Saint Luke's Episcopal Church Wedding | Evanston Illinois

Today I’d like to introduce you to Kat and Matt. We’ve actually met Kat before, when she was one of the officiants at Jo and Jane’s wedding at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church a couple of years ago. This wedding is an unusual and somewhat amusing first for us, since, as I told Kat at the end of the evening, I’ve never photographed a wedding at someone’s work before.

Because they did a much better job with the words than I ever could, here’s how they describe their courtship and wedding, “Kat and Matt met the old fashioned way — in church. Except in this 21st century version, Kat was the ordained minister, preaching from a hundred year old stone pulpit, curly hair falling over her antique vestments. Matt, then a business student at a near-by university, put a case study before his classmates of how to ask a minister out on a date.

Years, prayers, and near-misses later, they wed at the church where they met. Instead of flowers, their family members carried elements of the religious service down the aisle, including bread and wine for communion and the Bible. The couple designed their service using liturgies from as far away as New Zealand and commissioned a new musical setting to a civil rights poem. Kat and Matt administered communion to all guests as a way to greet each person individually within the context of the service.

The individual touches extended to the reception, held at Gallery 1028 in Chicago, where personal thank you cards acted as seating cards for each guest. The meal was served family-style on feasting tables to encourage conversation between different groups. Calihan Catering worked with the couple to select entrees and sides that lent themselves well to serving off of platters. A traditional Greek folk dance, a nod to Kat’s family, brought all groups together on the dance floor.”