Jennie grew up watching the Quadracci Pavilion rise on the lakefront before it ever opened, and she had a head start on loving it: her father was one of the architects who worked alongside Santiago Calatrava to design the space. She decided back then that she’d get married inside it one day. Mehdi, who’d never seen it before they got engaged, took one look and agreed it was worth the trip.
That trip was a long one. Jennie’s American, Mehdi’s French, and they met living in Singapore before settling in Paris, so “getting married in Milwaukee” meant flying two families and a wedding party across an ocean apiece. His side came in from France, hers from around the U.S., and friends converged from a handful of other countries besides. The whole day ran bilingual, English and French trading off from the ceremony to the dinner playlist.
They got ready at the Iron Horse Hotel that morning, then moved into the museum for a ceremony set up in a circle in the middle of the atrium, all that white stone and glass and lake light doing exactly what Jennie always pictured. Her brother and Mehdi’s sister stood up to lead it. Afterward, the whole group walked out across the bridge toward downtown together, guests throwing flower petals as they went, one of those details that only works at a venue built the way this one is.
Cocktail hour moved outside along the lakefront, clear summer light, orchid tucked into Jennie’s hair. Right around dusk, the museum’s wings, the Burke Brise Soleil, closed for the night, that slow-motion moment when eleven thousand square feet of moving steel folds down over the building, and the timing lined up perfectly with the reception. The reception carried the rest of the couple’s story through the small stuff: centerpieces built around single oversized tropical leaves as a nod to Singapore, resting on lake rocks as a nod to Milwaukee, and a dessert table of French macarons and tartelettes from Greige Patisserie, the closest thing the two of them could find to a proper Paris patisserie in Wisconsin. A hundred and twenty guests came through for it.
and a few of our personal favorites from the day:
Jennie and Mehdi told us they were drawn to our work because their taste in photography split two directions, her toward the romantic and story-driven, him toward composition and clean, deliberate framing, and they wanted a photographer who could hold both. It fit the couple generally: two very different people who make sense together. They were an easy, smiley pair to spend a wedding day with, and the Art Museum, somehow, made room for both of their instincts at once.
Vendors from the day:
- Venue – Milwaukee Art Museum
- Getting ready – Iron Horse Hotel
- Florist – Gayle, Lily Bella Floral
- Desserts – Greige Patisserie
