Kate and Matt met working a political campaign in La Crosse in 2011. She was there for three weeks, he was there for the whole thing, and she went back to New York when it ended. They tried long distance anyway. Five years later they were engaged and living in Madison.
They got married on July 8th, 2017, with a backyard ceremony on the Rock River in Watertown and a reception at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in Madison. It was the first wedding we’d ever photographed inside that building, and it made us want to shoot there again.
Photos from Kate and Matt’s wedding day, from getting ready at the Hilton Madison Monona Terrace through the ceremony in Watertown and the reception at the Discovery Building.
The morning ran downtown. Kate and her bridesmaids started at Alan Koa Salon on State Street, then everyone regrouped at the Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, which is about as convenient as a getting-ready hotel gets in this city. Matt got ready at their apartment on the square and walked over.
Their first look happened in the back garden at the Madison Club, a few doors from the hotel. It’s quiet, it’s private, it’s green, and almost nobody thinks to use it. Kate had told us months earlier that the first look mattered more to her than the walk down the aisle, and watching it happen, she was right. From there we walked up to the Capitol for group photos with the farmers’ market tents behind them, which is about as Madison as a July Saturday gets.
Then everyone bused out to Watertown, to Matt’s parents’ house on the Rock River, where he grew up. The ceremony happened in the backyard with the water behind them and 225 people in chairs on the grass. It’s a green, easy, unhurried piece of property, and the day took on that pace without anyone having to ask for it.
The arbor they stood under was built by hand by Matt Loomans, Matt’s brother-in-law, an engineer married to his older sister Heather. It’s carved with Norse figures and patterns, a real object somebody made rather than something ordered, with florals from Alluring Blooms running through it. Of everything on that property, it’s the thing we still bring up.
Kate’s grandmother turned 88 that same day, July 8th exactly, so there was a cake and singing for her too.
Then buses back into Madison for the reception, which is where this day gets its own category.
The Discovery Building
Walking into the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery for the first time is a genuine surprise. It’s a research building on the UW campus, all glass and light, and the entire first floor is open, planted, and full of live trees. It reads green and outdoors in a way no indoor venue in Wisconsin really does, which means a July wedding here is completely weatherproof without feeling like you settled for a ballroom.
The grand entrance is the thing this building gives you that almost nothing else does. Dinner was set in the atrium. The dancing was in the H.F. DeLuca Forum, the circular room at the center of the building, and the Forum’s walls retract straight up into the ceiling. So the room sat closed while guests were seated, the wall lifted, and Kate and Matt came through it into applause. Their planner had the timing exact, and it landed like theater.
A big lit K and M sat on the dance floor and gave that round room a modern anchor. The kids spent most of the night climbing on the letters.
The other spot worth walking to inside the building is the Mesozoic Garden, on the University Avenue side of the atrium. It’s planted with living relatives of prehistoric plants, ferns and horsetails and spikemoss, and it climbs three stories. Nothing about it looks like a wedding venue, which is exactly why it photographs well.
One honest limitation: this is a research building in the middle of campus, and there isn’t much greenery immediately outside it. But there’s one spot. On the south side there’s a covered area with trees around it, and at the right moment in the evening the light goes long and gold and starts bouncing off the columns and glass. We took Kate and Matt out there for about five minutes and came back with some of our favorite frames of the day. If you’re getting married here, build that walk into the timeline and set it by sunset, not by the schedule.
Kate and Matt moved to San Francisco after the wedding to keep doing campaign work. We saw them again a while later at Emma and Devin’s wedding at Prevailing Winds Lodge, which came to us through Matt’s work in Wisconsin politics. That’s a nice way for a wedding to keep going.
Congratulations, Kate and Matt. Thank you for a day that was warm from the first hour to the last.
Kate and Matt’s vendors
- Venue and reception: The Discovery Building, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, Madison
- Ceremony: private residence on the Rock River, Watertown
- Catering: Steenbock’s on Orchard
- Planning and coordination: Simply Weddings, Shannon Triggs
- Florals: Alluring Blooms, Amanda Frankewicz
- Ceremony music: Kuhl Entertainment
- DJ and lighting: Brenden’s DJ Service
- Cake: Dream Desserts by Design
- Rentals: Event Essentials and A La Crate Rentals
- Hair and makeup: Alan Koa Salon
- Getting ready: Hilton Madison Monona Terrace
- Transportation: Kobussen Coach and Badger Bus
- Officiant: Nick Giles
Getting married at the Discovery Building
We’ve photographed one wedding here, so read this as what we saw on the day plus what the building publishes, not as a guide built on a decade of weddings in the room.
The Discovery Building sits at 330 N. Orchard Street on the UW-Madison campus, across the street from Union South. It houses two research institutes, the public Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the private Morgridge Institute for Research, and the whole first floor is built to be rented. Booking goes through UW Conferences & Events rather than a wedding sales office, which is a different conversation than the one you’d have with a barn or a resort.
How many people does it hold? The main floor runs about 40,000 square feet and can take up to 1,200. The atrium seats up to 625 and the DeLuca Forum up to 300. Kate and Matt had 225 guests and the building never felt full. Actually it felt pretty perfect, with enough room for guests to wander around during cocktail hour.
Do you need a rain plan? Not for the reception. It’s entirely indoors and climate controlled, which is the strongest argument for this venue if you’re planning a July or a January wedding and don’t want to spend the week before watching a forecast but still feel like there is trees and good light around you.
Who caters? Steenbock’s on Orchard is the exclusive on-site caterer, so an outside caterer isn’t an option. It’s a full restaurant inside the building itself, which makes tasting easy and makes the logistics on the day about as short as catering logistics get.
Can the ceremony happen there too? The spaces are set up for it, though Kate and Matt married in Watertown and used the building for the reception only. Ask UW Conferences & Events directly about ceremony setups and timing.
What about parking? There’s no lot attached to the building. UW lots 17, 20, and 80 are the nearby options and Union South is right across the street, but with a downtown guest list we’d plan on shuttles. Kate and Matt ran coaches from the Hilton and it took the whole question off the table.
What does it cost? UW Conferences & Events publishes separate rate sheets for UW departments and for community groups, so ask for the community rates. Rates change year to year, so confirm current numbers before you build a budget around them.
If you’re looking at UW campus venues more broadly, we’ve also photographed a wedding at Allen Centennial Gardens with a Memorial Union reception, which is the other side of the campus-wedding coin: outdoor ceremony, historic building, lake instead of glass.
Getting married at the Discovery Building and want photographers who already know where the light lands on that south side at the end of the night? Send us a note.
The Discovery Building is part of our roundup of the best indoor wedding venues in Madison. More of our Madison work is on our Madison wedding photographers page.
