Rachel & Shayne's Destination Wedding | Basilica of the Sacred Heart & Purcell Pavilion | University of Notre Dame Wedding Photographer

Destination wedding time, again! Up until now we’ve stayed relatively close to home for our destination weddings, photographing and videoing them in places like Tybee Island or Winter Park, FL (Orlando). This was our first fly-in destination wedding and while that was an experience in and of itself flying with a baby for the first time, the entire weekend was simply magical. Even though the couple lives here in Atlanta in their brand new home in Brookhaven, they have the blood of the Fighting Irish running through their veins and returned to that magical place, their alma mater, to seal their vows… the University of Notre Dame.

The weekend started off normal enough, we boarded a plane here in the hub city of Atlanta in the early morning on Friday and landed at Chicago’s Midway airport shortly thereafter. From there we picked up our rental car and started the drive over to Niles, Michigan to meet up with the family for a BBQ dinner and rehearsal at the church.

After grabbing some quick bites we went to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart to practice the wedding, and afterwards the entire wedding party hit up the local Irish pub at the University of Notre Dame to grab drinks and celebrate one last time. I didn’t stay out too late compared to some of the guys of course because Saturday was a full day of work for us… and so it begins!

Everyone got ready at the Fairfield Inn right across from campus. Very convenient location but then again the city surrounding Notre Dame is pretty small itself. Betty stayed with the guys and I was with Rachel and the girls, slight change to mix things up =)

Rachel gave Shayne this pocket watch as his wedding day present… so what did Rachel get? I don’t see any photos of her opening gifts? No because the gorgeous pearl necklace she got ahead of time to coordinate what everyone was wearing, not a surprise but still stunning =)

After everyone finished we headed over to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the heart of Notre Dame… ok, bad pun. The Basilica is simply gorgeous and it’s apparently so busy with weddings that only active students and alumni are even allowed to get married there… and they do over 150 weddings a year! Which may seem like not a lot, only 150, but they don’t have weddings on weekends with a home game, nor on special events like Parent’s weekend, etc. So that’s like 4+ weddings every weekend that they’re open!

One of the biggest surprises of the day was that Shayne’s brother, who is stationed overseas in the military, was somehow able to get on a last minute flight and landed in South Bend the morning of the wedding. It was a total surprise to Shayne and a very emotional moment when they saw each other for the first time. True brotherly love.

Meanwhile Rachel was getting ready at the other end of the church and awaiting her moment…

We were a bit restricted on movement during the ceremony and with Miles in attendance Betty wasn’t totally free to constantly shoot but she did help me cover a lot of extra angles and did some great wide angle shots of the church. Here are a few more of my photos with the 70-200mm lens to get close to the action =)

…and Betty’s wide angle architecture shot with the 14-24mm lens:

Back to the action!

For part of the ceremony the couple goes to the Basilica of Notre Dame’s Lady Chapel which is a special sanctuary in the very back of the church. The wedding coordinator strictly said they were not allowed to pose for photos during this ceremony but that I was indeed permitted to follow them into the back and past my previous “limited area” for just this moment. I probably looked like a camera geek but I grabbed THREE cameras all with different lenses to grab a variety of shots as quickly as I could in 2 minutes =)

The ceremony ended shortly after that portion!

Grabbed a few quick photos of an emotional embrace at the back of the church after they came down the aisle, I love the raw emotions in photos like these *tear*

Family formal photos!

After this we had a few hours in between the ceremony and reception, plenty of time for people to go back to their hotels and relax… and for us to take photos around the beautiful Notre Dame campus!

The best part was that somehow through some connection we were admitted inside the University of Notre Dame’s stadium and took some photos on the grass – way cool!

And of course we got a few photos in front of Notre Dame’s famous Golden Dome!

…and we went to the Grotto

After the photo session we still had plenty of time to relax so we did what any normal wedding party would do… we went to Five Guys!!

Shayne was really happy to break his wedding diet today =P

Rachel too!

Ok on to the wedding reception at the Purcell Pavilion! First, a few photos from Cocktail Hour:

Then we all ran inside to celebrate the start of the reception!! The newlyweds share a kiss moments before being announced to the guests:

Speeches and events:

After the cake cutting, I stole the couple again during the dinner hour to take some quick photos during the sunset time before we totally lost all of the light outside.

When we got back it was time for the first dances…

And then from here on out it was nonstop partying and celebrating! We had such an awesome time at the reception, we truly felt like family members this weekend and even more so during the reception.

Betty takes a break and dances with Miles to a song… don’t worry Daddy is still working for you Miles!!!

Rachel changed into her second pair of shoes from earlier:

Dance off!

More Miles!

Shots shots shots sh-sh-sh-shots!

Notre Dame

Taking a break

Closing ceremonies… last song…

The real last song, just for the newlywed couple

Congratulations you guys! It’s timely that as this is our Monday blog post, we have a dinner party with them this Saturday night as their long-overdue housewarming party! That’s all I’ve got left in the writing tank tonight, even though this was a relatively quiet weekend with just a maternity session on Sunday, I still can’t remember where the time went. One more month to go in 2011!

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Wedding Photography Equipment List (B&H Affiliate Links)

Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II
Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II
Canon EF 135mm f/2L
Nikon D700
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G
Nikon 50mm f/1.4G

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Zachary Long and Betty Feng are destination wedding photographers centrally located in Downtown Atlanta, GA minutes from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Contact us today about your 2012 wedding by visiting our website at http://www.FengLongPhoto.com/ and using the Contact Us Today form.