coming out like Hannibal Lector in a straight jacket and mask, and here are the images from Disturbed:

And from being right next to the stage/backstage, saw all of their guitars so snapped a quick one of those:

Next was the Three Days Grace/Breaking Benjamin concert, which was amazing, huge fan of both bands, and they put on a great performance. Breaking Benjamin opened for 3DG:

Three Day's Grace-Three Day's Grace-Three Day's Grace

Kind of just a random post, but I was in the mood for some heavy metal, hard rock. I wish I could have photographed this last concert because I was very impressed with all of the bands, and it was a great show. Thanks for stopping in guys!