About this vendor
We are a husband-wife photography team with over 10 years of experience in wedding and event photography. We love real laughter, genuine love and everything weddings. We believe in memories and real moments and all the tiny unforgettable things that happen in between. Those memories that people will cherish forever. We like to get to know our couples and showcase their love. We know what love feels like, we know all about wedding planning and stress so we are here to make this experience the best it can be! Our photography style is a mix of lifestyle, photo journalistic, classic and creative photography.
Our services also include: Fine art albums, professional prints, photo booth and DJ Rental equipment packages.
We would love to meet you and hear all about your big day, call us today!
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Boudoir
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
- Trash The Dress
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Online Proofing
- Photo
- Printed Enlargements
- Printed Proofs
- Same-Day Edits
Photo & Video Styles
- Artistic
- Classic
- Documentary
- Dramatic
- Lifestyle
- Modern
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Wedding
- After Party
Awards and Affiliations
5-Time 'Best of Weddings'
2021.2019.2018.+2 more.
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.
Hall of Fame
Earned by winning 'Best of Weddings' four or more times.
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help
you make those big decisions with ease.
5
out of 5.064 reviews
Yanko and Kalina are amazing to work with and capture the most breath taking photos I have ever seen. I can't imagine having anyone else capture our two wedding days. Thank you for...
the beautiful memories and for being wonderful to work with. They are like family and their photographs make you feel a whirlwind of emotions. Y&K photography will capture the love between you and your partner and leave you with everlasting memories.
Yanko and Kalina did an amazing job with our wedding and engagement photos! Due to covid we had to reschedule our wedding and they were very helpful and patient with us as we worke...
d out our new date and venue. They are both very professional, responsive and they had our wedding photos ready within days. I would highly recommend Y&K!!
Due to COVID-19, we had to reschedule our wedding twice in 2020. Y&K was amazing. They helped us work out new dates without hesitation or additional charges. They were punctual,...
extremely creative, quickly turned around the photos, and their website provided great previews and purchasing options for our guests. We would recommend them to anyone.
Kalina was absolutely wonderful. Super responsive and had our pictures to us very quickly after the wedding! We would highly recommend her!
Yankov and Kalina are the absolute best!!! I had them do my engagement and wedding photos. They turned out so beautiful, they took the time to go over every detail to really give u...
s what we wanted. We received our photos back extremely quick. They both made us feel very comfortable in front of the camera and we had a blast during our engagement shoot. They are very professional, responsive, and patient individuals. Thank you again, would recommend to anyone!!!
Y&K did an outstanding photo shoot at our wedding. We are from Texas and decided to do a little ceremony outside the planetarium in Chicago by the lake with the beautiful city as o...
ur background. We were able to get a hold of Y&K at the last minute thankfully and were able to attend for our shoot. The photo shoot results came out so beautiful. Thank you so much Y&K...
Yanko & Kalina were great to work with! Our engagement and wedding photos turned out perfectly and they were turned around SO quickly. Not even a week after each event, we had th...
e photos back. Even with everything going on right now, they were flexible and super easy to work with! We look forward to future photos with Yanko & Kalina!
Kalina and Yanko were so sweet and understanding throughout all of the process, which was a rough process during Covid. They helped us pick outfits, were so warm and friendly, and ...
instantly tweaked the lighting in a few outdoor photos when I asked. Their price was also better than others I found and delivered high quality work. I would totally recommend them to future clients!
We love our wedding photos so much!! Even with my Bell's Palsy you made us look amazing! Thank you Yani and Kalina for being amazing and professional! We HIGHLY recommend for all o...
f your photo needs!
My wedding was September 29th 2019. Yanko and Kalina did our photos. They were incredible to work with, took amazing photos, very professional. They were able to tame a big crazy I...
talian family and got them to cooperate for photos, not an easy task. We got our photos so quickly and have amazing memories to look back on thanks to the both of them. Can't wait to book them again for another occasion! highly recommend
Yanko & Kalina are the best! They are flexible, so incredibly kind, and easy to work with. The two of them took mine and my (now husband’s) vision and turned it into a dreamy reali...
ty. They made us feel super comfortable, and helped us capture each and every wonderful moment from our wedding day that will last a lifetime. :)
We absolutely loved Yanko and Kalina. They were so easy to work with and very accommodating. We had a non traditional wedding on short notice and they were great at capturing exact...
ly the style and atmosphere we wanted. They quickly fixed some issues with our original contract (mis-communications on our part) and made things so easy for us during the craziness of planning a wedding. The photos were available really quickly after the events and they made things so easy for us and our guests to access them on their website. Can't recommend them enough!
Yanko was amazing! Working with him for my first Photoshoot on my private label . R B wedding gowns . He was cool and creative. I am looking forward to work with him again. He wa...
s able to take good shots of the models and show the beauty of both , model and gown together . Highly recommend. R B Fashion Designer
Wonderful & Fast!!!
Y&K Photography is absolutely wonderful all the way around!!! The wedding package we paid for got us 10 hours of coverage with Yanko & Kalina, which was over 2...
,000 photos from venue & getting ready through the ceremony & reception to night couple photos. We got married on Saturday, September 28, 2019 and I received an email Tuesday, October 1, 2019 in the morning informing me wedding photos were complete and ready for download. They were always in communication with me and created a photo timeline based on the information I told them. They helped throughout the wedding day. They make you feel comfortable in front of the camera and are super friendly and relaxed. The package included our engagement photo session (over 200 photos) and all digital downloads for the wedding and engagement sessions. I even did a boudoir session with Kalina as a wedding gift for my husband. I will definitely be using Y&K Photography for all of my photo needs. I highly recommend Y&K Photography for all your professional photography needs.
Yanko and Kalina were the perfect addition to our wedding day. From our first informal meeting where we had the pleasure of getting to know their beautiful souls, we just knew they...
had to be a part of our wedding day. They captured every single beautiful moment and we could not be happier with our wedding pictures. Their kindness, warmth and passion shines through in all that they do. I cannot wait for them to capture more of life’s beautiful moments in the years to come. I highly recommend them! You won’t be disappointed.
Yanko and Kalina are amazing! They photographed our wedding last Saturday and we received our final photos a week later! So fast!! All the photos surpassed our expectations with ho...
w great they looked! They also provided input into our wedding timeline and helped keep everything on track the day of. They were our easiest vendor to work with and did such an amazing job.
Thank you Yanko and Kalina. We really appreciate you and the most amazing photos you took of us. Even though it was very windy and cold that day, we truly had a great time and real...
ly like your creativity and vision to capture such a beautiful moment for us!
Yanko and Kalina are great to work with and I would recommend them to everyone I know! They take the time to get to know you and truly connect with you.
Yankov and Kalina were AMAZING. All around just nice people to deal with. Our engagement and wedding photos were better than we could have expected. They really know what they are ...
doing and we didn't have to stress at all. Kalina even helped is create our day of timeline. We are SO happy we chose them!
Thank you Yanko and Kalina for everything you did for us! Your help with our wedding day schedule made it so easy and less stressful! We can't thank you enough for the amazing pict...
ures you took, you guys are the best choice we could have made! Highly recommend both of them, they are a pleasure to work with, fun and great artists!
Yanko and Kalina were AMAZING! They totally out us at ease during our engagement shoot, and captured the day beautifully! We had some pretty serious weather issues (35 and raining,...
yikes) but they lead us to sightly warmer areas when we needed it, and were very flexible with doing our couple and wedding party shots. They had all of our photos ready to view after our honeymoon, and I really can not recommend them more highly! They also traveled all they way out to Huntley, Illinois for our wedding- and I know they have traveled to Wisconsin as well!!
Yanko and kalina are truly amazing! We fell in love with them the moment we met them and we had our wedding this past saturday. My wife and I couldn't be more happy and thrilled. T...
hey are so nice, funny, and easy to work with and would recommend them to ANYONE! We hit it out of the park with y&k photography and we hope you will get to experience the same joy with them as we did.
My husband and I are so lucky to have had Yanko and Kalina photograph our wedding last Saturday! They blew our expectations out of the water! Their communication leading up to the ...
wedding and on wedding day were amazing! They are the sweetest, kindest people we have ever met, and I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to play such a big role on our special day. I would give them 10 stars if I could! Highly recommend!
Yanko and Kalina are Phenomenal at their craft of Photography! They have shot Family Pictures for us as well as our Photographers at our Wedding on 9/9/18; throughout that time, th...
ey have become Friends of ours! They maintain Professionalism at all times while ensuring they give you exactly what you want! Thanks Kalina and Yanko!
I am so incredibly happy with my photos from my wedding and photos from my engagement shoot. Kalina is the best she is such a sweetheart. She always made us laugh and feel super co...
mfortable even when I was super nervous. Yanko is very nice to! Overall I’m very happy with the flexibility of photographer and quality of my pictures and would highly recommended yk photography to anyone. 5 Stars.
Best photographers ever! Their candid shots were amazing and I love showing my pictures off to everyone!
We can't say enough wonderful things about Yanko and Kalina! They are incredibly knowledgable and experienced, but most importantly, very warm and fun to work with. They immediatel...
y put us at ease when we met them and we knew we had to work with them for our May 2018 wedding.
I was a novice at party planning and was very overwhelmed from the beginning. I had a lot of concerns about scheduling and making my divorced parents comfortable but Yanko and Kalina went out their way to guide me through it and provide awesome solutions to my every concern. We had countless emails back and fourth regarding the timeline. I was blown away by their responsiveness, enthusiasm and determination to make sure the day went perfectly. Definitely ask them about the Mission Impossible table game! What a creative and special idea.
We had the best time at our wedding with Yanko and his passion ensured we got not only every picture we wanted, but so many that we wouldn't have thought of. Yanko was a blast to have with us all day and he truly felt like family.
We received the pictures back before we had even returned from our honeymoon and they are OUTSTANDING. We had the best time looking through them and re-living our day. I can't believe how fast they were ready and how beautiful they turned out.
What a phenomenal experience working with Yanko and Kalina. They truly go above and beyond to be more than your wedding photographers, but consultants, confidants and friends. I will miss working with them! Thank you so much Kalina and Yanko!!
My husband and I had a wonderful experience with Y&K Photography. Yanko and Kalina communicated with me promptly and answered my questions as they arose throughout the process. I...
found their business through theknot.com, and they were readily available through e-mail , phone, and Skype.
Yanko took great pictures of our special day. With his history as a wedding photographer, he knew the typical wedding moments to capture that did not occur to me to request given the stress I was under with planning the wedding. He knew to capture the pivotal moments of our Hindu wedding ceremony that are not typical to the usual American or western wedding. Yanko took beautiful photographs of our family members that we will cherish. The poses after the wedding were great fun and helped me de-stress. Thanks in part to Yanko, I was not thinking about my to-do list, and I got to enjoy our special day even more. Yanko candidly captured moments of love, joy, sincerity, and humor. I recommend Y&K Photography for your engagement, wedding, reception, (and other) photography needs.
Yanko and Kalina are truly talented photographers! When I met with Yanko for the first time, I could feel his passion for photography and for his wife as we spoke. That's what made...
me choose Y & K photography - their sincerity, talent, passion for photography and love for each other. What's better than having your love captured by a couple who not only believes in happily ever after, but lives it? Nothing! Our engagement photos turned out incredible, and our wedding photos were beyond perfect! I wish there was more time in the day so we could have kept shooting and having fun because I truly cannot get enough of my photos! My wedding day was magical. Yanko was so fun, funny, and easy to work with. I wish him and Kalina weren't double booked on my wedding day, so I could have had them both work their magic together. But, their entire team of photographers is great at what the do, and Vesko was a great second photographer. Yanko and Kalina truly care about the couples they work with and are people you can consider good friends at the end of the day. They have such a creative eye, you can't fail by choosing them as your photography team!
Amazing! Yanko and Kalina took my maternity pictures and they are wonderful! They were very professional and even suggested the best place to take the pictures at. The final produc...
t was ready in only 1 week!I strongly recommend Y&K Photography!
Yanko and Kalina are amazing!! They are so much fun yet still professional and know how to take some damn good photos!!! Love you guys and thank you again!!!
Yanko and Kalina were such a joy to work with! They're talented, helpful, full of great ideas and genuinely good people. My husband and I could not be happier with the way our phot...
os turned out. Absolutely beautiful! Yanko was our selected photographer for the day, and he did a fantastic job, he captured everything I was hoping he would. He paid attention to detail and provided excellent insight throughout the entire day. Y&K was the perfect choice for us. They're only a phone call or email away throughout the entire planning process, which we we found so very helpful as we definitely had some questions. If you want beautiful photos at a great price for your wedding choose Y&K!
perfect choice
Perfect!!! I didn't get a chance to work with Kalina but she was the sweetest, nicest person ever! She was very helpful, very informative! Yanko is very professional!! He's skilled...
and loves what he does; my wedding pictures turned out amazing!!! I couldn't be happier. Affordable too!!
GREAT experience with Y&K, particularly Kalina. We were originally supposed to have my husband's aunt be the photographer. But, about a week and a half before our wedding she backe...
d out. I quickly found Y&K and contacted them. Luckily, they had 1 opening. Kalina originally planned on taking the day off. But, she was a saint and agreed to be our photographer. I met with her ASAP and got everything worked out. Very quick and really professional. She is an absolute sweetheart! She did wonderful the day of, especially considering I am not a girly girl and had absolutely ZERO ideas of pictures/poses to take. And photos are amazing! It was a bit stressful for a little bit, but I'm actually kind of glad my husband's aunt backed out. The day went by SO smoothly and Kalina did a great job directing all of us. The only thing I'm a little disappointed about, that I realized after the fact, is that I didn't get any individual pictures with bridal party. But, Kalina went above and beyond my expectations and I couldn't be happier with the results!
We loved having Yanko as our photographer - our photos turned out amazing. Before the wedding, we communicated mostly with Kalina, and she is so nice and responds very fast. At the...
wedding, Yanko was very professional, he took so many photos, and took all the photos we asked for. The photos were ready for us quickly and we got high quality digital files.
Yanko and Kalina are great to work with! The pics came out great! Highly recommend them! Very good experience!
Highly highly recommended Yanko & Kalina! We used them for our wedding and it was perfect .. they suggested we do engagement photos to "practice" posing for pictures and it was the...
best advice, it made us much more relaxed and comfortable in our wedding day pictures. They are both extremely easy going and personable and followed through with our photography vision perfectly. Most importantly, every single important moment of our wedding was captured so we can look back on our wedding day forever!
I used Y&K Photography for my wedding and they did a great job! Very easy to work with and my wife and family loves all the photos. They took their time listening to what we expect...
ed for our wedding photos and did more than what we asked for.
Such wonderful and talented dynamic duo photographers!!! Yanko and Kalina caught every special moment, captured every detail, and never missed out on a photo opportunity. I would h...
ighly recommend them for any occasion!!!
My wife and I were fortunate enough to have Yanko and Kalina as our photographers for our wedding. They took great photos of the entire day and made us feel very comfortable. Can...
't recommend them enough, one of the best decisions we made for our wedding!
Not knowing what to expect was scary enough on my wedding day but I was so fortunate to have Kalina there with me the whole time! The photos that she got captured the day so perfec...
tly and I am so glad I chose them as my photographers. From the start my husband and I felt as if we made a new friend. We met over FaceTime and talked for about and hour with Yanko and he helped us even plan parts of our wedding! We feel so blessed to have had such amazing photographers and friends be a part and capture our big day! Thank you so much! I highly recommend them for anything that you truly want captured with heart!
As one of the other reviews said, choosing a small studio than a big one with many photographers makes a difference. My friends chose a big studio and they had one photographer for...
their engagement session and different one for their wedding. And they still do not have their wedding photos from their august wedding. Mine was in September, and we had our photos just a week after our wedding! And we couldn't be happier with the quality! I loved Yanko & Kalina's style, I studied their work before we booked them, and we couldn't hope for anything better! All of our guests complimented us on how they worked and how they were everywhere we needed them without even saying a word. Can't wait to receive our wedding album!
My wife and I had a great experience with Yanko and Kalina. We were not sure if we wanted to do an engagement session, but we are glad we decided to do it. Not only we received ama...
zing photos but we also used them for our save the date cards. And we knew we are getting amazing wedding photos, we knew we were meeting friends on our wedding, not just a photographer. We will be definitely calling them for family portraits in the future!
I had Y&K Photography as my wedding photographers last year, and this year I am the best man - my friends decided to book them and the experience was the same - great as always, be...
autiful photos. We couldn't be happier for choosing a small business vs a big studio.
If you haven't booked your photographer yet for your wedding look no further than Y&K Photography! I feel like my husband and I won the lotto with finding Yanko and Kalina to take...
our wedding pictures! The first time we met with Yanko for our initial consultation he took the time to explain to us what their packages entail and what makes them stand out from other photographers. We saw sample albums which you are not required to purchase from them if you don't want to and there are absolutely no gimmicks when working with them. We had two engagement sessions with them and after the first session we decided to add Kalina as our second photographer because we fell in love with having them as a duo. Kalina even brought treats for a dogs during the shoot! After meeting with two other vendors for photography needs and getting ridiculous quotes we found Y&K Photography to be very reasonably priced. They worked with us to make sure that our wedding timeline was going to work for everything that we wanted to do. They were by far my favorite vendor and the amazing pictures that they took of us will last us a lifetime. I am so glad that we found someone that was just as excited about our wedding day as we were. They captured the most beautiful moments of the day and took over 3,000 pictures!
Yanko was an awesome photographer. He knew what pictures would look great, what were typical , and was open to me throwing ideas at him and we took pictures. The spontaneous ones a...
re some of my favorite. He worked quickly and efficiently so I didn't feel like I was back in high school before prom smiling for 5 minutes some grandma could get just the right picture.He let me know when he was taking them so they weren't surprises or awkward. He had our pictures ready to go the Monday following our Saturday wedding. We have full rights to our pictures. They all came out wonderful. I love them!
The best decision and investment we made! My husband and I are not "camera friendly" but Yanko and Kalina made it so easy and we love our photos! The mix of the different photo sty...
les is what we love the most !
My wife and I are so grateful to have had Yanko and Kalina photograph our wedding. All of the pictures are stunning! We were even given an engagement photo shoot included in our we...
dding package. Both Yanko and Kalina are full of positive energy and very creative with their ideas. They are very friendly to the point where we would consider them friends more than just a vendor. We look forward to having them photograph our baptism and baby shower in the future!! Thank you Yanko and Kalina for helping us enjoy our wedding day and keep it stress free!
We had the pleasure of having Yanko photograph our wedding. Although we used him through another company, I would prefer you go directly through him. He was amazing. I was very ner...
vous not getting to meet him beforehand but he made me feel so comfortable. He was great at making suggestions on what poses and locations would look good. He even showed a lot of the photos to me on his camera before we moved on to the next one. He was funny and entertaining as well. I got a lot of compliments from the bridal party and several guests. I would definitely recommend him to any of my friends, family and acquaintances.
Thank you so much Yanko! You captured our day as I didn't think was possible!!!
I also have to admit when I saw his name I was a bit concerned there might be a language barrier. But he speaks perfect english, never had a problem!
Yanko and Kalina were amazing in every way. The pictures look amazing and everything went off without a hitch. They are very personable, kind, and caring people. And they unders...
tand how big of a part they played in our big day. The price for what they provide is second to known. Highly recommended for anyone looking for great photographers for a low price!!!
Yanko and Kalina were both wonderful. They went above and beyond for both our engagement photos and at our wedding day. We had a great experience with them, and would recommend Y&K...
to anyone we know. We had great candid photos capturing great moments of our wedding. Yanko also helped us with ideas of posing and made sure we get a photo for all our guests. We got so many complements on the photos from the wedding!
Contact
Lake Forest, IL | We cover Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana
Y&K Photography's photos