In March, my girlfriend and I decided to get married. Neither of us were keen on the idea of a long engagement and a complicated wedding planning process. After some consultation with family on availability, Memorial day weekend was our time.
The short timeframe (just over two months) left us with more limited options for location. We initially looked at getting married in the Cowles Conservatory, but it was booked for the dates we wanted. While scouting other locations in the Sculpture Garden and Loring Park, the idea of having the wedding in James Turrell’s Sky Pesher occurred to us. The seed was perhaps planted by the Skyscape/Soundscape concert series happening in Sky Pesher over the summer. After checking with our registration department, we had the OK to get married in the artwork.
Our photographer, Kimberlee Whaley sent us a few initial pictures, which I’ve posted to flickr. And some of my new family also blogged about our wedding and posted photos.
We were initially worried that 30 people would be close quarters, but thankfully everyone was able to sit on the benches surrounding us during our ceremony. To the best of my knowledge, no one has been married in Sky Pesher before. We liked it as a location for the wedding. My wife and I are not religious, but there is a sanctity and spirtuality to the space. My wife is studying to become a landscape architect, so a connection to the earth is a big part of both of our lives right now.
After the wedding ceremony, we quickly ducked into the Sculpture Garden and got the necessary Spoonbridge and Cherry wedding shot, with jumping:
We kept things relatively casual and fun, having a delicious dinner at Azia, followed by bowling at Memory Lanes. In between dinner and bowling, a number of our guests slipped back to Sky Pesher to see the lights change at sunset:

Photo by Lisa Longley
Despite the fact that we got married there, my wife and I had never seen a sunrise or sunset in Sky Pesher. After all our guests had left town on Monday and we came back to see it for ourselves. The optical illusion of the sky descending into the space is subtle, but stunning, and it was the perfect way to cap a great weekend.



Fantastic. Congratulations!
Comment by Aaron — May 28, 2009 @ 11:17 am
Congrats, Justin and Adrienne! (And a better pick than down the hill where [I think] the Quick and the Dead skeleton’s buried!)
Comment by Paul Schmelzer — May 28, 2009 @ 11:53 am
Congratulations and what a lovely place for the ceremony!
Susan
Comment by Susan Roberts — May 28, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
Congrats! Looks like everyone had a great time.
Comment by Charlie Moad — May 28, 2009 @ 9:10 pm
Many congrats, Justin and Adrienne!
Comment by Shelley Bernstein — May 29, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
hooray! so glad you had your ceremony there! way cool!
Comment by natalie b — June 2, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
Congratulations! What a perfect wedding location. Simply lovely.
Comment by Jenny — June 4, 2009 @ 9:28 am
@DeRushaJ Yes! Talk to @kimberleewhaley. Did my photos: http://bit.ly/8YcEo And is priced reasonably, too.
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Comment by justinph — July 7, 2009 @ 9:41 am
@prchck123 Talk to @kimberleewhaley. Did my photos at the Walker: http://bit.ly/8YcEo And is priced reasonably, too.
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Comment by justinph — July 7, 2009 @ 9:42 am
What a Wonderfull pictures, Congratulation, Eric
Comment by eric — August 14, 2009 @ 3:45 am