This wedding is a special one to me because it involves two people who are family to me. I met Jackie and Sergio in the beginning of 2018— I joined their gym, Surge to New Levels, and began training with Jackie and being coached by Sergio. Shortly after getting a membership at the gym, Sergio brought me on staff as a personal trainer, and it allowed me to leave a toxic commercial gym environment and not feel pressured to work full time at the gym on top of running a business full time. Jackie and I instantly hit it off, and since then she has become one of my dearest friends and the one person I know who is always down for pizza, sushi and ice cream. Jackie and Sergio are also the reason why my boyfriend and I met, and I am forever grateful to them for bringing him into my life.
In September of 2018, Sergio discretely started texting and calling me (which was hard because Jackie is so dang nosy and we also spend a lot of time together in and out of the gym) to plan his proposal. To our surprise, he was able to genuinely surprise Jackie and it went off without a hitch. They spent the next year focusing more on expanding the gym than themselves, which led to minimal wedding planning, but at the beginning of 2020 they decided they were going to elope in San Diego in April and I was going to go with to photograph it. I went with Jackie to the Crystal Bride to pick out her amazing dress, we booked flights, and were so pumped for them to finally tie the knot.
Well, you know what happened next.
Jackie and Sergio decided that despite COVID they didn’t want to wait, and ran off to the beautiful, scenic state of Indiana to elope at a courthouse during the beginning of the shutdown. They later decided that they still wanted to have something small and intimate to celebrate with their immediate family and a few close friends— cue: Chapel in the Pines in Sycamore, IL. The pair got ready in the same suite at Hotel Arista in Naperville without peeking, and had the sweetest first look on the property of the venue. Their ceremony was short and sweet, their bridal session finished with a trip to Jackie’s favorite place: Dairy Queen, and after dinner with family we celebrated with friends around a bonfire with s’mores and a little too much fireball. To say the day was perfectly them is an understatement.
Jackie and Sergio, I love you both dearly and am so honored to have captured your day. ❤️
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All images copyright © 2022 Arielle Gallione Photography.
Love you forever, Yackie!!! ❤️ Grateful for our friendship always and I wish our nutrition coach would let us eat ice cream every day but I know we’ll get to eat some more dipped cones again in a few weeks 🤪
