Pam & Josh’ Chicago Urban Art Society Wedding Party

Welcome to another week of funky wedding inspiration! Today’s feature is an eclectic and modern wedding reception in a Chicago art gallery. Pam and Josh had gotten married earlier in the week on a beach in Michigan with only a few close family members in attendance. To celebrate with the rest of their loved ones, they held a dance party among amazing artwork by The Post Family. They served Chicago-style pizza and drinks to keep the tone informal and played killer tunes all night!

We have Justine Bursoni Photography (whose work has previously graced this blog via Erin & Tristan’s Indie Rock Backyard Wedding) to thank for the fabulous photos on this page. Here’s what Justine had to say about the event:

Pam and Josh had an intimate ceremony in Michigan followed a few days later by a dance party get down! Honestly, I’ve never seen people dance as hard as they did at Pam and Josh’s wedding celebration. Jena Nixon, their DJ from Toast & Jam, nailed it with the hits and had the crowd on the dance floor for the entire night. People shook their booties ’til it hurt! Everyone had a great time. There was so much love and happiness in the air…it was truly contagious!

I loved this celebration the moment Justine sent it and I’m happy to be able to finally share it with you today. Please enjoy!

Enjoying how refreshingly different this wedding is so far? I just love artsy venues, there’s hardly any need to decorate the place + they make for quirky-awesome portraits like this one.

Let’s meet the lovely couple. Over to you, Pam!

I am a teacher and my husband Josh is a librarian. We love books, plants and pizza. We were married in Michigan with our closest family and then had a “wedding party” with our extended family and friends. There were 9 people with us in Michigan and about 110 celebrating in Chicago. We wanted to have it at an art gallery and the Chicago Urban Art Society was a great fit. We were thrilled to hear that the Post Family was going to have an exhibition there and they scheduled it so that the art would be up for our wedding.

Pam shares that they didn’t have a theme per se but they did incorporate their favorite things into some of the elements:

My best friend made the wedding cake. It was yellow because that is my favorite color and decorated with squirrels and acorns because Josh loves them. We both like to ride bikes so that was featured on the cake and also on a photo album that my sister gave us. (We had it out at the party so that our guests could read our vows and see pictures of our ceremony in Michigan).

That dress! <3

Just by the look of these photos, it seems that everyone had a great time at the wedding. According to Pam it was basically a labor of love between them, their families and friends:

Friends and family added their special touches and helped set up the reception venue. A close friend brought and arranged the flowers. We designed the invitations and save-the-dates ourselves. Our siblings gave awesome toasts. We had pizza from one of our favorite places. We just wanted to have an intimate wedding and party with our friends and made it happen by following a non-traditional plan that worked for us!

Thank you so much Justine for sending your gorgeous images of this lovely, laid-back wedding party my way, and congratulations Pam & Josh! Belated happy 1st anniversary and thank you for sharing your special day with us.

Photographer: Justine Bursoni Photography
Venue: Chicago Urban Art Society
DJ: Jena from Toast and Jam (bride’s note: they were GREAT!)
Pizza: Aurelio’s
Dress: Anthropologie
Suit: Zara
Art: The Post Family

Image submission via Two Bright Lights

Tags: alternative wedding venues, colored wedding dress, non-traditional weddings, short wedding dresses, urban weddings