About this vendor
I'm a boutique Chicago and destination wedding and elopement photographer for couples who value stylish simplicity and quiet elegance. Using a blend of film and digital photography, I create timeless images full of authentic, natural emotion (no cheesy, awkward poses here!). Beyond the photos, my goal is to provide each of my couples with a truly personalized and first class experience - to that end, I accept a very limited number of weddings per year. I'm here with you each step of the way, pampering you with teas and sweets, giving you allllll the tips and tricks to help you avoid the common wedding day mistakes, laughing and crying with you on the big day, and celebrating life with you long after!
Details
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Film Photography
- Photo
- Second Shooter Available
- Social Media Sharing
- Wedding Albums
Photo & Video Styles
- Artistic
- Classic
- Documentary
Awards and Affiliations
2021 'Best of Weddings'
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help
you make those big decisions with ease.
5
out of 5.019 reviews
We were lucky enough to have Nicole as our engagement and Wedding photographer. She is so so wonderful. She is organized, easy going, and beyond talented. Her ability to make me fe...
el relaxed during a half rainy wedding day was just what every bride needs.
I am SO glad I found Nicole to be our wedding elopement photographer. As a COVID bride, all things wedding did not go according to plan this year. After a postponed and then cancel...
ed Spring wedding in Nashville... and a move back to Chicago over the summer, my fiancé and I decided to throw a last minute elopement in the early Fall with just a few family members and friends.
We pulled it off after about 2 weeks of planning and Nicole made this crazy day feel so special! Every photo she took just looks like us and our personalities. She captured both beautiful and funny moments. Nothing forced or staged. Just 100% real. She has a great eye and over delivered beyond our greatest expectations!
Plus she is so nice and easy to work with — when you talk to her it feels like chatting with an old friend. She made the whole experience fun (and not awkward which is always a worry)!
My husband and I get compliments on our photos every time someone sees them. And because it was so hard to choose which photos to print and frame for our home (we loved them all) I also made a wedding album book just so I could have physical copies of her amazing work.
If my husband and I ever get to throw a "real" wedding in Chicago, we will 100% hire Nicole again. Highly recommend!
Nicole was our photographer for our small courthouse wedding and she was wonderful to work with! She was incredibly helpful in our preparation and timeline for the day and she was ...
flexible with us as we planned our locations. She gave us great advice that helped our day run smoothly! Nicole is warm and friendly and captured beautiful photos that we truly cherish.
If you are looking for an engagement or wedding photographer, seriously look no further! Nicole was our photographer for our June 2019 suburban Chicago wedding and we couldn't have...
imagined this day without her. We booked her 10-hour package which included an engagement session, 2nd shooter and the album, which is still one of the best decisions we made.
She is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. She was so organized and professional every step of the way, adding personal touches throughout the process from a welcome gift to an engagement shoot gift and more! On our wedding day, Nicole was so calm and guided us and kept us on schedule while capturing every important photo and moment throughout our day and night. She has a very light and elegant style, which is exactly what I wanted to tell our story while showcasing our color palette. I simply can’t find enough good things to say about her and I would recommend her to anyone in a heartbeat!
Nicole was our photographer for our July 2019 wedding. She constantly went above and beyond from the very first meeting. She treats her clients with respect, professionalism, and t...
rue compassion. She put so many personal touches in the whole process. She sent us a welcome gift when we booked her and then had other little treats throughout the planning year - I thought this was so sweet and personal and totally unexpected.
We did her wedding package which included an engagement photo session. She was very flexible and easy to schedule for this as well as all pre-wedding meetings. Having the engagement session was great because it helped us feel more comfortable on camera. We got beautiful pictures and used one for our save the date.
Nicole was calm and collected on our wedding day, she was sure to make herself decently hidden while still getting so many important photos and candid moments during the ceremony. The photos of the whole day turned out beautifully... her edits portray a light and airy feel, exactly what I wanted. She gives a print release which was important to us so that we could have all of our photos and choose to print from anywhere instead of only being allowed to print through the photography company (which some companies do).
We had a pretty large wedding, 300 guests, she did a great job covering this event and I know she has done small intimate weddings and elopements as well. So if you are looking for an awesome photographer I would definitely recommend Nicole for any size or style of wedding!!!
We hired Nicole as our wedding photographer and it was one of the best decisions we ever made! Our experience with Nicole was amazing from the first time we met with her, all the w...
ay through our wedding! First, she is SO organized and SO informative. She takes the time to go over every detail and makes the process so easy! She also is one of the nicest humans I have ever met and so patient during all the craziness of wedding planning. Lastly, she takes the most amazing pictures and was able to capture our wedding day flawlessly. Nicole will definitely be our go to photographer for life and we cannot wait to have her capture more of our special moments! If you want to work with an amazing photographer (and human) and have the best pictures to remember forever, hire Nicole!
Nicole was so easy to work with and we are extremely satisfied with our photos! She was prompt in her responses and kept in touch throughout the months leading up to the wedding. ...
She also greatly helped us develop a timeline for the entire day! Highly recommend!
So having Nicole as a part of our wedding was basically the best thing that could have happened. And I do not say this lightly. The only detail I cared about for our wedding was ge...
tting a photographer that could capture the day in a way that would make me WANT to look at the photos and help me to RELIVE all the special moments for years to come. And Nicole not only did that, but she was the greatest friend, therapist, wedding planner, comforter, is kind, so generous and just the most amazing person.
I saw Nicole’s work when a coworker showed me photos from her cousin’s wedding. That set the bar very high, no one compared to the quality of her work and lucky us, she was free on our date! Hiring Nicole was the first thing I did for our wedding. She’s very detail oriented, has a back up for her back up with location and camera, gives you guidance when you have no idea what you want for photos, has an amazing blog and made a magazine (what?!) to guide you through the whole process from engagement photos to wedding day, helps you to chill out and just have fun to get over the nerves of being photographed, goes above and beyond to scout out the wedding venue and where you’ll take bridal portraits BEFORE the wedding, and most importantly you can trust her because she listens.
We lived 120 mi away and she worked with us so that it wasn’t even an issue. You don’t even need to be in the Chicagoland area because she’s used to shooting weddings all across the Midwest and is also a destination photographer. We’ll be seeing Nicole again for our first anniversary and again when we have a baby because I can’t imagine it any other way. I highly recommend her for ANY special occasion. 💕
I think we were more impressed with how organized and smooth Nicole made taking the wedding pictures. Nicole was able to time everything well and even did a great job making sure w...
e were organized and that the actual wedding was running smooth. The pictures came out amazing. Nicole communicates very well and having done a few weddings, plus being married herself, was able to walk us through the steps and everything to keep an eye out for. It honestly wouldn't even be an exaggeration to say that she was a big part in our wedding running as smoothly as it did.
Nicole is fabulous. Stop looking at other photographers and BOOK HER. Nicole's photography style is gorgeous. Our pictures are beautiful (we love them, and friends and family have ...
raved about them, too). One of my friends, a photographer and PhD student in photography, told me that Nicole's photography style blew her away (so if you don't trust my eye for photography, trust my friend's!).
My husband was initially uncertain about having an engagement session, as he's not very comfortable in front of the camera. We scheduled one anyway, included in our package, and are so glad we did. Nicole made us feel incredibly comfortable in front of the camera, helping pose us naturally in non-cheesy ways that looked great in our final photos. She is also very personable and upbeat, and her energy rubbed off on us during our shoots.
Nicole toured our venue before our big day, scoping out some great places to shoot. On the day of, she was a pro at navigating our (large) wedding site in the intense heat; despite the heat and our nerves, our photos turned out great! She made certain to shoot everyone in our (very long) list of family portraits, and she captured some wonderful candid shots of our family and friends that were such a sweet surprise to see when we received our photos. Speaking of, she provided sneak peaks lightning fast, and we received all our final photos from our big day faster than I expected them! We are very impressed with her turnaround time.
Not only were our photos fantastic, but Nicole also sent us some really sweet gifts throughout the process. We received chocolates and candy, photo prints (some we kept, some we sent to our moms and grandmas... and they fought over, as everyone wanted them ALL), and even a gift card to treat ourselves to a movie. Those touches were so unexpected but so appreciated, and it goes to show that Nicole doesn't view us solely as clients but as real people. We cannot recommend Nicole enough! Book her as your photographer!!
Nicole was the very first vendor we booked after getting engaged, even before we really had an idea of what we wanted to do for a wedding! She did our engagement photos and wedding...
photos. Her work is obviously beautiful and amazing, but Nicole is also incredible to work with. She is such a sweet person and so easy to get along with, and is the consummate professional. She really knows her stuff. We wanted our engagement photos done in a very specific place, over an hour's drive from Chicago, and Nicole took an afternoon a couple weeks before our shoot date to scout out the location to find where the perfect shots would be. When we showed up on the day of, she had everything planned out and it went SO smoothly.
My husband and I were not totally comfortable with being photographed like "models", but after only a few minutes in, we didn't feel awkward at all thanks to Nicole.
All of our friends and family were so wowed by the photos she took - and so were we! Having amazing photos from this time in our lives was incredibly important to us, and we hit the jackpot by hiring Nicole. She is the best!!!!
My husband and I had such a wonderful experience working with Nicole. We were a little nervous about planning a Chicago elopement with our immediate families from a distance, but i...
mmediately after connecting with Nicole felt completely at ease. She was so helpful in providing us contacts for other vendors and local travel tips in advance.
Because we were planning from a distance, we really relied on Nicole's local expertise for finding the perfect spots for portraits and did she ever deliver. The spots she found us perfectly captured us as our photo and hit the exact tone we were looking for. We have had so many compliments on our photos since they arrived and particularly related to our slightly unconventional photo locations.
I would highly recommend Nicole to anyone looking for an engagement or wedding photographer. She is lovely, incredibly professional and a very talented photographer!
Nicole was FANTASTIC. My husband and I can't say enough good things about her. From her obvious talent, to her customer service, everything far exceeded expectations. She shot our ...
engagement photos and wedding photos and the word I've used to everyone about them is, "OBSESSED". During our engagement photo shoot it unexpectedly monsoon-ed snow and we were SOAKED. The pictures still came out amazing and she even offered to do another mini-session if we wanted in case we didn't like them. Of course we did. Also, multiple times throughout our engagement we received gift packages in the mail from her with the sweetest sentiments, like a gift card and candy for the movies for a date night a month before our wedding. Little things like that go a LONG way and our out of the scope of her services. On the day of our wedding, my bridesmaid started stressing about being behind schedule and Nicole helped to calm the situation and still managed to get all of the pictures we needed in a shorter amount of time.
Ok, this is a long review but I seriously can't say enough good things about her! We are blown away by her attention to detail, her responsiveness, her kindness, her photos, and beyond. If you want to feel as if your photographer is as invested in your wedding's success as you are, then you need to hire her. We HIGHLY recommend her for your photography needs!
Working with Nicole was such a pleasure! Her experience and expertise really put us at ease during the whole process from our initial walk-through to the big day. She was sweet, pa...
tient, creative, and a really fun person to work with. The photos really captured the intimacy of the wedding while highlighting the fact that it was a destination wedding in Chicago. We highly recommend working with Nicole and now have amazing photos to treasure for the rest of our lives. - Huan & Quentin, Champaign, IL.
My husband and I are so grateful to Nicole for shooting our wedding as well as our engagement photos. In all honesty, when we first met with Nicole we planned on meeting with se...
veral more photographers and decide on which was the best fit. Needless to say after we met Nicole, there was absolutely no doubts in our minds that she was the one. She is such a sweet and caring person and the most talented photographer anyone can ask for. She listens to what you have to say and doesn't write it off. With Nicole there is always a feeling of, "oh yeah she's gonna make this look amazing" We are STILL looking at our photos in amazement!! Her eye for photography and beauty is incredible, she really makes magic happen with her camera:) My husband and I would 1321442% recommend Nicole to be your photographer and we are so lucky to have found her!
Nicole is the MOST perfect and talented photographer we could have found and is an irreplaceable part of any wedding day. She is so sweet and supportive when you need it most (like...
during a rainy wedding day meltdown), a great friend each and every step of the way, and she makes sure you get everything you want and more out of your photos. She could not have been a better choice and I will always recommend her to every single couple I know. She is our photographer and our friend for life!
Nicole is so sweet and fun to work with. She did our engagement photos and they were amazing. Our wedding was planned in Key West, but hurricane Irma had other plans and the whol...
e wedding was cancelled a week and a half before. Our wedding date was very special, and we weren't going to let anything stop us. I reached out to Nicole again and she agreed to help us with such short notice. She found a location (that was absolutely perfect), and we got married right there, in a park, on a Wednesday. Both our engagement photos and wedding day pictures turned out amazing. She is very detail oriented and it is evident in her work. I would highly recommend Nicole. I will be using her again in the future (anniversary pictures and if we are really lucky, pregnancy/baby pictures).
My husband and I couldn’t have asked for the most talented, knowledgeable, caring, and most down to earth photographer! Nicole literally made our engagement photoshoot the best exp...
erience and we couldn’t wait for our big day! Nicole takes the time to go above and beyond in her work, to make every shot the best and to also make you feel comfortable. Our wedding pictures were spectacular and breathtaking. We appreciated Nicole to go and explore beautiful scenery and give us her input in places for our photo shoot. I truly recommend Nicole to be your photographer hands down the best!
Nicole was AMAZING! She handled our photos for both our engagement, and our wedding. We LOVE looking back at our photos, and reliving the moment. We HIGHLY recommend Nicole, and wo...
uld definitely use her again for our photography needs. Thanks again, Nicole!
Contact
Chicago, IL
Nicole Jansma Photography